absnow54

The angle was definitely optimal for giffing and swooning, but I think it was also very effective in presenting, in simplest form, Jamie's most defining character aspect. And that, to me, is him embracing his role as a natural leader. In the first episode we see him play tough, sort of emulating Dougal when he needs to hold onto Claire as his prisoner, and then in the next few episodes, he's sort of trying to keep his head down. Then you have Claire there challenging him (like with helping the boy with the nail in his ear) and he starts to grow more confident. I thought the camera looking at him straight on when he uttered that line to be the perfect introduction to the character he'll be growing into.

Murtagh explained that because Jamie has MacKenzie blood, he's be eligible for the lairdship, just like any other man with MacKenzie blood. What makes Jamie dangerous though, is that he's the only other candidate that can challenge Dougal's loyalty among the clansmen. What I don't understand is why Rupert would push Jamie to pledge when he's shown sympathy toward him during the hall beating. Did everyone not know the "damned if I do/damned if I don't"ness of the scenario? The tension when he stepped up to pledge suggested that everyone knew.

I always found that point kind of extraneous, with not much payoff. Geillis drops the bomb and then it isn't brought up again until Claire finds out Jamie is a virgin, and it's more along the lines of "Guess that bit of crazy isn't true... moving on" I like the way they've already established that Dougal is Hamish's father. What I found odd was how competitive Dougal and Jamie were to be laird in the Gathering episode with no mention that Hamish was technically next in line. With the humor in this episode and the great chemistry between Claire and the clansmen, I'm even more excited for the wedding episode. All of those fun scenes leading up to the ceremony and then of course post-consummation are going to be a blast to see played out by these actors.

I think you're right, but the Scottish version is called shinty.

They were playing field hockey, which is an English game. At my school they only had a woman's team, and they had to wear kilts.

It was actually unintentionally brilliant given how much Jamie loves horses. I thought this was a fun episode with a lot of great humor, but it definitely felt like filler. I just want to watch Jamie say "Je suis prest" on loop for the next hour or two.

That's odd about the accuracy of the plants, because during the inside look for this episode, they talk about the pains they went through to assure they used the right kind of plants.

Especially since he started fooling around with Laoghaire after he'd shown zero interest in her at the gathering. I assume that he was using her to relieve some of the tension from the not so pure thoughts he was having about Claire, which was a pretty shitty thing for him to do. I'm not sure of the context of the preview though. It still may play out the same as in the book.

I agree that Jamie is hurt, embarrassed and betrayed, and that he wants to punish Claire for her actions, but when the scene plays out Claire is very much horrified while Jamie is amused. It's the tone that bothers me, I guess. Claire feels guilty for betraying Jamie and trying to abandon him, which is why I would have liked to see her volunteer to take her own punishment. I understand the direction DG took it in, and I think your above commentary is a great analysis. I just hated that Claire's agency was completely ignored (and even laughed at) when before that, the book had shown an unexpected respect towards female characters.

So now that we've seen the scene where Jamie volunteers to take Laoghaire's punishment, I'm reminded of what I didn't like about the infamous spanking scene. At this point Jamie has demonstrated that he's willing to be roughed up, because he knows that he can take it, but he's protective of others receiving the physical end of punishment. We see it again (it looks like it'll be in the next episode) when the young boy gets his ear nailed to a post, and Jamie yields to Claire's wishes and helps free him. So when the spanking scene came about, I was never upset that Claire got the punishment. It was that Jamie never volunteered to take it himself. I think it would have been a far more interesting power play if the scene had played out similar to the council, where Dougal sentenced Claire to lashes, Jamie took responsibility, and Claire, now more familiar with the customs, took her punishment. What I hated most about the scene was that Claire was clearly opposed to the beating, and Jamie, who had previously shown so much respect towards her (he clearly admired her strong will) didn't seem to care.

I think they were trying to work out where her loyalties lie. Someone with a French last name pronounced the English way is probably far more English than they are French, so if you're in the midst of a rebellion where the French are your friends and the English are your enemies, and an English woman who comes off as super English is all "er, I'm totes with the French, haven't you heard my last name? Please let me go back to Iverness where you ran into a bunch of hostile Red Coats... er, I mean so I can get to France..." you'd probably be asking a lot of questions to trip them up and get the truth out of them. Which they did... sort of.

