My first impression was, I'm just not into this story. It felt a bit like the Dexter reboot with younger actors playing the older familiar characters, or like it is all easter eggs, or possibly cosplay. Like oh, that's young Murtagh, ooh, that's young Mrs. Fitz. It lacks Gabaldon's gift for compelling storytelling. And the super explicit sex scenes made me uncomfortable, like they wanted to shock us. Or more likely to suggest that explicit sex is what made Outlander so good, so that's what they're giving us. Did they forget that you have to be emotionally connected to the characters to make love scenes work?
That said, the casting is really good. The new actors playing the old characters are recognizable. Brian Fraser (Jamie Roy) looks like Sam Heughan with black hair, and Julia Moriston (Hermione Corfield) looks like a clone of Caitríona Balfe. I am particularly fond of solicitor Ned Gowan (played here by Conor MacNeill) and Murtagh (Rory Alexander). We see Rupert and Angus as children, played by the children of the original actors, but only briefly in the first and last episodes.
The locations and scenery are ultra familiar. We know all of these castles already. That should have made me comfortable. But instead, it made me think that maybe I've had enough of eighteenth century Scotland.
Below is a synopsis and mini-review of the first five episodes, including spoilers. The action this season takes place in 1714 and at unspecified dates during World War I.
1.1 Providence
"One cannot walk. One cannot think."
BoMB begins at Castle Leoch with the death of Red Jacob, laird of the clan MacKenzie, and preparations for his funeral. Unfortunately, he did not name a successor, creating a power vacuum. A new laird will be chosen at the upcoming Gathering.
Ellen was a favorite of her father's, and the unspoken truth is that she is the one best suited to be laird – except that she cannot be because she is a woman. Colum is mentally suited, clever and canny, but he is suffering from the as yet unknown Toulouse-Lautrec syndrome and already has difficulty walking. Dougal is big, physically powerful, ultra-masculine and not entirely stupid, but he is also headstrong and thoughtless. (As Red Jacob said, "One cannot walk. One cannot think.") We saw a ton of this Colum versus Dougal dynamic in the first two seasons of Outlander, so it is very familiar to fans of the show.
The other major players this season are the Grants. Because of a misunderstanding about stolen cows (okay, kine), Colum wants to make it up to the Grants by giving Ellen in marriage to young Malcolm Grant, who is infatuated with her.
Just like the Gathering in the original Outlander, there's a tynchal. Murtagh kills a boar; since we've seen Outlander, we know what will happen to its tusks. Jocasta, Ellen's sister and Murtagh's future love interest, washes the boar blood off Murtagh's hands.
We move to Castle Leathers, where Jamie Fraser's despicable grandfather, Lord Simon Fraser of Lovat, reigns supreme and treats his illegitimate son Brian Fraser like trash. Lovat also treats Brian's mother, Davina, one of his housemaids, like trash. Lovat is glad Jacob MacKenzie is dead and feels justice has been done. He wants Murtagh to go to the Gathering to spy, and to take Brian along.
At the Gathering, Murtagh sees Ellen and falls hard for her. Unfortunately for Murtagh, the handsomer Brian Fraser does the same. Brian and Ellen meet surreptitiously at "The Bridge," where they exchange names and realize that their mutual attraction is going to be a problem.
The Outlander books and series give us only one brief tidbit about Claire's parents Julia and Henry Beauchamp – that they died in a car crash when she was five. And that's what happens at the end of this episode. Claire's parents are already married, an excuse for giving them an explicit sex scene in their first five minutes on screen. We get a glimpse of tiny young Claire and the uncle Lamb whom we know ends up raising her, and are told that Julia has just learned that she is pregnant with their second child.
And bing, bang, boom, car crash, Craigh na Dun, time travel. Where did they go? On to episode two.
1.2 S.W.A.K. (Sealed with a Kiss)
I have a lot less to say about episodes two through five, I promise.
It is World War I. Julia Moriston, a suffragette who works in the censorship office and wants to go to college, and Henry Beauchamp, who is serving on the front lines, inadvertently become penpals and fall in love by mail. Henry saves one of his men against orders, telling us what sort of guy he is.
Julia and Henry finally meet and marry. Henry suffers from PTSD, an echo of what will happen to his daughter Claire in a later war. The couple go on a holiday to Scotland, leaving tiny Claire with Henry's brother, and wind up accidentally going through the stones at Craigh na Dun. And geez, where have we heard that story before?
Julia and Henry somehow arrive separately on the other side of the stones in the year 1714. A mercenary couple happen upon Julia who is just asking them for directions, knock her out, and sell her to Lord Lovat in payment for their debts. Tony Curran is very well cast as the totally slimy and despicable Lord Lovat, a good match for Clive Russell's older version in "The Fox's Lair."
While Julia is virtually enslaved to Lovat, a development I absolutely despise, Henry falls into what seems like a slightly better job as bladier for Malcolm Grant's father, Isaac Grant... who mounted the head of his last bladier on a stake. Things don't look good for our newest time travelers. What's a bladier, anyway? Who'd want that job? And was Henry in the previous episode with the Grant entourage and we just didn't know who he was yet?
Speaking of which, when Julia tries to run away, Brian Fraser takes a beating for her, just like Jamie took a beating for (and here I'd hoped I'd never have to type her name again) Laoghaire in "Castle Leoch."
I was disappointed in this episode and the direction the series just took. I wanted a lot more of Julia and Henry in their own time or at least another time period instead of immediately moving to 1714 with Brian and Ellen. At this point, my daughter Samantha told me that the show definitely had "prequel-itis." She might be right.
