MochaJay
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Posts posted by MochaJay
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21 hours ago, quarks said:
Yeah, that did seem to be a bit odd?
I know there were cases where younger sons inherited cash or some portion of land that wasn't tied to the estate, and cases where younger siblings received some sort of allowance from the family estates, or inherited funds from another relative (this happened with one of Jane Austen's brothers, for instance) but the idea of Colin being able to dip into the family funds at will did seem odd.
It seemed atypical but didn't really shock me in the context of this family. Anthony takes all responsibility for the family finances, but he views their assets as being for the benefit of them all, so I could see him having authorised his adults brothers to draw from accounts that might otherwise be under his sole control.
If Colin had lost the investment then Anthony might have lost trust. But (not having read the books) I assume Anthony is planning to settle independent incomes on his brothers when they marry so has made sure they are capable of managing money.
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1 hour ago, AnimeMania said:Quote
I enjoyed the bulk of the episode, but the first two led me to believe we would always understand the casual link between 1st change and ripple effects. Are we going to see wider ripples every week so that the final episode is full insanity with no indication what changed first?
I don't think that the different episodes have any relationship to each other. Wasn't that the original Captain America, if the episodes were related, he wouldn't exist.
I agree each episode is a separate timeline, my question is more about the story structure. If there is always a single inciting change then the ripples start small and spiral out into increasing divergence. A story can focus on what happens immediately after the change, or show the change plus the later effects, or skip entirely to where things are unrecognisable.
Episode 1 - follows the initial ripples from Peggy's decision. She has similar values, similar skills and the same mission so we see 20 mins where Peggy's story almost directly overlays Steve's story, and in the last 5 minutes we see increasing divergence as Peggy & Cthulhu portal to the future, the US has the Hydra Stomper and there is no Winter Soldier. We don't see much of the new reality of this timeline
Episode 2 - has a flashback to the moment of divergence. Most of the story happens years later with characters who have already been changed by the ripples, but we can infer the connections.
Episode 3 - does not tell us the moment of divergence. We pick up where the ripples from the Pym's lives majorly impact the Avengers lives who where mostly unaltered in the years since the divergence.
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Episode 10 - will the story pick up with a wildly diverged world without any clue what changed first?
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What was the single divergent point? Hope joining Shield?
I could have done with The Watcher interrupting the story when Fury visited Hope's grave, to give us 30 seconds of exposition and flashback.
I enjoyed the bulk of the episode, but the first two led me to believe we would always understand the casual link between 1st change and ripple effects. Are we going to see wider ripples every week so that the final episode is full insanity with no indication what changed first?
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The middle 15 minutes did feel especially like CA:TFA on fast forward, but I suppose that is what you get when the What If? is a person of similar moral values being tasked by the same organisation to do the same missions.
Though I guess the butterfly effect will have taken full effect if we see more of Captain Carter in the 21st century. She was considered either too female or too British to sell war bonds, so no USO tour > Zola was captured earlier > no Winter Soldier > no Kennedy Assassination.
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On 6/18/2021 at 6:52 PM, FierceCritter said:
I'm trying to understand something about the logistics of the end.
1) Fred is handed over at the USA/Gilead border. So he's now in Gilead.
2) Fred is driven in a Gilead vehicle by Gilead personnel to some forest
3) Former handmaids also drive to this forest to kill Fred.
4) Fred is killed and strung up against a wall.
All that considered, where the hell were they? Gilead personnel and a Gilead vehicle indicates Gilead. Canadian refugees with personal vehicles indicates Canada.
If they were in Canada, then Fred's body will be found in Canada, not Gilead. If they were in Gilead, how did these handmaids get there, and why the hell would they risk that?As I figure it, Canada maintains its claim to its original borders. The women parked in Canada, and somewhere in the woods crossed the old, unmarked, unguarded US-Canada border into former US territory. They did not travel so far to reach the fenced / guarded hard border maintained by Gilead - which in that area might have been a few miles further in for logistical reasons - eg a forest is harder for the Guardians to patrol than a natural barrier like a river. Gilead is a new unsettled state without treaties and still at war with the US, so they only claim land they physically occupy; wherever that falls short of the old US border there is a no-mans land.
