Outlander Recaps

I write my reactions to watching episodes of Outlander, usually after having some wine. These are my thoughts beat by beat, so please appreciate wrong predictions and major plot points going unremarked. I have not read the books nor know the storyline beforehand.

[murtaghsbeard]

Season 1 Ep 14 - The Search

Claire and Jenny: Girl gang! We are a girl gang! We ride horses fast in the forest and torture soldiers without remorse.

Murtagh brings some unidentifiable forest rodent for dinner. We tell him no, we prefer to subsist on Jenny’s breast milk instead

Claire gives Jenny the prophecy of potatoes

Claire uses her meager palmistry skills to pump the locals for information

Murtagh dances a fine jig, though sadly he is routinely pelted with crops that aren’t potatoes. Claire encourages him to sing boogie woogie bugle boy to stop the wasted produce.

As a form of eternal punishment Murtagh makes Claire perform a one woman show in an outfit that should have made her Dr Quinn medicine woman, but instead makes her look like a dickension orphan who grew up in a brothel.

There is a pretty tone deaf plot line with a Gypsy. Murtagh reveals that he thinks of Jamie like a son because he was in love with his mom, though she married someone else. It is clear that Murtagh has never read Harry Potter.

We arive at Dougal’s lair! And he behaves like the kind of slimy serpent who would have a lair. Dougal’s problem is that his horniness is channeled into evil instead of harnessed for good.

Claire says sure I will marry you if I can lay waste to your tiny group of soldiers for my ludicrous episode of prison break. Presumably because she always has the option of insisting Dougal take her to the standing stones for their honeymoon

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Ep 13 - The Watch

In this episode bad men seeking protection money cause many headaches and Jamie is captured by the redcoats (again)

BUT the real theme of this episode is Bros 💕 and Babies. Ian 💜Jaime, bro’s for life

Bro I love you but please don’t say the guy I hate reminds you of me when you are trying to tell me you miss me.

You’ve made up for it by killing the dude who was extorting me. Thank you, bro. (Smooch)

I guess I will also become bros with the guy I formerly hated that you kind of treat like bro and tell him there is a price on my head

Bro, even though your wife is literally in the process of birthing your child, you should come along on this very not doomed mission and our bro love will protect us from harm. Grave miscalculation about the protective properties of bro love.

Ah, here is the barrenness talk. Props to Jaime for that expert level 180 degree reversal. He went from I want to fill this house with babies to I would never want you to feel the pain of childbirth ever in like 30 seconds. A stunning kick flip of solidarity. So very sweet.... but does he really mean it? Is he secretly pondering the fertility of that strumpet whose name I shan’t attempt to spell. This ball of twine will unravel further in time, I suspect.

Also, a burgeoning lady bromance- a direct result of giving utterance to the plan of one sticking their entire hand into the others vagina and twisting a baby like a corkscrew. That is next level bonding.

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Season 1 Ep 12 - They go to LallyBroch

Lallybroch a bit underwhelming but it does have superior wallpaper and Claire receives a vase!

Jamie and Jenny - Why is stubbornness so much more palatable in women than in men???

Jamie sets out to fix the nearby grain mill because he has had it with gritty bannocks. He has to hide out underwater because some official with an interest in both water wheels and Jamie’s antagonistic relationship with the law drops by to see what’s happening. A man with superior knowledge of water wheels thinks this one was stopped to a halt by a single intact shirt

Finally, Jamie has a question about life in another space-time and it is about elephants. I cannot fault him for this.

Bannocks look awful, generally

A local boy and his abusive father are among the visitors at the Lallybroch welcome party. I find it a little irksome this trope of “future” people where they are especially sensitive to injustice and must intervene immediately without thinking and all other characters must attend to their moral outrage right this instant. Like, Certainly other people in the 1700s disapprove of the poor treatment of children. And b) please do not pretend like the 20th century and its inhabitants are more just and more sensitive to wrongs inflicted on others. Like you just got finished with WW2 and nazism, please do not act like you come from a more just world and have no familiarity with cruelty.

Also really enjoyed the exchange about the tenants coming to pay their rents.

🙋🏻‍♀️- Isn’t it risky to have all those people see Jamie is here when there is still a price on his head?

👩🏻‍🌾- Oh, no! Not at all. No one, not a one would ever turn in Jamie to the redcoats for money.

[ah, ok. As a consumer of media I am sure that this exact scenario will not be used as a plot point in the very near future]

The episode ends with the man’s several minutes long speech about how much her loves her and she offers three words in return, and honestly, that is how it should be

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Season 1 Ep 11- the Devil’s Mark - the one with the witch trial

God these people cannot appreciate witchcraft.

A witch trial- I mean sure, but also aren’t we midway through the enlightenment here?

