Night Cheese

I'm just glad Ian/Cormac is fleecing grieving women of their life insurance payouts, because for a while there I was really worried he was a sexual predator who was trying to eliminate Grace to get to Blanaid. He's still an awful person in just about every respect, but at least I don't think his goal was to molest Blanaid. I feel like Houlihan is just as annoying as the insurance brother last season. They both are correct in their instincts, it's just that their incessant need to get to the truth of the matter interferes with our Garvey sisters sloppily covering up all of their actions and missteps. But I need to go back and watch the first couple episodes of this season because I don't really understand why the police (guards) are investigating The Prick's death two years after the fact.

I would *love* that! They do have some really good chemistry, and on-screen Denzell is much more interesting than bookDenzell (imo). I somewhat think it's because the actor is much easier on the eyes than the plain Quaker that I always pictured in the book character.

I've been a fan of all of the 7b episodes so far, but this one was really great. Truly. I quite liked them in the books and found their relationship really sweet, if somewhat unconventional/unlikely. But here I feel like days/week(s) are going by for Claire, while Ian and Rachel are still having the same "feeling-each-other-out" conversation. Henry Grey has gone from near-death to fully recovered and ready to marry in the time it's taken Ian and Rachel to have an honest conversation with each other. The Claire and Lord John morning after scene was nice. I always felt a little weird about their drunken night together in the books, but I like the show's Claire and LJ characters (thanks to the actors' portrayals) considerably more than their books counterparts. They made me really feel each's grief over Jamie. And fortunately the sex scene was short. I had to go back and read the Henry Grey wiki page to remember if his relationship with Mercy was the same in the books. I guess I didn't remember that she was African American in the books as well. Reading the wiki pages I also realized that they've completely skipped the Dottie Grey character, which is fine, but they've also skipped the Percy Beauchamp storyline as well. I guess they can always bring him in later if they spin off Lord John and cover the LJ novellas. Either way, it made me realize we haven't seen Fergus (or Marsali) in years, both in the shows timeline and in real life. That made me sad. Yes, I liked how they handled this as well. William isn't Jamie's brown-haired twin in the series, so this little change here is a much more plausible way to reveal that William is a stinking papist. When "Mac" was at Hellwater and the ladies were remarking how much young William looked like the Groom, I rolled my eyes because that kid did not look like Jamie, nor did a slightly older William visiting the Ridge look like him. So I was glad that they've acknowledged the family resemblance between William, Jamie, and Bree, but leaned away from William learning his patronage from just looking at Jamie dead-on. Also, I wish we had Jenny there too, even if I wasn't a fan of the new actress.

I remember Jacob's (now)ex teaching the kids Christmas songs in season 2 and thinking that seemed unlikely at a public school nowadays. The purely Christmas show with no one considering that it could be ostracizing for even a small minority of children seemed almost unbelievable to me. Overall this was a pretty underwhelming episode, but one thing I did chuckle at was Barbara losing her voice before her big attention-grab--I mean show-stopper. Since we all know how wonderful a singer Sheryl Lee Ralph is, I liked that she didn't actually sing and that those adorable kids did instead.

Basically the same loophole that led to Claire marrying Jamie in season 1. I liked the Philadelphia scenes in this one. Claire acting as a courier was cool to see. It felt like the show Turn. Geillis and Dougal's origin story was great. Super awkward all around. 😆

Different scene or different part of the same scene, potato potahto. I wanted to see some reactions and follow-up from the Murrays. It could have cut between them and Jamie/Joan and then back, but regardless, the scene in this episode and that part of the book left me wanting a lot more. I wasn't suggesting Jenny should apologize. She blamed Claire for a lot of what Jamie went through after Culloden, mistakingly thinking Claire was safe and just chose not to come back to help at Lallybroch. I would have liked to have seen her start to understood that Jamie sent her through the stones, expecting to die, to protect herself and their unborn child, and that Claire couldn't just go back to Lallybroch to help them. Harboring bad feelings towards Claire for decades doesn't necessitate an apology (IMO), but recognizing the misunderstanding and reflecting on where you may have been wrong is character growth that I was hoping to see on screen. They seemed to have parted on better terms here than the books, and if they continue the storyline with Jenny coming to America with Jamie, I hope we get to see Jenny and Claire older, wiser, and able to speak openly with each other and move past anything still lingering. I think as characters they both desperately need a sister and it's heartbreaking that they started to form that bond before Claire had to leave to find Jamie, and that they were never able to recoup that.