At the bridge where the exchange took place there isn't a no-mans-land. The new Canada-Gilead hard border aligns to the old Canada-US soft border. Nick's vehicle travelled from the exchange for several hours within Gilead, then crossed into the no-mans-land without ever leaving US land or entering Canada. They were able to do this because Nick is an Eye Commander who can command Guardians to let him pass, but common escapees would be lucky not to be shot or recaptured by the Gilead border patrols before reaching no-mans-land.
On 6/18/2021 at 8:47 PM, The Mighty Peanut said:Can we talk legality? I am going to take a wild guess that Gilead did not agree to give up 22 resistance fighters in exchange for a corpse. If Fred was going to get dead it would have been by their hands. So I wonder what happens to Nick and Lawrence now--neither of them seem too worried, which strikes me as odd. Perhaps they were in no man's land where Fred had no rights, but he was brought there by Nick and the Eyes, am I correct? Are we to assume they are all rebels or rebel sympathizers?
I think Gilead permitted Lawrence to make the exchange, so he did his job and would expect no trouble.
Possibly Fred was tried in absentia and the Eyes were ordered to execute him, which Nick kinda did. But if Nick had no orders or authority to arrest Fred, he's still secret police and it's hard to follow up when secret police disappear people. All the Guardians at the border can report is that the Eyes took Waterford. Which Eyes? - they don't know and weren't going to ask. Lawrence could identify Nick, but he has enough on Nick to make him a useful ally - so he'd be more likely to amuse himself by suggesting that Commander Blaine be set in charge of the investigation.
7 hours ago, Helena Dax said:I just realized that for all that Gilead is some sort of theocracy, we've never seen them attending religious ceremonies. They don't seem to go to Church and the only time they read the Bible is during the Rape Ceremony. How is the religious side of Gilead supposed to work?
Econopeople have to go church, that's why June was alone in the apartment block during her Season 2 escape attempt.
I think Commanders are meant to be in charge of the religious instruction of their household - like with the Bible reading at the Ceremony. We have just never spent much time in a truly devout household.
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Sharon has certainly fallen out of the 'hero' category, but I'm more inclined to label her as mercenary than villain at this point.
I'm sure from her perspective she is only playing the game, and only hurting those that are also in the game. She can still point at people who are blowing up civilians (Zemo at the UN) or murdering hostages (Karli) and say she is not as bad as them.
I don't think the show is in any doubt she has had a moral decline, as she is exploiting and perpetuating the exact systematic inequalities it was examining, as well as employing straight up evil ex-Hydra scientists. But I think she has been burnt enough that she no longer believes in the possiblity of changing the world for the better.
It's not what I wanted for Sharon - I was hoping she remained a simple good guy - but it is interesting. If we see her in the MCU it could be in the utility player now that we have lost Batroc, or we could get a test of how far she has fallen and what lines she will still not cross.
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What do people think about pairing Sam & Bucky vs splitting then up in future projects?
Before we knew anything about this show but the title, the basic promise was give these two supporting characters their turn as lead characters, in a two-hander with a buddy-cop dynamic.
The show did give moments that exploited the actors & characters chemistry, and Sam had a great lead role, but although Bucky had his own subplot he was a supporting character in the structure of this story. So IMO the show delivered 80% of its original promise, even whilst it overdelivered on its thoughtful exploration of themes which I wasn't expecting and was so glad we got.
Next time we see Sam will be Cap 4. That won't be a two-hander but should be Sam's movie. There are good reasons to include Bucky: in-universe they now have a close friendship, and the actor chemistry is still gold. But to what extent do we at some point need to see Cap Sam stand on his own, rather than next to a character so closely associated with the first Cap.
And on which projects will we see Bucky, to get more insight into his character, even if he never gets a lead role?
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3 hours ago, Sandman said:
Also: Zemo's a baron; that means his family is nobility, not royalty. Not the same thing. I hate when tv and movies get that wrong.
Eh, small country. The upper crust nobility would be just a few families. So his family being 'practically royalty' could mean he's third cousin to the crown.
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2 hours ago, Danny Franks said:
Memes conquer all, sadly.
I liked Daniel Bruhl's performance, and I think Zemo is a genuinely interesting character - his hatred of superheroes is genuine and his stance on superpowers and the inherent fascism of them was proved in this show. He's a villain of principle. I'm very keen to see where his character goes from here, and think there's good growth potential for him in a Thunderbolts show.
But all some people seem to remember (particularly on Reddit) is the dancing. I do not want to see him woobified or turned into a fan-led obsession like Loki has been, just because the actor is charming.