Ned gets a gold star

So sad about Geillis. They could have been bffs. That tiny bulbous body crowd surfing through a hellish sea of angry peasants was quite tragic.

I thought the inoculation scar being a witch’s mark but also letting Claire know she is from the future was quite clever. Also, this point is beginning to irk me: if Gellis is from the 1960s and presumably has a passing knowledge of British royal succession, why has she been diverting huge sums of her husband’s money to Bonnie Prince Charlie? Surely she must know he doesn’t become king? Is it like some time travel experiment to see if she can actually change history with some kind of super-pac level donation? Does she recognize the cause is futile but backing it allows her to hang out with the cool kids?

Also, another point has been bugging me for a few episodes. Does Claire not worry about pregnancy complicating her time travel plans? Like surely coming back to the 1940s carry a long dead man’s baby would just be crazy inconvenient in a situation where so much crazy explanation is already required. Oral contraceptives wouldn’t be a thing for a few more decades but I imagine Claire might be aware of other methods of avoiding pregnancy. Maybe she thinks she is barren, because Frank mentions something about renewed attempts to start a family, so perhaps they had no luck conceiving. Like, I’m sure the answer is that it disrupts the sexiness to say hold up, just let me insert this copper coin like a cervical cap. It’s a mood killer. But why is this not addressed as a source of worry at all?

Anyways, on with the plot. They go to the stones .... and She came back. Did she try to get through the stones and couldn’t so just came back? Did she simply not try at all? Is it because Tobias Menzies is just not that sexy. She knows implicitly that he is Brutus and not Caesar? That being married to a professor is not as sexy as it seems at first glance?

As for Jamie, the man has no questions, AT ALL. Part of his sexy charm, but really not a single question in his head.

Claire tells him, I am from 200 years in the future, and also so was this other woman you know...so there is just this highway of time travel spitting out confused women into your society in untold numbers, I have knowledge of technologies that will boggle your mind, I’m married to another man, I know the course of history and your political cause is doomed, all the men you know will probably die fighting in this failed coup and your way of life will be stamped out within your lifetime and I am telling you all this when we have just come from my trial where I was nearly executed for witchcraft so my credibility is really riding high right now. And Jamie is just like, I believe you. I don’t need to ask a single question about any of these half dozen flabbergasting topics.

And THEN they go to the stones to send her back in space time and she inexplicably returns. And he has not a single question about that either. No “why did you return?”No “does time travel require more specific conditions than are available to us right now?” He does not even ask if she made an attempt. No questions. Just a single tear.

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Season 1 episode 10

This one is mostly a word association game

Gay

God, British colonialism is so extra

Peacock

High level witchiness, which of course means poisoning

Fur necklace

I forgot that there would be Turner-esque oil paintings in this timeline

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S1 ep 9 - the Reckoning

The theme of this episode is: Men are so often very stupid. Stupid in politics, stupid in love. This annoying revelation lasts for 40 minutes and then thankfully a return to two great touchstones: sexy fireside chats and witchiness

Of the former-

Claire: “As a 20th century woman I am very glad for oxford edition of the collected works of Shakespeare as linguistic fodder and model for my erotic knifepoint speeches [or is that I will eat your heart in the marketplace?]”

Of the latter-

Yes! Love this totally petty, impotent witchiness that is exactly the kind of witchiness I would be involved in if I were 15 and had free reign in a castle. Also loved L.’s speech about how Jaime didn’t notice her romantically when she was 7 🥺, but she’s loved him since then...just kidding. Let’s not notice 7 year olds.

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Friends, having reached the last aired episode of Outlander one can possibly review with a glass of wine, we go back to the almost beginning. So now I will post the reviews I began writing to text to my best friend back in season 1

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Season 5 episode 12- finale

Never my love

Interesting approach to the “previously on”

California. Claire has a weird dream/dissociation

Kidnappers continue to be bastards. Some are convinced to be kinder because of Claire’s witch reputation... which seems to have followed her from Europe.

She finds another time traveler. One of otter tooth’s pals. He doesn’t want escape yet. Of course. More gratuitous and unnecessary rape. Just so very tired of this {cue internal monologue about how this narrative can seemingly only figure out how to raise the stakes through enacting sexual violence on some beloved character} ok. Deep breath. Ok.

Bri and Roger can only pull off their disappearing trick for a minute and land right back into Ian’s care. Shame about those gems. Can you request a refund?

Roger wants to go with the men hoping to recover Claire. Hope you get more useful.

Somehow they are already fighting the Brown clan. It was quite quick evidently to track them down. Battle is quick. Vengeance, though delegated, is quick.

The pacing in this entire season has been very strange.

They decide to leave the ringleader alive for questioning. Better keep very good track of him.

