absnow54

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.

I love that the flowers at Craigh na Dun are the first things to be vibrantly colored before Claire is swept back in time. It's a nice contrast against the unsaturated 40's coloring.

I assume they'll recast, which is unfortunate, because I really like the current actors they have in the roles. Cait and Sam are both in their 30's so they're already fairly older than their characters in the first two books, but I don't think I'd buy them as parents of a 20+ year old a few seasons down the line. Honestly, I wouldn't mind if they departed from the books and stayed in the 1940's/1740's time to deal with Claire's reappearance, but I also never got into the later books, so the new cast of characters don't appeal to me.

I was so impressed by the first episode. Caitriona Balfe is brilliant as Claire and embodied both her fire and her humor perfectly. I agree that two weeks is too long to wait. I can't wait to see the rest of this series.