Zemo is the remaining manifestation of Bucky's trauma. All the rest of those who brainwashed him and used him are gone, but Zemo was the most recent and the only one who Bucky could get revenge on, if he so chose.
Him refusing, and handing Zemo over the the Wakandans was the point where he realised he could truly be free of his past. It's corny as fuck, but it works for him as a character and for his healing process.
For eighty years he never had a choice of who he pointed a gun at and whether he pulled the trigger or not, and even once he thought he'd regained that freedom, Zemo showed him that it was an illusion and took control of him.
Even if Zemo never appears in the MCU again, I think it was important he be in this show so Bucky can put his time as a brainwashed assassin behind him for good.
100% all this.
I also think there is a neat parallel with T'Challa at the end of Civil War. He had the best arc in that film (which isn't acknowledged enough because the Team Cap/Team IM framing of discussion limits everyone to static narrative boxes) and it culminates in T'Challa showing a beautiful moment of grace in forsaking vengeance.
Bucky got the same moment at last.
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I don't know if I am allowed all-season thread to discuss some of this stuff that wasn't specific to the episode? - I was thinking 'Sam and Bucky have depth: Character arcs and themes'
One moment in finale I did enjoy was Walker giving the 'I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits...' line and Bucky attributing it to Lincoln. I am not used to that kind of call-and-response outside of Sorkin shows, and there is an interesting specificity to why these two men would know a less famous quote (I presume, I'm not American) - Walker is the type to have studied Great Men, Bucky comes from a time when memorising the words of dead politicians was probably part of standard education.
I know a lot of the reaction is that Sam and Bucky forgave Walker too easily, but with Bucky at least it makes sense for me:
His counsel to John in ep 5 and Karli in ep 6 was don't go down this road, I know where it ends. ', He will stand in the way of people he disagrees with, but he won't act as judge of others because his Truth is that you have to be able to live with yourself.
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55 minutes ago, catrice2 said:
Also, both Sam and Bucky went on a journey. Sure if you were not paying attention it seems like it was more about Sam, but there was plenty to do with Bucky, it was all in his actions and reactions to things. It was just as much about Bucky coming to terms with his past and that although there would always be a part of the Winter Solider in him, it did not define him and he could move forward.
I agree with this, both Sam and Bucky had good stories with strong themes. In the end though I do think Sam was better served than Bucky. I thought we got the right amount of time to Sam's story and we had a mix of the subtle and explicit recapping of his major themes.
For Bucky, I felt the show held him a bit too much at arms length - there were times when I felt I had more insight into Walker or Karli's views than Bucky's thoughts on events or themes. We are still having to guess and theorise about so much of his story, rather than experience it directly along with him.
That's a disappointment, because I wanted the show to help us really connect with both the leads, but I felt one was sacrificed a bit too much to make space for the plots of the supporting characters.
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Zemo: I ended the Winter Soldier programme once before, I have no intention to leave my work unfinished. To do this we will have to scale a ladder of lowlifes.
Sam: Well join the party, we've already started.
Nice burn on your new sugar daddy the Sam.
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32 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:
One thing that I don't think people commented on previously (or if I missed it, apologies, but it deserves being said again):
Isaiah's backstory about some of his colleagues being captured and the Army writing them off is a parallel to what happened in Cap: The First Avenger. (except even worse because instead of just writing them off, the Army was getting ready to kill them).
Steve and Isaiah both went rogue and both launched a successful rescue mission. But instead of fame and flirtation, Isaiah got screwed over. imprisoned,, experimented on, etc.
I've been thinking on this, and though I think the parallel is important, the roots of the difference also go back further to the original ethics.
Erskine's experiment was a wartime secret, but all volunteer, nobody was doing anything of which they were ashamed. When Erskine was killed they made Steve a propoganda figure, so when he rocked up at militarily camp with a few hundred freed POWs and a photographer started taking photos, the military rewarded him in part to control the narrative.
Isaiah and his comrades where subjected to unethical experimentation, down to not even knowing what they were being given. There was always going to be a cover-up, especially as most of the subjects died. Isaiah going AWOL to rescue the POWs wasn't the reason he was imprisoned - it was the excuse.
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1 hour ago, LJones41 said:
*Why did the writers drag Zemo into this story in the first place? He makes his escape at the end of one episode and is quickly arrested in the following one? What was the purpose of his presence?