Roger improves on his usual uselessness, both in words and deeds

Roger gets amped up for his big confession. He has killed a man. I understand that this is pretty big deal for a Roger, but considering the body count of this show, it feels extremely pedestrian and a bit pearl clutching. By now every major character except for Marsali and Lizzy have killed someone in one way or another

Well, I guess we can drop Marsali from the list of people who have not killed anyone. I truly appreciate Marsali’s concern about getting haunted.

A rare Jamie voiceover. A literal storm forms on the horizon.

Still no one has broken out the chalkboard to figure out why the time travel was a failure

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Season 5 Ep 11 - Journey cake

Claire is so excited about peanut butter. It’s meant to be cute and silly, but I GET IT. I feel that peanut butter has some power where you could choose not to eat it for months or years, but if it becomes suddenly unavailable to you, you just go crazy over it. I missed peanut butter like crazy when I lived in Japan and the only place you could get American style peanut butter was Japanese Costco and I would beg my coworker to buy 2lb jars of peanut better for me and I would eat it from a spoon every morning like a lunatic. Enough about me. While I’m reminiscing about peanut butter, the gang finds a burned cabin with lots of murder victims and one horribly burned girl who they must put out of her misery. 😬

Claire loses some Saran Wrap in the 1700s. Cant wait to discover the butterfly effect of that. Just kidding. That doesn’t exist in this show.

It’s bee time! The otter tooth man’s stone suddenly gets very hot and noisy for anyone from the future and little Jemmy. Conclusion: Jemmy can time travel but Jamie still can’t.

But.... Claire used to wear this stone like a necklace and it never burned her, so why now???

No time to work through this. Lots of riders are coming. The dudes we don’t like want more men to patrol for the cabin burning scourge. Jamie says no thanks, though it seems like something he should be interested in....

Hold the phone! Ian. has. some. questions! Thanks for holding on to these questions for several years! Is Claire a fairy, yes or no? Great question! Let’s go in this room to discuss. Wait, don’t close the door on us viewers, Jamie. I want to hear every dumb, insane and brilliant question that Ian’s brain can formulate about being a woman from the future. That is the entertainment I am here for! I would watch that for an entire 50 minutes.

Why must Ulysses live in the Murtagh-Jocasta sex stick palace? Why doesn’t Ulysses get freed for saving the life of his master? Somehow I think they allow that even if the deceased is white.

Oh snap! Ulysses was free this whole time

Roger and Brianna plan their exit strategy.

....Perhaps it’s worth planning a re-entry to 1970s strategy too? You’ve gotta assume property forfeiture, death certificates by now, no assets, perhaps even an unsolved mysteries episode. Roger, how are you going to explain this 3 year gap in your CV? You left your post at Oxford and did fuckall. Not a single publication.

John Grey! He sure loves to drop in.

Ian delights in his new status as secret keeper. He gets to talk about time travel by the river with the ladies now. What a dream! Ian wants to be a time traveler. Something about the lady shaped hole in his heart. The Fraser ladies tell him no. They have worked out some sort of theory about a genetic predisposition to time travel, which excludes Ian, based on really no evidence at all. Sorry, Ian!

John Grey must go back to England. He brings an updated portrait of William. He always brings really good gifts.

Claire has a special perfume she only puts on for sex. Perhaps an open second story window is not the best spot to perch for this sort of activity. The next morning, She makes Jamie look at his own sperm through a microscope. This confrontation with his own sperm inspires him evidently to tell Brianna about the other fruit of his loins-her half brother. They have a little heart to heart. He very sweetly hopes she will look him up in her history books.

Brianna makes her rounds saying her goodbyes. Lizzy is not taking it well. “I was with you in your darkest hour [glossing over when I had your husband beaten and sold into slavery] and your wedding” she cries.

Another sad story about bad man and abused wife.

Roger Mac gives Ian his land

Ulysses will pal around with John Grey until Ulysses decides to do something different. I like that for them. Though John extols that Brianna is impossible not to like, which is ehhh.... let’s leave it for now. John Grey has a love for all things Jamie and the rule is absolute.

They enjoy a family meal of pb&j

Bee time! Ian escorts Roger, Brianna, and Jemmy to the beehive stones of time travel. Ian is so sad to be left behind. My heart flutters a bit when they ask the small toddler to hold a near microscopic ruby in his baby sausage fingers and not to drop it. If you drop it you might be separated from mommy and daddy by 200 years! That is a lot of responsibility for someone with minimal dexterity. I would have put that ruby in the kid’s mitten.

Something goes wrong with the time travel. We don’t know what exactly, except it’s not the case that the magic stones are now housed in a Motel 6, which is what I expected. What do they think this part of New York looks like in the 20th Century? It’s got to be all built over.

Claire gets kidnapped by the bad men. Terrible. Claire is somewhat accustomed to this by now, but those bastards struck Marsali.

