emilyplum

Well, I was wrong about Marsali's name pronunciation. Somebody asked Maril on twitter and she said everyone in Scotland took them to task for the wrong pronunciation (despite the fact that Diana actually wrote out the pronunciation in the book). It will rhyme parsley, apparently! That will take some getting used to, but it does make sense to use the correct Gaelic pronunciation.

By the time of the Leap O the Cask, Jamie's been in the cave at least 5-6 years right? If that's the case, it makes sense to go ahead and use the older actor I think (as Fergus should be...late teens by then, right?). It might be jarring to switch up the Ferguses in the middle of a single episode (I highly doubt they're going to spread the dunbonnet stuff out over more than one episode as it is just SO SAD).

Re: the broken nose - that may fall into the same category as them marking each other's hands. From a makeup/prosthetic standpoint a broken nose/bump would be hard to replicate for every scene. They already have to do so much for Jamie's various scars, I wouldn't be surprised if they left that out altogether, even though I love that line (and Jamie's reply "about five minutes after I last saw you, Sassenach") and that part of the reunion.

Although, Davina Porter also never calls Laoghaire Leery...it's more Leer-ah. Who knows. She also has Brianna as "Bree-ah-na" pronounced that way by both Bree and Claire in the audiobooks, not the Bree-ANN-ah that Bree used herself on the show. Who knows. (Just a sidenote to add that lord have mercy please let Diana finish all of these books before Davina Porter retires or worse, because I can't IMAGINE a voice that's not hers reading them to me.)

It is marSAULee (emphasis on the 2nd syllable), at least according to the audiobook narrator Davina Porter (whom I adooooooooore).

From a grand scheme standpoint, I'm really happy with Season 2. It was just as beautiful and heartbreaking as I thought it should be. I still wish they'd combined the watch and the search into one ep in season 1, so we could have had one extra episode to cover Jamie's healing at the abbey. That would have removed a lot of the angst and strain between J/C in the start of Season 2...but I get why they did it, and I appreciate more time being given to him having to get over such a trauma. I wish they'd scrapped almost all of the Fox's Lair episode and just covered it with a few lines of dialogue (Hey, we went to see my jerk of a grandfather, he gave us some men, but he's playing both sides, his son is sort of anemic and we'll see how that goes, etc. etc.), and given us a full episode of Lallybroch fluff instead of just 5 minutes of a potato harvest. I know that DIA is a BIG BOOK, with lots of plot (and a lot of that plot is handled "off screen" so to speak in the book and has to be given screen time in the show in order to make sense to viewers), so I know they had to sacrifice a lot of the fun and tender stuff in order to get it all on our televisions. I didn't just miss sex scenes between Jamie and Claire (even though to me, those scenes often have some of Diana's best dialogue); I also missed their humor and their intimacy as a couple and a family. And that section of the book in Lallybroch really was beautiful, when they had some hope of just living their lives as farmers. But anyway. It was still great. I loved all the performances, almost all of the changes, and having it all brought to life on my TV. I always thought it was ridiculous in the book for Claire not to have told Jamie that it was Laoghaire's note that got her in the middle of the witch trial morass, so I'm glad they changed that in the show. Claire basically told him to forgive Laoghaire in the Fox's Lair, so it'll be interesting how they work that in for Season 3.

My main wackiness grumble about Voyager, aside from the things already mentioned (ha) is the

Angus was in the books...he actually ends up in Ardsmuir with Jamie, but his character was totally different. I love love LOVE how they fleshed out him and Rupert both in the show, and was heartbroken to see him die this week. And then, as others have stated, if Rupert dies at the church/falkirk this week? :( SO SO sad. But I think the 'vengeance' in next week's episode will more than make up for it.

I assume they will leave Mary Macnab entirely out of it. She was just a blip, and at this point in the show we haven't met Mrs. Macnab (or Grannie Macnab, for that matter, right? Just the awful father and the poor son?). Although of all of Jamie's post-Claire sexual partners, she was definitely my favorite! Surely they're going to condense the cave/Arsdmuir/Helwater into 2-3 episodes maximum, right? And those episodes have to serve to mostly show Jamie becoming/being Mac Dubh and his and John's budding/tenuous/lasting friendship. It would be a tough pill to swallow for them to try to throw in an actual love story for Jamie and Geneva in that condensed timeframe. I'm fine with her being a young brat who isn't thrilled with her impending marriage, and I'm fine with her being smart/cunning/awful enough to try to blackmail Jamie by threatening his family. I'm not fine with the withdrawal of consent and his refusal of it, and SURELY they can take that out. Surely. They could always have Geneva survive childbirth, her husband still get shot by Jamie after trying to throw the baby out the window, and then SHE marries Lord John and no-so-tragically perishes at sea later? Doubt they'd change it though.

Everything I've been able to glean about DG's "jump the shark" comment is

Add me to the list of those thankful we skipped the "do you want to beat me for it"/nettles NONSENSE from the book. To me that was the most out of character Jamie and Claire moment in the books up until their bizarre sex after Claire's rescue in Breath of Snow and Ashes. That one still seems needlessly dramatic to me. This episode stuck with me all day after I watched it, and I'm still thinking about it 24 hours later. My only problem was with the cotton ball fake beard. Even scraggly stubble would have been better than that. It looked so fake it was distracting. I was surprised they didn't have Louis hopping up to finish with this wife/mistres instead of Claire, so as to avoid a possible half-Royal baby, like in the book. I think this whole episode was done far better than the book depicted the events. I'm so glad also that all the wine/smallpox/Portugal shenanigans were already finished and we didn't have the whole side plot of her thinking Jamie was accomplishing his mission while actually he was in the Bastille.

I thought this for a while too, but based on one review I read (can't remember where or when, sorry) that we were going 'beyond time travel' this season, sci fi wise...I think we're going to get the blue light/Raymond scene this upcoming ep. And also, she had the stone-less/empty ring when she came back to the 40s in Episode 1. I've got a hunch they're going to switch that up to be Raymond giving her the ring with the stone, and explaining how it could help. But, who knows. The gem stones weren't introduced until Book 3, really, right? But anyway, that's more fantastical sci-fi-y stuff, that it looks like we'll get to see.

It's been a while (to be honest, only a month or so, ha!) since I reread DIA, but I seem to remember it not being immediate when Jamie explained La Dame Blanche. I continue to love Murtagh and Fergus, and even more so when they're together. Save Murtagh!

So, I saw something recently (can't remember if it was DG's twitter, or possibly FB, anyway) where someone was harping on how Frank threatened to take Brianna away to Europe and DG responded with "But you don't know WHY, do you?" We know he knew about the Fraser prophecy (which, I have to admit I think is just the silliest plotline, but anyway)...so I think that he was taking her away to hide her from whoever else knew of the prophecy as well. Although why he'd take her to Europe in that case, I don't know. But anyway, my speculation is that Frank's death wasn't an accident.

Yes, definitely. They have to keep in her being mistaken for a 'new girl', and Ian, young Ian, and Fergus' arrival/meetings. All of that is just too great to skip!