I liked this episode very much. This is one of my favorite parts of the later books-the return to Scotland, removing the remaining clutches Leghair had around Jamie, and Claire revealing that she is a time traveler. But like in the books, I felt like Claire's reveal was a bit of a let-down. Cut to the family staring at Claire, mouths agape, then cut to a different scene? C'mon! Let's get some questions for the time traveler! Let's get some clarification on past misunderstandings! Let's get at least a little bit of Jenny eating crow over how awful she was when Claire returned after 20 years. We got decades-overdue clearing of the air with Leghair and Jamie, but we couldn't get a little bit of conversation between Claire and the Murrays? And what a contrived way to get Claire back to the colonies. Is Henri-Christian in the show at all? I wish he were the reason Claire was returning to America, not LJ's nephew. Realistically, what is the likelihood that this man is still alive? Lord John's letter would surely be dated and Claire should have taken one look at the date and said "even if he's somehow still alive today, what are the chances he holds out over the next 4-6 weeks that it will take me to get to Philadelphia?" I mean, how did this guy not already die of infection or sepsis? It's not like they have antibiotics or penicillin lying around while they wait for a skilled surgeon to show up. I love that Roger and Buck miss the mark on their return to the past and come across Geillis. Am I right in remembering that Buck stays with Geillis and they take up some sort of relationship?

Yeah I rolled my eyes at that. Bad writing, or was Roger just out of sorts and not thinking clearly? Because, yeah, the line of succession is fine if Buck dies, it's his son that you would need to worry about dying unexpectedly. Assuming Bucks son is too young and hasn't already produced the next son in Roger's family tree.

Outlander returns this Friday, November 22! I've been rewatching Season 7 to get caught up ahead of Part 2, and I can sincerely say I'm very excited for new episodes. Hopefully the season actually lives up to that awesome trailer that @BetterButter posted last month.

She's 100% too good for this crap--I mean show.

I rewatched and was able to pay more attention to the deli storyline. It reminded me of a similar situation that happened at my favorite sandwich shop in Boston. Gentrification really sucks sometimes. But I laughed really hard when the deli owner came out and asked why they were protesting in front of his place. Of course Jacob got wrapped up in everything but forgot to iron out all the details. If they have a good relationship with the deli owner, maybe they can kindly help him improve his smoothie endeavors. "Is that menthol?" is not an ideal reaction to a sip of smoothie.

Great to learn that the parachute thing in gym class is still happening. I loved them demonstrating how it's done. That really brought me back in a very visceral way. This show is always good for that. I need to rewatch because I was watching while getting ready for work and basically missed the smoothie plot. I did catch most of the Ava stuff and loved it. She's really become one of my favorite characters. It's crazy that I thought back in the first season that she'd be ousted from her position and Gregory, the more qualified professional, would take over as principle.

When Tim Kaine walked out, I thought, "wow, they got Tim Walz for the show too?" So I felt better about myself when they showed their side-by-side photos and they really do look a lot alike, in addition to both being named Tim. That was a great sketch.

Kaitlin also stars in It's Always Sunny, so she may have a stipulation that HP films when IASIP is on hiatis, as opposed to filming from Aug-April (guessing) that normal 22 episode seasons requires. For what it's worth, my company has janitorial services in the day and evening because we operate 24h/day. So I didn't think anything of the daytime cleaner since police stations are also 24h. If he's there for nefarious reasons instead potential love interest reasons, my guess is that he is tied to her daughter's father's disappearance.

He didn't do Dawson's Creek but he did create Popular, which was a teen quasi-satirical comedy that ran for a couple seasons during the Dawson's Creek years.