[murtaghsbeard]

Season 5 ep 10 - Mercy shall follow me

Old Pippin and Bonnet discuss their plans to get Bonnet’s record expunged and get custody of the plantation-owning toddler, Jemmy. Old Pippin is a lawyer evidently, but clearly a bad one because when he asks Bonnet to be compensated for his legal efforts he allows Bonnet to tell him “you’ll get some money somewhere down the line on the condition that the desired outcome of my complex plan is achieved.” That is not good billing practice, old Pippin!

Also your client is talking about bumping off people who stand between him and his money, so maybe read between the lines here. Old Pippin is getting swindled in the short term and probably getting dead in the long term.

Oh, no! They’ve dressed Ian up like some sort of Quaker! He interrupts a very Outlander conversation of “this man we are dealing with is a shady character and he may try to double cross us.” “Yes, that is very likely to happen, but let’s not bother to make any kind of contingency plan about that likely outcome, because .... I don’t feel like it?” “Ok” “ok”

Claire tries to get a new syringe made in Wilmington. But some malevolent force tdb is watching them

The girls go to the beach and have very forced dialogue about whales. The pod of whales does not inspire them to stick close together.

Roger begins to feel more macho about killing Bonnet, who does not show up to his pre arranged meeting with the Fraser’s Ridge lads. Just as well. Roger isn’t very good at fighting still.

Bonnet has gone whale watching as well it turns out. Brianna is thwarted by an unloaded pistol and gets kidnapped. They are on Bonnet’s private island. “My son’s father is Roger Mackenzie” she sneers. Why are you always dropping everybody’s full names, girl! That is what got you into this mess. You gave Bonnet your full name, address, social security number, and return envelope at your visit to the jail, which has put all this into motion.

Brianna grabs a fire iron, but then does nothing with it. Instead she puts on a fancy dress, deciding to play the long game I guess. Bonnet wants a lesson in table manners, but alas, this is not Pretty Woman. Now Brianna gets clammy about this sociopath knowing the names of everyone she holds dear.

Brianna opens some boring book about farming, but begins reciting Moby Dick from memory. I’ve never been inclined to read Moby Dick, so I can’t say for sure, but I assume she is paraphrasing and changing the story as she goes and she doesn’t start out in the first person. Will she snare Bonnet in a literary trap? She keeps this going for 200 pages?!? Sounds absolutely exhausting. Seems very elaborate just to provide some moral framework for this villain to perhaps take to heart. What is her end game? He will change his ways because of this cautionary tale about a sea captain?

Is Bonnet duping her? Sea Nightmares and an orphan backstory? Seems very crafted to elicit sympathies and get her to let her guard down.

The prostitute breakfast maid would suggest they are not so isolated as “private island” might suggest. Brianna’s problem is that she assumes Bonnet is dumb.

Maybe he is a little dumb and mostly weird? I can’t quite figure out if he is clever or devious without being clever (if that is possible). Does he really believe in this fantasy with Bri? Everything we know about him thus far suggests no, he wouldn’t be naive enough to believe a woman he has kidnapped at knifepoint will be his loving life partner, but the scene is telling us yes, this is his belief.

Very brief sex with the breakfast tray prostitute seems a bit of an unhinged choice. I do prefer it when the villains are clever. That’s why Randall and Sandrigham are god tier Outlander villains and Geillis and that snooty French duke are not. I find this whole episode very perplexing. Bonnet is effective as a villain, not just because he is ruthless and violent, but because he is canny and has skill at manipulating people’s sympathies and ambitions to achieve his own goals. It seems strange that he leaves himself open completely to that same kind of manipulation with Bri who is not particularly convincing when she tries to play up the romance farce. Would he really be so fooled by her motivations?

It’s all very strange, as it seems like they should be having a battle of wits and deception, but it all falls away and we have only what we first start out with: captor and captive.

Jocasta is up to some scheme. She orders old Pippin to dole out her fortune to every person under 40 at Fraser’s Ridge. Old Pippin is the worst criminal. He is practically bursting out of his chair in outrage as she bequeaths pound upon pound until he screeches “you can’t give away my money!” Jocasta got him to admit conspiracy in under two minutes.

Thank beezus for Ulysses. He comes in to asphyxiate old Pippin when he gets pillow happy with Jocasta’s face. A beautiful voice and charming company aren’t his only talents. We now know the glory of Ulysses’ biceps. Looks like old Pippin is swindled in the short term and dead in the short term.

Seems Bonnet is trafficking stolen women. He decides to sell Brianna to a sea captain. Was this his plan all along (if so, why the charade?) or a pivot following the failure of his original plan? On the beach they are intercepted by the Fraser Gang. Roger catches up to Bonnet while everyone else hangs back (???). Roger lands a punch on Bonnet, which the editor makes us watch twice. This very generous editor also bestows the gift of slow mo on Roger’s scuffling.