Zemo served a number of functions:-
Plotwise: Sam and Bucky chasing down leads in Episodes 2 & 3 made them active protagonists vs spending the whole series waiting for leads to come knocking. Zemo was their lead.
Storywise: Sam's story is about becoming a symbol of something larger than himself. Bucky's story is about healing from his trauma. Zemo put a known face to that trauma, rather than taking in abstract about dead Hydra agents. There was resolution in this episode where Bucky got to hold a gun to the head of an abuser and not take revenge, which is much more significant than a general distaste for killing people.
Themewise: He was able to articulate themes and offer opposing philosophies, especially to those presented by Karli.
Character-wise: He's a 'villain', in that he is morally compromised, and unchanging in his beliefs. He offered a contrast and yardstick for us to examine other characters that are on growth arcs (Bucky, Sam) or fall arcs (Karli, Walker).
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1 hour ago, Sakura12 said:
So is Elaine the powerbroker or working for the powerbroker? Unless they are pulling a Wandavision and just casting a recognizable actor just for fun. I'm not as interested in theories and casting for this show like I was for Wandavision. So I was surprised to see her show up.
There's a lot of speculation that she's here to set up a future part of the franchise. She may or may not be in the finale, but we could see her working with Walker and other characters in later shows.
The Powerbroker has been set up throughout the season, so to pay off will have to either be someone significant or do something significant. The only character we know it could be is Sharon, but I'm hoping she is still more of the hero than that. So I've been thinking what the Powerbroker could do that would be so terrible, and in this show the sin worse than killing is medical experimentation upon captives. So I think the PB will take Karli to try to recreate the serum from her. Let's hope at least a couple of her followers make it out alive.
9 minutes ago, Danny Franks said:I made a joke on Reddit about this show ending up with Sam starting a shrimp boat business and Bucky being his first mate, I didn't think we'd get this close to seeing it come true.
Heh, good shout. Maybe Bucky should retire there
13 minutes ago, Danny Franks said:Walker having to deal with abject failure and shame for the first time in his life was interesting to see. He seemed to be struggling with that as much as he was with the serum side effects. It's a well-documented phenomenon that these sort of alpha, 'things always come up roses' people really cannot handle that first instance where things go badly wrong. I can almost feel sorry for him.
I felt sorry for him from the moment they humanised him in the second episode. He's not a villain, he's a tragic character on a fall arc.
After the season is over we need an all-season thread to discuss character arcs and themes.
20 minutes ago, Danny Franks said:It seems like Bucky shares some of Zemo's flair for the dramatic, with the empty gun and falling bullets gag. I'm glad he's still in good with the Wakandans, and Shuri (presumably) was happy enough to make him a set of vibranium wings for Sam.
"You've got to stop looking to other people to tell you who you are," is good advice, but not easy to take for a man who hasn't known who he is for most of the last eighty years. I guess we're going to see him apologise to Yori in the finale. I hope that goes... not horribly.
He's earnt the dramatics. He's trying not to be a killer (and is perhaps the only MCU hero that has really dwelt on whether they are OK with killing?) but he wouldn't be human if some part of him didn't want to pay back what what done to him, putting a gun to one of his abusers heads and not firing a bullet was taking back the power.
In this show Zemo and Bucky are the ones that understand the burden of doing terrible things (though they are separated because for Zemo it was a choice to reach his goals and Bucky had no choice). Others characters either haven't done such morally compromised actions, or haven't realised what the cost is. I really liked where they ended, and the understanding and forgiveness.
And I really want Zemo to start writing Bucky letters from prison where he teaches him chess, because he's realised Bucky is impetuous and doesn't tend to think strategically.
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On 4/14/2021 at 2:21 PM, Chicago Redshirt said:
You are assuming that T'Challa and Wakanda gave a vibranium arm that is worth conservatively $100 million (in addition to lodging, hospitality and deprogramming) "freely"? That no one told Bucky "This document acknowledges our right to shut this arm down and repo it whenever we want, OK? Sign here" doesn't make it any less fair for them to do so. It was a gift but one that had hidden conditions. Would Bucky have accepted it if he knew? Probably. Is it shitty that the Wakandans didn't tell him? Sure. But they are totally justified in having contingency plans.
