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Outlander: Give Me Liberty

Another longer-than-usual episode filled to the brim with Outlander goodness.

I don't usually start with the teaser, but I'd like to thank the Outlander powers that be for bringing Andrew Gower back one more time as the Bonnie Prince – in a bonnet – giving us one final "Mark me" and quite literally rowing over the sea to Skye. I could not stop smiling.

Being a time traveler's husband, Jamie Fraser knows that now is the right time to change sides in the coming war. Doesn't make it easy, especially since his best friend is a former British officer and a friend of Governor Martin's. I liked the way Jamie and John managed to retain their friendship anyway, even taking the same side of basic human decency when the Sons of Liberty attacked a Tory printer with tar and feathers. Later, Jamie was able to save the situation and prove himself as a rebel by saving Cornelius Harnett, an historical personage, from arrest by the redcoats.

The fun part of the trip to Wilmington was Flora MacDonald, another historical personage, smoking hemp with Claire and Jocasta at a Loyalist event. MacDonald actually was a minor celebrity for her role in saving Charles Stuart and gave Loyalist speeches in the colonies, as she did here. I liked the way they combined the theft of an emerald in MacDonald's necklace with the return of Wendigo Donner, time traveling Beatles fan, who is now in prison whistling the "Colonel Bogey March."


(Don't they search prisoners in the eighteenth century? Stephen Bonnet managed to hang on to a black diamond in prison, too.)

Unfortunately, reminiscing about close encounters with royalty brought back unpleasant Versailles-related memories for Claire. What's really bothering me about this ether thing isn't that Claire is finding it necessary to medicate herself, which is totally understandable, but that she's keeping it from Jamie. That's not something the two of them do.

Meanwhile back at the Ridge, Roger hadn't realized that helping the widowed Amy McCallum made it look like he was cheating on Brianna. It took blackmail by Malva, whom Roger caught on the floor of the new meeting house canoodling with Obadiah whoever, to clue Roger in. I liked that they didn't go with a cliched jealousy plot. Brianna is confident in Roger's fidelity and was just miffed that he was spending so much time with Amy and her kids. Especially since Brianna is pregnant again. Exclamation point.

This felonious escalation by Malva is a tad alarming. It didn't look like she killed the old man in the woods – was that the sin-eater, by the way? – but cutting off a dead man's fingers and creating love charms, combined with threatening to blackmail Roger, are far from innocent activities.

Book versus series

Again, pretty much all from the book. The bit with Stephen Bonnet's balls in a jar was a bit different, the Flora MacDonald event was at River Run, and Jamie told Lord John about changing sides in a letter instead of in person, but these are minor changes.

Bits:

— The flashback to June 1746 was followed by a new version of the Skye Boat Song in Gaelic by the male singer. Terrific.

— The post-credit vignette was the "Join or Die" flag. Not ominous at all.

— We didn't see it happen, but Jocasta bought Fergus a printshop and he and Marsali and the kids are moving to New Bern. I hope this doesn't mean we won't be seeing them as often.

— Bree and Roger expecting means that there's no going back to the 20th century now. One would think.


— Was that gorgeous blue house the previously discussed palacial governor's mansion? Was that why we were told that Governor Martin couldn't attend? I liked the Red Falcon, too.

— Toy cars and a toy airplane. Like singing a twentieth century song, probably not going to cause harm, but it feels like rule-breaking of sorts, doesn't it?

A lot of wonderful material, and progression in a number of plotlines. Three out of four toy airplanes,

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

3 comments:

  1. my favorite part is when Jamie schooled the Sons Of Liberty and gave them part of the first amendment

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  2. At first I couldn't figure out why they'd bothered to flashback to Claire's trauma at Versailles, but it was a nice reminder of why democracy is better than monarchies and royalty, so it fits with other events in the episode and implicitly responds to John's questions to Jamie about what the appeal of independence is.

    Why, pray tell, do people name their children things that sound so villainous? Was Malva a common name back then? I've never heard it before this show.

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  3. One of my grandmother's sisters was named Melva. They called her "Mel." I'd never heard the name Malva before the Outlander book.

    My grandmother was one of seven sisters, btw. They all got dressed up once and got a professional photographer and did a bunch of posed photos.

    ReplyDelete

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