I’m sorry. They are planning to put Bonnet on a boat to sea? Like you have rifles. Have you learned nothing? Just shoot and be done with it. Oh, now Brianna wants him to go to trial. Why why why. You want to trust politicians?

Bonnet does get sentenced to execution. By drowning, but nobody sticks around to watch? Oh wait, Brianna turns up with a rifle to do what she could have done on the beach???

[murtaghsbeard]

Season 5 ep 9 - Monsters and Heroes

Buffalo

Marsali belly. Marsali getting coy and calling Claire “Ma.” Guesss you have to move on from “hooooore” at some point. Good for them.

Indigo time. Boring voiceover by Claire about colors

More shirtless Roger and Brianna. Show, I do not have any interest in that at all. Please stop treating this as something appealing. Luckily the baby interrupts. They teach him the word shit.

Jamie is banging on the door so it’s a race to get presentable before the door is flung open. It’s hunting time and he needs help shooting game for the winter. Har! He wants a good shot to accompany him, thus Brianna. She insists that she has been looking forward to dying cloth. Sure.....That sounds much more exciting than exercising your actual talents on a hunting trip with the dad you traveled back in time to meet. Anyways, why not take Roger along as your useless lackey because the only thing he has demonstrated he could shoot is Claire from 6 feet away? Roger is so bad at everything and despite three times as many teach Roger to use a gun scenes as it took to make Brianna an engineer, no one has managed to make a good shot out of Roger. I’m sure this will be the episode where Roger proves his worth to Jamie, but I prefer watching him as a pitiable, useless lump. Ha, they still call him Roger Mac....Which I feel in my heart is a jibe, but they keep using it sincerely.

Why are you sending away Ian? He is your the best hunter. They find some bison but leave only Roger to assist Jamie. Very Suspect.

Jamie gets bitten by a viper. Roger gets hacking at Jamie’s leg. The old cut suck spit.

Roger agrees to just leave the bite victim in situ alone.

Roger must get help. Roger gets lost. Roger shoots a tree. Roger turns up at Jamie’s camp not having succeeded in getting help. Jamie, for all his agony has made a fire, prepared dinner, set up camp. Roger is not too fussed about Jamie’s snake venom issue.

Jamie kens he might be dying. He decides to let Roger in on his unfinished business-Please kill Steven bonnet, I’ve arranged all the particulars. Roger is all “ I don’t know if I can...murder, it’s just not my style.” Jamie presses him.

Roger, this show is about an audience of women. It’s full steam ahead with murdering vicious rapists here. Your prevarication wins you no fans. It’s Jamie’s unquestioning, at times reckless, fervor for righting the wrongs done to his wife and shield her from the rest that is the bedrock of this franchise. You won’t be spin off worthy until you adopt a similar mantra.

Jamie, though his body courses with poison, must lay out the situation rationally for dim Roger. It’s about the inheritance, dummy. Bonnet is going to shit all over everything, dummy. Your wife’s reputation, the paternity of your child, everything. You should kill Bonnet.

Finally the competent fellows find Jamie and Roger, led of course by the dog

Claire needs maggots for Jamie so Marsali gets all the folk out looking for them... in the forest? Wouldn’t their own barns and domestic spaces be more likely?

Jamie spies the leg saw laid out for him. He doesn’t like it.

Finally! Josiah finds a maggoty rabbit

Oh shit, it’s the bison in the yard. Claire and Brianna sort it out in 30 seconds

There is medicine to help save Jamie’s leg. The problem is no syringe

Jamie is very stubborn about the prospect of losing his leg. Ian gives him a thorough shaming in about 39 seconds. Finally, we get the dream team, Ian and Fergus, though the show cuts the glory short.

I’m sorry. What is this. A recusitating handjob??? I..... Like a magical, bring-you-back-from-the-dead handjob???

Love Fergus, teaching his toddlers about forest mushrooms! What better way to honor our fungal overloads with a little forest birth over the mycelial patch. Thanks Marsali.

Jamie is now reconciled to losing his leg and they are set to do it. But then Bri all busts in, I’ve made a syringe out of the offending snake’s tooth. There is a metaphor here!

When all is said and done, I’m very pleased that Roger did a middling to pitiable job as caretaker of the incapacitated Jamie. A triumphant Roger might give me an anyeurism. Glad that Bri experiences getting tossed by a bison without a scratch and then putting an engineering degree to use with fang syringe. Bri 4 stars, Roger 1 Star. Squirm like a worm for another day my friend.

However, Roger feels it’s his four star moment and gloats to Jamie.

Roger wants to watch Jamie kill Bonnet. I guess that’s improvement over where we last left things.

