thesparkinside

It was an okay episode. Like everyone else, I kept expecting it to fade to black as Claire was approaching the print shop, then walking into the print shop, then hearing the bell ring . . . I was also expecting them to maybe cut back to the 18th c. at least once, though I realized about halfway through that we weren't going to be doing that. I was bummed, because I didn't find the bulk of the episode very interesting. It was a lot of Briana-Claire-Roger, which was good in some respects. We needed to establish that dynamic and those characters. BUT, instead of cramming all that into one episode like they did, they should've minimized the Frank stuff and distributed more of Brianna-Claire-Roger and their search over the last four episodes. It felt like all those disjointed bits with Claire, Frank, and young Bree were only there as filler so that Claire and Jamie could move together through time at the same pace. The focus on Frank and Claire really wasn't handled well, IMO, and made both Frank and Claire look terrible. The writers would have been better served, I think, to have 1968 as a frame, with our Scooby Gang uncovering history and getting to know one another, with their clues leading us back into the 18th c., where Jamie is living the story their uncovering. (For example, they find a record of Jamie in prison--cut to Jamie in prison.) Instead, they committed themselves to two years here, two years there, meaning they had to spend a lot of time filling in gaps in Claire's story that, frankly, didn't need to be filled in. What the writers chose to do wasn't awful, but I thought it could have been much better. The 18th c. stuff was so much more effective than the 20th c. stuff. I do love Roger, though. That's a major bright spot. With respect to Sophie Skelton and Wil Johnson - I don't mind that they're British actors playing Americans, but . . . why not just get American actors? They got French actors to play French characters. Surely there are either American ex-pats or actors who are willing to get on a plane. I dunno; maybe they auditioned Brits and Americans, and these two were the best. They're doing fine. Sophie was better this episode. Wil/Joe has been fine with me all along.

I'm pretty sure it's L who shoots Jamie in a fit of anger when she learns Claire is back. I don't need to see Jamie and Fergus getting established in Edinburgh, but I'm wondering what they'll do with Jamie. It looks like Claire will go through the stones at the very end of the next episode. Will we stay with her the whole episode? I'm assuming not. Which leaves us two options, really: Jenny convincing Jamie to marry L (I cannot spell her name to save my life) or Jamie and Fergus getting started in Edinburgh, Or both? In the book, we don't see those things in "real time"; Claire learns about them when she reunited with Jamie.

AD55, you make very good points. I have found Claire's side of the story to not be very compelling, and I wasn't able to put my finger on why. I think you hit the nail on the head, so to speak. It's because Claire has no new conflict. It's all about Jamie being gone, and how that interferes with her 20th-century marriage, and that's the same conflict as was introduced in the last episode of season 2, and it's still ongoing. Compare that to Jamie, who's hiding in a cave and surviving in prison and getting blackmailed. All kinds of highjinks. The material is there in the book for them to give Claire more to do, but they've focused on her and Frank. To address the underlying implication, it is sexist, but it's also just boring storytelling. It's executed pretty well, and I don't think it's God-awful, but it isn't all that interesting. I'm wondering about next episode. On Claire's end, she'll go back to Boston and then will be brought back to Scotland when more info is uncovered. But on Jamie's side, what will we see? We're almost up to the "present" in his storyline. Will we see the events with Loughaire (spp?) in "real-time" (in the book we learn about it at the same time as Claire)? Will we see the print shop before Claire arrives there? Will older Fergus be introduced, or will they save that for when Claire is reintroduced to him? I'm curious to see what'll happen. I'm assuming here that she'll travel through the stones at the very end of the episode