It is not established exactly how the U.S. got the vibranium for Cap's shield. But it could have been from fair trade with Wakanda, it could have been from other sources (as far as I know, Wakanda just has the overwhelming majority of the world's vibranium, but some exists outside it), or it could be more that Klaue was the first to pull off a heist of the size he did (a quarter ton I want to say?) but there were smaller heists before then including the amount of the shield.
It's possible that given Wakandan science is magic that the prosthetic is self-cleaning.
The previous arm wasn't removable, and attached through the skin directly into the shoulder. So I think it being unnecessary to clean like a real prosthetic is more about super-serum magic than Wakandan science.
Bucky didn't need to be given a Vibrananium arm, he needed a replacement arm. I think that when a custom prosthetic is made for a person, that should be a free and complete gift, and if we were talking about a prosthetic of steel or carbon fibre that point probably not be disputed. I think Shuri is a generous and kind person who chose to make the arm of vibranium because that was the best possible version prosthetic she could make, and that she did not put conditions on that gift. Because Vibranium has cultural significance to Wakandans, there are probably Wakandans who see it differenty.
I would suspect that Howard / the US gov bought their stock of Vibranium from dealers, but that all or some of that stock was probably stolen from Wakanda at an earlier point, which would give Wakanda a claim to ownership of the shield (ignoring that this is an alternative timeline shield, because it is easiest to assume it had the same provenance on that timeline). But because Howard made the metal into a shield, and Steve made the shield into a symbol, this particular lot of metal has lost its significance to Wakanda because the symbolism of the Shield is not of direct interest to them.
As this is the mystery thread, I have a totally unrelated question:
Will we ever learn what jobs Steve and Bucky had a civilians before the war? They must have been working for 6-8 years before enlisting, depending on the age Americans left school back then (my grandma left school at 15 to work in a factory during the war, but I'm British and she was a Lancashire lass).
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1 hour ago, hoopznyo said:
I took it as he was/is very guarded and shuts himself away from everyone
That too, but his therapist did indicate that he was being particularly shut down during their session, compared to previous sessions.
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So, I am assuming Bucky stopped responding to Sam's text because he was told about the plan to donate the Shield to the museum, perhaps one of the texts was even an invite to the ceremony.
Was that the conclusion everybody else came to?
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4 hours ago, LJones41 said:
The Dora Mijae should have Bucky arrested for helping Zemo escape prison. He should feel betrayed? He is the one responsible for allowing Zemo, the man who had murdered their king, out of prison. Screw him.
I'm tired of being told that I have to think of Bucky's well being; when his stupidity and aggressive behavior has made it obvious that he rarely cares about the well being of others.
I get that Wakanda are angry with Bucky for helping Zemo escape (though I don't get why Ayo was more angry with Bucky at the end of the eight hours than when they had the initial meeting). Wakanda has a legitimate claim against Zemo for T'chaka's death, and Bucky wronged them.
But beyond that perspective, the story has more nuance because Bucky is not an uninvolved 3rd party. Bucky also has a separate claim of grievance against Zemo, for using the trigger words. We know Zemo's name was in his notebook list. The opening of this episode emphasised the depth of that injury against Bucky, and with Hydra gone Zemo may be the only living person who used those words against him.
So Bucky's choice to let Zemo escape prison, in addition to being a betrayal of Wakanda, was also a selfless decision that tracking the source of the serum was more important than his own claim to vengeance.
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4 hours ago, Abra said:
- I loved Steve Rogers too (minus Endgame Steve) but I'm tired of the pedestal he's being put on, especially by Bucky. (And I'm not sure I buy Zemo agreeing so readily that Steve wasn't corrupted by the serum, or by the power the serum gave him. That rang false to me coming from him.)
One aspect of Zemo agreeing with Bucky that Steve was the only one not corrupted by the serum is that they are also agreeing everybody else with the serum is corrupted - which includes Bucky.
It makes horrible sense that Bucky doesn't include himself in the uncorrupted - he's still bearing terrible feelings of guilt and puts Steve on that pedestal because he doesn't trust himself but did trust Steve's judgement
For Zemo, maybe he doesn't argue the point about Steve being an exception because it's moot - Steve's dead or gone so not on Zemo's list to stop. Bucky doesn't fit into Zemo's theory of Super-soldiers as supremacists because he didn't choose to take the serum, but Zemo is agreeing that Bucky is corrupted anyway and killing him is still part of the goal to eradicate Super-soldiers.