Getting a bit perturbed watching this slow build of Roger and Jamie building a relationship, when Roger threw a Molotov cocktail on every good feeling he had built with Brianna and then the narrative just let’s him drop in, say no harm, no foul. We’ll be married with no apology from me and I’ll continue to be barely tolerable from here on out, and we are just meant to accept it

So! Glad! To catch up on what this cat has been doing. Actually!

[murtaghsbeard]

Season 5 Ep 8 - famous last words

Flashback to Roger teaching at Oxford. He takes the opportunity to humiliate a young student in horn-rimmed glasses. Today’s theme is “famous last words”.

Oh, it was Roger hanging from the tree after all. But it’s ok. He is alive, not yet asphyxiated. Claire fixes him up

Roger seems very cranky though. He doesn’t want to talk because his vocal chords are damaged. I guess being hanged wouldn’t be very pleasant. Claire and Bri discuss ptsd - war neurosis

Jocasta sings a nice song over Murtagh’s grave

The gang receives a letter from the mad, bad governor apologizing for stringing Roger up a tree. “A regrettable incident.” Twas! The governor gives Roger a bunch of land as part of his “my bad” apology tour. Brianna flips the table! She doesn’t give a figging fuck about the land. She wants to tell the Gov the stick it up his pheasant hole. She doesn’t want land, she wants her husband back, whose words were always regrettable even when he did speak and who has never been useful to anybody beyond his ability to get other academics to send him their research.

Girl, don’t throw away 5000 acres. Learn how to optimize here! The governor isn’t going to be crying into his cereal 6 months from now thinking about how the Frasers boring daughter doesn’t forgive him. Get your young cousin Ian down from New York and give it to him. Give it to Fergus. Make it a retreat for itinerant basket weavers. Like do something with this free land.

Roger has more silent movie horror flashbacks

John Grey is always so nice! He has brought an astrolabe for Brianna. He tells her to be patient. Can the Frasers just ask John to move in with them. I feel like that would help spice up this season.

Weird! We are treated to a doing laundry montage, which I am here for, but then they splice in part of the candle making sequence from just a few episodes ago. Feels strange to see recycled footage. Was there no B roll from the candle shoot?

Roger screams at the baby not to touch the hot kettle. Everyone is pleased to hear him flex his vocal chords. But Roger gets all cranky again and won’t speak another word.

A very fun game of hide and seek is ruined by a wild boar. We know from season 1 that those can be very dangerous. Jamie prepared to stab it but some mystery archer slays the beast with an arrow. It’s Ian!

Hi, it’s me Ian. I heard you’ve got some land you aren’t planning on using. I’ve got a new haircut.

Claire and Jamie present Ian to Brianna and Roger. Brianna, the least you can do is run up and give Ian a hug. He sacrificed himself for your happiness! Roger trots up though to give a manly embrace. Roger’s stock gains a few points on the NASDAQ for this. He’s learned from the Scottish oath giving ceremony in the beginning of the season that it’s not good to leave a bro hanging.

Ian seems a bit out of his element. He is giving Roger a run for his money in the tight lipped category. Jamie tries to bring him right back to the family fold, but Ian is not having it. Ian having bairn trouble?

Brianna tries a paper airplane as part of her Roger speaks campaign

Claire discovers that some potentially lethal herbs are missing from her surgery. She suspects Roger. I’m sensing an olde switcheroo here and I swear if they kill off Ian with this, I will flip my own table.

Oh no.. Ian is missing from camp with all his articles nicely folded. I don’t like where this is headed. He is putting the root tea on to boil for a Socrates special. Luckily Roger turns up to kick the teapot to high heavens. Roger you’ve done something useful!

Ian calls Roger a right hypocrite, since Roger was just skipping along the edge of a cliff the day before. Ian is right, but Ian, you can be the Sully to our Dr Quinn Medicine woman. We need you on this show.

Ian has a big old heartache, the shape of which has not been fully surveyed. There is a woman at the center of it. Oh, and Roger croaks out a few phrases. Roger says that the old Roger is gone forever. I’m counting on it sir!

[murtaghsbeard]

Season 5 Ep 7 - Ballad of Roger Mac

I feel like the nickname Roger Mac is not doing Roger any favors...

It’s war time for regulators in Carolina. The regulators know how to blow up gun powder supplies, but can they fight an all out battle? Jamie worries about Murtagh

Brianna is staying with some sympathetic family. Still no one asks about her accent. Like, literally no one in the world talks like her yet.

Brianna finally remembers something from history! She gets on a horse and rides fast!

Jamie plays some sort of auto-christening John the Baptist in the river. He is asking the spirit of Dougal for advice. Claire is skeptical of spirit Dougal’s willingness. We did murder him after all, Jamie.

