S07.E09: Unfinished Business

[nodorothyparker]

For bookwalkers:

Quote

Jamie, Claire, and Ian return to Lallybroch; Ian reconnects with his family in a time of need, while Claire deals with the fallout from a long-held secret; Roger and Buck search for Jemmy in the past.

 

[nodorothyparker]

So that was a whole lot of speedreading through all the various loose ends in Scotland. Kristin Atherton's reading of Jenny is a whole lot broader than the very very book specific Jenny we got from Laura Donnelly but I frankly would have been surprised if it wasn't. It's got to be tough picking up a role of a character we only see intermittently years apart in a long running series and have to hit several big character moments right out of the gate. Considering that her role going forward will be mostly reacting to things out of her own limited space, she should be fine.

Laoghaire is Laoghaire. That's about all that can be said there. The show did gamely try to hit the point that Jamie wasn't exactly the poor put upon innocent in their brief marriage of the damned whatever else Jamie and Claire may like to tell themselves, even with the speedreader version of their final settlement.  He used her as a placeholder and never cared enough to try beyond that. But either way, that's checked off.

At least they finally did the big time travel reveal onscreen instead of the usual oh I told them about it both book and show tend toward just off screen or off page. The Murrays didn't really react much to what has to sound like a barking mad sort of thing to characters who haven't been playing along but it probably helps that Jamie and Young Ian who have now lived with her for years are sitting right there and so clearly believe this to be true. Kind of like with the Buck storyline last season, that they all come from a culture full of stories about fairies and disappearing for 200 years doesn't hurt either, and as as Jenny says, it explains a lot of things about Claire that she'd previously had to accept some pretty flimsy sounding excuses for.

The doors opening first to Brian Frasier and then Geillis were nicely done, especially in building to the first fakeout of expecting Jamie to open the Lallybroch door to Roger. I can mostly think the storyline of accidentally wandering into the 1739 wayback is mostly a dud on the page in that it doesn't really advance the larger story or accomplish much beyond a few "huh, well then" character moments and still be interested to see what they do with it.

[Ziggy]

Did Jenny not travel to the Colonies with Claire in the book?  I do distinctly remember her saying she was coming with them, now that Ian had passed away.

[ch1]

24 minutes ago, Ziggy said:

Did Jenny not travel to the Colonies with Claire in the book?  I do distinctly remember her saying she was coming with them, now that Ian had passed away.

Ian was still alive when Clare left.  That is the reason Jaime stayed behind.  Jenny left with Jaime.

[Ziggy]

6 hours ago, ch1 said:

Ian was still alive when Clare left.  That is the reason Jaime stayed behind.  Jenny left with Jaime.

Right, I understand why the show portrayed it that way. What I’m asking is, did Jenny travel with Claire or with Jamie in the books? And who did Young Iam travel with?

I just can’t remember how it happened in the books, so I was hoping somebody would remind me.

[areca]

She's telling you how it happened in the books.  Claire ends up thinking Jamie is dead, because the boat they were supposed to be on fails somehow when he and Jenny are traversing to the colonies, but I can't remember how.

Also, new Jenny doesn't hold a freakin candle to Laura Donnely.  I'm so sad she didn't return.  She _nailed_ the Jenny char.

Edited November 24 by areca

[nodorothyparker]

Young Ian and Claire leave to go back to colonies in the book pretty much as they did here. Book Claire is initially going back to operate on one of Fergus and Marsali's kids but then Lord John and his nephew pop up as well since they're all right there. The show is combining those two things, probably because there's so much more dramatic fallout thrusting Claire into Lord John and William's orbit. Book John actually had been writing letters chasing them around for months looking for help because as unlikely as it may sound there were cases of people who could and did linger for extended periods of time from gunshot wounds if they didn't die right away. The nephew had gotten enough medical care of the day to still be alive but no one had been able to dig all the bullets out and patch him up enough to actually recover. 

Jenny will surprise everyone by deciding to leave with Jamie after Ian Senior dies because she's just done with everything. The misdirect comes when they book passage on a ship that for some reason leaves without them and then is lost at sea. Jennie and Jamie then book passage on another ship and show up later in Philadelphia not having any idea that everyone believed they'd gone down with the first ship. Drama ensues.

[GHScorpiosRule]

Nothing against the actress, but I don’t like the new Jenny. She looks older than Jamie when she’s supposed to be younger. Even in the flashback, she didn’t look the teenager she was supposed to be. I really wish Laura could have come back. The chemistry isn’t there for me, either m.

EWWWWW! Hosebeast!!! I thought I’d seen the last of her. And her utter delusional hypocrisy over Jamie and attacking him again is just tiresome at this point.

I haven’t checked, but it looks like Joanie is played by the same actress who played her as wee?

I LOVED seeing Steven Cree again as Ian!! And he broke my heart at the end. 

But oh it was so wonderful to see Beautiful Scotland again! And Jamie and Claire.

[Noneofyourbusiness]

2 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

Nothing against the actress, but I don’t like the new Jenny. She looks older than Jamie when she’s supposed to be younger. Even in the flashback, she didn’t look the teenager she was supposed to be. I really wish Laura could have come back. The chemistry isn’t there for me, either m.