I love Sam, I think he's the perfect Jamie, but I had to watch the stables scene about 5 times before I could figure out what he was saying. I think he needs to pull back the brogue just a bit at times when it's a more dialogue heavy scene. He's definitely pulling off the charm though, and man, the way he looks at Claire in every scene... *fans self*

In the book he delivers the beating, but unless the actors look really similar, I thought Rupert was the one who delivered the beating on the show. I thought Angus was the sassy one who didn't want to give up his belt in the first episode.

I still can't tell Rupert/Angus/Murtagh apart. I thought I had it figured out last week, but this week, apparently I was wrong on every count. It's like Game of Thrones all over again where every secondary character is the "I don't know, the old guy with a beard..." I thought they filmed the scene with the leeches, but I guess the licorice didn't look realistic enough.

Maybe their blood alcohol level is high enough that they'll all be immune.

I think the video is also on the Starz YouTube page, which you don't need an account to view.

Shouldn't he be wearing the Fraser colors during the Lallybroch flashback though? I guess I can reason that the flashback is what Claire imagines based on Jamie's description -- hence the same color plaid she knows him to wear, but with that argument, one would wonder how Claire knows exactly what Jamie's sister looks like without ever seeing her. That's major inconsequential nitpickiness though.

They replayed Outlander pretty much on the hour every hour yesterday, and I swear I stopped to watch that scene every time. The way he says "Well then," and then glances down at her mouth before finishing the line, and then that disbelieving smirk at the end? Perfect casting.

This is a good point, and there are probably a few medical uses for it (I distinctly remember a scene from Pearl Harbor where they start gathering the nurse's hosiery for tourniquets) so if she were wearing any, she'd probably find some use for it.

Sam may have been talking about his kiss with Laoghaire, maybe? That happens pretty early on. There's also a scene right after Claire removes Jamie's bandages in her chambers after she'd been drinking. She says that that night she has unsettling dreams that she would not recall come morning. I always thought that given the sexual tension when she was tending to him, that she'd had a sex dream about him, so maybe there will be some sort of fake out, fantasy kiss. I think the first half of the season will end with Jamie's rescue of Claire from Randall and then pick up with the spanking in the second. I think the action of the rescue will be a more interesting note to end on, because the danger the party is in will be fresh. But, given how controversial the spanking scene is, they'll probably end with that so people have something to talk about during the hiatus.

Your sister and nephew were murdered at your wedding, and you still went on your honeymoon? For shame!

I admit, I disliked that change, but it wasn't just the "but that's Jamie's thing!" aspect of it, it was the change to Frank's character in general. As Frank is presented in the first handful of chapters, he seems somewhat selfish, and oblivious to Claire's needs. They go on a few day trips together, but often Frank leaves Claire to her own devices while he goes off to do his historical research and even when Claire is invited along, she feels ostracized (the tea scene goes very differently in the book.) Also, at this point, I think they're actively trying to start a family, which is another strain on their relationship, and I got the impression that although they enjoyed one another, the sex wasn't primarily for pleasure, so oral didn't make sense to me. I do agree though, given how confident and in tune Claire is with her sexuality, it's silly to think that she'd never been gone down on. I mean she did it for Jamie... with teeth, so it's not like the concept was completely foreign to her. He did use a horse analogy as his inspiration.

The 20 year time jump between the first and second book is very abrupt, so I don't they'll pay anything more than a few passing mentions and the occasional flashback to Frank raising Brianna.

I thought it was a nice subtle tie in where Frank assumes the mysterious ghost was a soldier that Claire had treated, and then, at the end of the episode, after Claire has treated Jamie, she refers to him as soldier. It kind of foreshadowed the journey Claire was about to take. I do suspect that Frank sought comfort during the war. Claire implies that he lost a lot of men behind the lines and that it troubled him, and it was also established that both used physical intimacy to solve their problems.

I know in Outlander especially, Claire slips into Jamie's POV, where she'll begin discussing something with Jamie through dialogue and then in the narrative fill in details as to what she learned from their conversation. Another example is Jamie's first encounter with Randall. Jamie speaks for several pages and then at one point, Claire takes over recounting the tale to the reader. I know I got a little tripped up in those types of scenes because it was hard to remember who was speaking and for whom they were speaking for. I think the recounting of the rape scene is similar.