Brianna arrives with her very important message. A battle will be fought! Duh. The regulators will lose! Also duh. This battle is the spark of the American revolution! Yes, we have already sensed this, but thank you for putting a very fine point on it. God, Brianna. What type of history did you even study? They again contemplate the butterfly effect for 40 seconds but decide they can’t be arsed about it and will want to warn Murtagh anyway. Roger volunteers himself for this mission because he is tired of being regarded as a talentless worm. “It’s dangerous!” the women mutter. Jamie says, yes, let’s run with this plan though where you, Roger, shoulder the danger because I am not invested in your character, son. Better to lose you than my wife or daughter.

Murtagh is giving his stump speech by the fire. Roger delivers Murtagh this threadbare historical prophecy. Murtagh is obstinate though. The men will not turn back now. He just gave a really excellent stump speech and those are really hard to counteract.

On his way back Roger runs into the lady Mackenzie that he met on the boat ride over. Sensing there is some sort of family tree historical predicament afoot, Roger warns her and tells her to get her husband out of there. Then he hugs her, which is much too familiar. Husband rolls up and is none too pleased. “What’s this pathetic letch doing hugging my wife!”

Jamie is forced to wear a red coat. How did they get it tailored? Jamie shoots lasers out of his eyeballs and incinerates Governor Tyron for this humiliation.

Is the lady Mackenzie’s husband Dougal with a curly wig? Ha! Roger throws a punch, which is something. He forgets there are three men there, so it goes poorly for him. His militia florette is discovered. Curly Dougal spits some line about how Rogers wife must be ill favored surely to have Roger all in her business. He is very astute.

Grumpy dad smashes Claire’s penicillin syringe. I hope she finds a sneaky way to kill him

Oh no! Murtagh gets shot and dies! I knew it would happen, but I don’t like it.

Jamie let’s loose his tongue and throws his red coat on the ground

They think they find Roger hung from a tree by the redcoats. There is a sack over his head, so clearly it won’t be Roger. I would be glad to be rid of him, but this would be too terrible a way for him to go.

[murtaghsbeard]

Season 5 Ep 6 Better to Marry than Burn

More of this baby kitten please!

Oh shit locusts

This is a very elaborate staging for Jocasta’s wedding. Any excuse to get John Grey to accept the invitation and make him dance

Roger must become a locust strategist. He wishes Jamie were here. So do we, so do we.

Some ridiculous macaroni man enters the drama, eager to ingratiate himself with every lady like Virginia’s horniest lap dog. This man is an absolute joke. Mr Wiley: “You wound me!” He is easily played though. Claire wants to hear more about his nefarious acquaintances and some alone time will do the trick. He wants to show Claire “his” but it is a horse...at first. Then it’s his syphilitic mouth on her neck. Jamie, to his absolute credit, hugs Claire after he finds this gross, powdered fop trying to jump into his wife’s skin. Roger, take some notes.

This is an impressive locust storm

Claire gets extremely sentimental about Frank’s ring, which seems a tad overblown. She throws Jamie’s ring in his face and is very perturbed. I know the two wedding rings thing is very much Claire’s brand, but I always get a sense that Claire’s attachment to a Frank is mostly rational ( she recites the mantra: he was a good man, a good father, repeat) and it is not emotional. Anyways, the jilted and embarrassed macaroni man is willing to gamble with Jamie if he puts Claire’s other husband wedding ring in the pot and the Fraser gang needs leverage over him to get that Stephen Bonnet intel.

Murtagh shows up on the eve of Jocasta’s wedding in true rapscallion fashion. Jocasta turns him down though. She must. She is too canny and practical a woman to throw in her lot with a fugitive. Also she cannot see how sleek Murtagh’s silver pony tail is, which could very well have tipped the scales. Jocasta lets unravel her tragic life story by way of explanation. She can’t wed someone willing to let the world burn for his ideals

Claire is extremely angry this episode. Luckily her anger transitions to horniness quite easily. A literal roll in the hay ensues.

Old Pippin has coffee with Bonnet. Not sure how old Pippin knows this whole plot arc, but he believes Bonnet to be the father of Brianna’s child and lets Bonnet know this child now owns Jocasta’s plantation. The wheels in Bonnet’s head start whirling with such a frenzy that his ears could steam the milk for his latte.

[murtaghsbeard]

Season 5 Ep 5 - Perpetual Adoration

Claire is in a Catholic Church. Very strange for an English woman. Not known as a nation of Catholics

It’s moldy bread time! This moldy nugget has promise! It penecilin, mateys.

Please show, take my note. I don’t need any sexy scenes with Brianna and Roger

We are still in the midst of the capture Murtagh caper. The governor flits out a metaphorical sexy little stocking-clad leg, which is full pardon for Murtagh and his crew. Jamie plays it cool but his trigger happy officer counterpart hates this development.

Even worse, this ponytailed killjoy has requested the prisoner logs for Ardsmuir prison to see what other scots were imprisoned with Murtagh. Clearly this will blow Jamie’s cover. Fergus, we are looking at you. Hope you are still excellent at stealing letters!