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2 hours ago, LJones41 said:
Bucky should have never helped Zemo escape from prison. It was a really stupid decision. The latter had killed a good number of people since his escape and tried to murder Karli in cold blood, because of his bigotry against enhanced people. Yet, Sam and Bucky kept protecting him. And many are behaving as if he is not much of a threat. Sam and Bucky need to find that man and put him back in prison.
I get Bucky thinking that tracking the serum was sufficiently important to work with Zemo. But after the death of Nagel, Zemo's Hydra knowledge was no longer required. So Sam & Bucky should have got rid of him then - all he was offering at that point was free use of an apartment. They really made an error letting him get the lead on Karli's location.
Bucky did say in this episode that it was really Zemo who broke himself out. So maybe Bucky didn't slip him the keycard after all - it was ambiguous last episode. Which means Zemo could have escaped anytime he wanted, and that Bucky had realised this.
We haven't yet had any payoff to Zemo being on Bucky's list of villains who owe him amends. Was Bucky always intending a confrontation with Zemo?
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From episode 4 thread:
52 minutes ago, benteen said:Disney decided to have Hydra break away from the Nazis, despite the fact that Red Skull is and was a gigantic Nazi in the comics. So Cap didn't fight Nazis in the MCU though this show tries to convince the audience otherwise.
I'd say he fought both. The Howling Commandos were tasked to take down Hydra strongholds, but those were spread across occupied Europe. So I think there is a strong implication that their planned operations were against Hydra, but they would have come across non-Hydra enemy forces at other times given the territory they were operating in.
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So far in show, Walker has been a foil for Sam, as they were both wresting with being symbol and taking the identity of Captain America
But now he is a super-soldier he is also placed in opposition to Bucky: Walker took the serum which magnified his internal flaws vs Bucky who had the serum forced upon him whilst being mentally broken by his captors.
Sam's journey in the show is to find his place in something larger than himself, but Bucky's journey is to heal himself and become a whole person again. And he's got his own shields so high that I frustrated because I have no idea how he is progressing with that. Maybe Walker's reaction to the serum will be the catalyst for Bucky to open up to Sam about what was done to him?
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48 minutes ago, cambridgeguy said:
Because heroes, especially a guy who's supposed to be the anti-John Walker and successor to Steve Rogers, shouldn't sit back and laugh their heads off just because they don't like the guy getting pummeled in front of them?
Fair point.
But now I am wondering if the intention was to show the Dora Milaje as winning a fair fight, or going too far in pummelling somebody. They've been presented as impressive and sympathetic so far, and I'd been uncritically accepting their actions as heroic, not as bullies that need to be stopped.
S06.E04: Hour of the Wolf
in Outlander
I don't blame the characters for their vagueness. I remember in the books Claire studied up on latter 18th Century Scottish history before coming back, then found herself in America so none of her knowledge was relevant. And Brianna was raised in a different State so knows more big-picture US history but still the wrong local history.
It sounds about right to me that the only solid fact Bree passed on was the name of the officer in charge of the Trail of Tears - she would have been taught about these events from textbooks written in the 1950s. It's easy to forget 'modern' time-travellers aren't our contemporaries and that they have progressive attitudes even by the standards of their original time-period.
Show Ian hasn't been working for me for the last couple of seasons. He hadn't developed the competence and dangerous edge that Book Ian possessed by this point, and I was wondering if the actor was up to the task.
But I am liking what they are doing with him now a lot more; though they didn't previously have room to give him gradual development the focus he's had in the last couple of episodes is making him closer to the character I really enjoy from the books. And I agree tieing his loss to Jamie's loss of Faith works well.
The book plotline didn't have a Dances with Wolves vibe to me because the books had so much more room for side-characters to flesh out the entire backcountry eco-system. There's a lot more with Trading Posts and hunters & intermarriages etc to show that Ian isn't The Special One With a Unique Understanding, but one of many people whose lives bridged multiple cultures. The show has a harder job because it has to have a tighter focus.
At this point in the books Ian has a full scalp of hair. Might be they made the change for filming continuity with all the flashbacks, as I guess a Mohawk bald-wig would look terrible and the actor really was given this hairstyle.
Young Ian's clothes are often described along the lines of 'hunting leathers'. His general appearance is nondescript backcountry look. Sometimes he is more formal for various reasons and then he does wear more signifiers of his adopted culture.