As I said in the nobooktalk thread, Jenny is older than Jamie (and in the flashbacks, she's 20 or 21 if Jamie is 18 or 19 as Roger thought to himself), and Laura didn't want to come back.

Edited November 24 by Noneofyourbusiness

[GHScorpiosRule]

25 minutes ago, Noneofyourbusiness said:

As I said in the nobooktalk thread, Jenny is older than Jamie (and in the flashbacks, she's 20 or 21 if Jamie is 18 or 19 as Roger thought to himself), and Laura didn't want to come back.

So I read and I mentioned that I could have sworn they said she was 16 to his 18 when Black Jack tried to rape her in season one. And too bad Laura didn’t want to return.

[Ziggy]

On 11/23/2024 at 10:38 PM, areca said:

She's telling you how it happened in the books. 

Thank you for the clarification.  I'm not sure that was obvious.

[Night Cheese]

I liked this episode very much. This is one of my favorite parts of the later books-the return to Scotland, removing the remaining clutches Leghair had around Jamie, and Claire revealing that she is a time traveler. But like in the books, I felt like Claire's reveal was a bit of a let-down. Cut to the family staring at Claire, mouths agape, then cut to a different scene? C'mon! Let's get some questions for the time traveler! Let's get some clarification on past misunderstandings! Let's get at least a little bit of Jenny eating crow over how awful she was when Claire returned after 20 years. We got decades-overdue clearing of the air with Leghair and Jamie, but we couldn't get a little bit of conversation between Claire and the Murrays? 

And what a contrived way to get Claire back to the colonies. Is Henri-Christian in the show at all? I wish he were the reason Claire was returning to America, not LJ's nephew. Realistically, what is the likelihood that this man is still alive? Lord John's letter would surely be dated and Claire should have taken one look at the date and said "even if he's somehow still alive today, what are the chances he holds out over the next 4-6 weeks that it will take me to get to Philadelphia?" I mean, how did this guy not already die of infection or sepsis? It's not like they have antibiotics or penicillin lying around while they wait for a skilled surgeon to show up.

I love that Roger and Buck miss the mark on their return to the past and come across Geillis. Am I right in remembering that Buck stays with Geillis and they take up some sort of relationship? 

[Noneofyourbusiness]

1 hour ago, Night Cheese said:

But like in the books, I felt like Claire's reveal was a bit of a let-down. Cut to the family staring at Claire, mouths agape, then cut to a different scene? C'mon! Let's get some questions for the time traveler! Let's get some clarification on past misunderstandings! Let's get at least a little bit of Jenny eating crow over how awful she was when Claire returned after 20 years.

Is Henri-Christian in the show at all?

It didn't exactly cut to a different scene, it cut to Jamie greeting Joanie, which interrupted that gathering. I'm not sure Jenny should feel a need to apologize given that Claire was lying to her and keeping secrets; I'd say they're even (although in fact Jenny did start to apologize when she thought Claire might still be holding it against her, which Claire wasn't). It seems to be enough to both Jenny and Claire that she now knows why Claire was gone.

Yes, Henri-Christian is in the show. Fergus was blaming himself for not being there when Marsali was attacked, thinking that had something to do with his dwarfism until Claire set him straight, and Roger scolded boys for endangering Henri-Christian. But Fergus and Marsali aren't in this season.

Edited November 25 by Noneofyourbusiness

[Night Cheese]

1 hour ago, Noneofyourbusiness said:

It didn't exactly cut to a different scene, it cut to Jamie greeting Joanie, which interrupted that gathering. I'm not sure Jenny should feel a need to apologize given that Claire was lying to her and keeping secrets; I'd say they're even (although in fact Jenny did start to apologize when she thought Claire might still be holding it against her, which Claire wasn't). It seems to be enough to both Jenny and Claire that she now knows why Claire was gone.

Different scene or different part of the same scene, potato potahto. I wanted to see some reactions and follow-up from the Murrays. It could have cut between them and Jamie/Joan and then back, but regardless, the scene in this episode and that part of the book left me wanting a lot more.

I wasn't suggesting Jenny should apologize. She blamed Claire for a lot of what Jamie went through after Culloden, mistakingly thinking Claire was safe and just chose not to come back to help at Lallybroch. I would have liked to have seen her start to understood that Jamie sent her through the stones, expecting to die, to protect herself and their unborn child, and that Claire couldn't just go back to Lallybroch to help them. Harboring bad feelings towards Claire for decades doesn't necessitate an apology (IMO), but recognizing the misunderstanding and reflecting on where you may have been wrong is character growth that I was hoping to see on screen. They seemed to have parted on better terms here than the books, and if they continue the storyline with Jenny coming to America with Jamie, I hope we get to see Jenny and Claire older, wiser, and able to speak openly with each other and move past anything still lingering. I think as characters they both desperately need a sister and it's heartbreaking that they started to form that bond before Claire had to leave to find Jamie, and that they were never able to recoup that.