A whole teacup of penecillian. How does she get a syringe? Oh boy...we have the joy of watching a tonsillectomy

Roger finds Stephen Bonnet’s tooth ruby among Brianna’s things. Of course, he acts a fool about it. Maybe don’t put the screws to your rape victim wife about who she really thinks is the father of her child. Obviously her guilt and shame make her validate the worst possible conclusion.

I never want to see another shot of Rogers nipples until he can stop being the literal worst and begs all of our forgiveness

I see. Claire is in the Catholic Church, attending the funeral of her patient

Roger almost shoots Claire. Really working on his redemption arc!

Claire gives him some pearls of wisdom as reward for his extreme lapse in judgement. Roger brings Bri some chanterelles, which is a nice gift. He also says the word “sorry” for the first time in his miserable life.

Time to reveal that your arch villain is still alive

Murtagh doesn’t get a pardon, which is crafty but sad

Claire reading an absolutely smut-tastic romance novel in this bar. Finally friend Joe is on the scene! He recommend more romance novels

Fergus, you didn’t steal the letter! Redcoat knows Jamie is related to Murtagh and they were prison bros. Now you have let this limp ponytail believe he is going to get the upper hand on Jamie and deliver him to the authorities. Jamie sends him off this mortal coil with the same ease with which I carry an armful of laundry from the dryer to the bed

After Jamie stages his death tableau for the redcoat, he pops of the roof and finds a chubby kitten!

He brings the kitten home in his pocket! He truly is the king of all men

[murtaghsbeard]

Season 5 Ep 4

Roger and company venture into a hostile town on their conscription mission. Shots are fired. Why is Fergus a consulting officer? If you old cranks shoot Fergus, I will pull out your guts with my teeth

It’s your classic case of star crossed lovers at the heart of the gun brandishing

Roger is losing conscripts over his policy of whiskey before conflict. Jamie is none too pleased. Roger is obsessed with singing his little songs. Like, please try problem solving instead. As a historian, shouldn’t he have a number examples of how different types of conflict have been resolved stored away in the old memory bank. Just pathetic.his plan is just, stall until Jamie gets here.

More unwed mother trouble

Roger fails to impress Jamie. Brianna burns the mugshot

Jamie does a little dance. Better than Murtagh’s back in his boogie woogie bugle boy days.

Jamie is very keen to keep the little baby, which is very sweet. He wants to raise a baby! Claire says no in a very reasonable way. There is a childless couple here that really wants this baby, plus Fergus and Marsali are popping them out like rabbits so there are always going to be babies around.

The poor drab Juliet tries to shoot herself

I like this ending. The lovers abscond after letting loose a distraction. We have a goat, here, to explain this mischief. All your horses have fled their pen and the young lovers have escaped. This is all the fault of the goat, who is very spooky to horses.

[murtaghsbeard]

Season 5 Ep 3 - Free Will

I am liking this medical school. There is lots of bread experimentation

Daddy’s back! John Quincy Meyers. You are here among these militia men, it is revealed as a surprise. You are always welcome on my tv screen. You are the Hagrid of this show

The preteen huntsman Josiah who Lizzy is hot for has a secret twin who is deaf, in a wretched predicament, and very hungry. The story is a sad one. He was being abused by the man he is indentured to. Things are very creepy at the young brothers owner’s house. There are goats where there shouldn’t be goats.

Jamie’s crew has got to recruit some fighting men to fulfill the governor’s request to quell the regulators. Roger is maybe learning a lesson about making nice sounding promises you can’t keep? How are you going to return this surly widow’s sons to her unharmed if you can’t even shoot a squirrel?

Geez. Elder abuse turned vengeful torture now segues to childbirth

The uneasy young wife is not a widow after all and she has been keeping her murderous, abusive husband up in the attic barely alive and available for her little vengeful whims. He is practically dead, near starved and incapacitated by a stroke. He has got a backyard full of dead wives that let us know what he was like in a more ambulatory state. Jamie and Claire, of course, want to bring this literal villain downstairs, give him medical attention, and orchestrate some miracle to keep him alive (though paralyzed and unable to speak).

Please just kill this man already and put everyone out of their misery. Please, please, reconcile yourself to killing terrible people when there is little danger of being caught. In the resulting scuffle, the young wife goes into labor. The baby is half black, one last little wound for this terrible husband.

This traumatized girl. She has got to bounce. “Please take care of my baby,” she intimates. “I left all the important papers in the swaddling.”

Jamie comes to his senses a little bit and gets permission to perform euthanasia from a series of blinks. After Claire goes outside a shot rings out.

Jesus Christ! That is an insane amount of birds. That must have been the entire nesting colony of passenger pigeons in North America roosting at that homestead