1.3 School of the Moon
Without asking the infuriated Ellen, Colum announces her betrothal to Malcolm Grant as a fait accompli. Meanwhile, Dougal is trying to sell Ellen to Marcus MacRannoch, who was in Outlander season one's "Wentworth Prison." Her brothers don't deserve it, but Ellen puts the clan first and saves their asses in this episode.
Ellen confers with Ned Gowan about how her brothers are endangering the clan. Through Ned, she manipulates Colum and Dougal into sharing the duties of laird to strengthen the clan instead of dividing it, which would endanger everyone. At the Gathering, the brothers kneel and swear loyalty to each other, with Colum essentially laird and Dougal as his war chief. Unfortunately, as we all already know, while Colum is all about the good of the clan, Dougal is all about the Jacobite cause.
There is a harrowing flashback to how Colum broke his leg twice right before Jacob's death, although the reference to Davie Beaton, the healer whom Claire later replaced in 1743, made me snicker a bit.
Brian and Murtagh are both devastated by Ellen's engagement to Malcolm Grant. Lord Lovat wants to ruin the match by besmirching Ellen's reputation. By the way, I'll say again that I really like the casting of Murtagh. Rory Alexander doesn't look tremendously like Duncan LaCroix but he feels like Murtagh, if you know what I mean.
 |
| Duncan LaCroix, Rory Alexander |
Lord Lovat is relentlessly stalking Julia, and I thought at first that we were going to be subjected to yet another Outlander rape scene. I was surprised and impressed when Julia took the situation into her own hands by deliberately getting into bed with Lovat. It was still essentially rape, but by initiating it, she had a level of control over the situation, especially where violence toward herself and her unborn baby was concerned. It was something Claire would have done. In fact, in a way she did something similar with the King of France.
But during this episode, I kept thinking that these were nearly all Diana Gabaldon's plot points being mimicked, not built upon or expanded. And I'm just not that into eighteenth century Scottish politics. I hope this series isn't going to be about eighteenth century Scottish politics.
 |
| Jamie's mum meets Claire's mum |
1.4 A Soldier's Heart
When Julia feels her baby move, she flashes back to when she was pregnant with Claire, and Henry was suffering from serious PTSD. The two of them decided to name their baby Claire because she was their guiding light ("Claire" is French for light).
After what feels like too brief an interval, Julia claims that she is pregnant by Lord Lovat, an exceptionally bold move that we can just feel will cause terrible complications down the road. But it is also smart because it gives both Julia and her baby protection. Although honestly, I didn't think Lovat was that gullible.
In fact, Brian Fraser's parents are both disappointing human beings. Lovat actually sits on a toilet behind a flimsy curtain and poops while giving orders to Brian and other subordinates. Davina is jealous of Julia when Julia has been trapped in this situation against her will, much like Davina once was.
But it's nice to see Julia and Brian, future in-laws who will never know each other as such, become partners of sorts. (There are no romantic undercurrents whatsoever; he's completely focused on Ellen and she on Henry.) When Julia uses nettles to fake a rash to avoid Lovat's attentions, Brian takes Julia to Castle Leoch for treatment even though he knows it's a ruse. In return for his future help escaping from Castle Leathers, Julia takes Brian's message to Ellen, that he will meet her at the standing stones during the celebration of Beltane. Let there be time travel, please!
Colum MacKenzie has so much nerve that he actually asks Ellen to spy on the Grants for her brothers, and she pretends to cooperate. He also tries to guilt her by saying their father left them in financial straits. Apparently, the last person to break off an engagement with a Grant disappeared, so Ellen is risking her life.
Meanwhile, Henry is ordered to squeeze an extra shilling from the Grant tenants on Quarter Day, but when that appears impossible, Henry comes up with a solution – lottery tickets to make up the shortfall. The unpleasant Arch Bug (Terence Rae, another well-cast actor in a previously existing part) tries to steal the money, and where have we heard about Arch Bug stealing money before? A local madam hears that Henry is looking for a missing Englishwoman and tries unsuccessfully to lure him with one of her hookers.
1.5 Needfire
And we're back at the stones of Craigh na Dun for Beltane, also known as May Day.
Ellen is playing Malcolm Grant like a fish. When she is chosen as May Queen, she picks Malcolm as her king. And in truth, Malcolm Grant doesn't seem like a bad guy, I mean, if you're being forced to marry someone, he could absolutely be so much worse.
Ellen and Jocasta cover for each other, even though Jocasta blames Ellen for making Jocasta marry an old man she hates. In fact, Jocasta's husband is sick. We know future Jocasta was widowed three times. Is this number one?
Brian and Ellen meet at the abandoned castle tower and while Brian is worried about the consequences of making love, Ellen tells him, "Ruin me." They handfast and make passionate love on the floor of the tower, and afterward, she tells him she has no regrets. With so little choices in her life, this is one she was determined to make, and good for her.
A drunken Murtagh sees Brian and Ellen meet (from a distance, no peeping tom action), and is devastated by his best friend's betrayal. His day gets even worse when he is beaten by the revolting Arch Bug. Interestingly, Murtagh ends up in a romantic clinch with his future love Jocasta, but unfortunately, he ruins it by calling her "Ellen." Oops.
On the Beauchamp front, Henry searches for Julia at Beltane and doesn't find her. This is so frustrating. And it's because Julia isn't allowed to leave Castle Leathers, and Davina makes Brian believe Julia is pregnant by Lovat and was lying to him when she is going to bear his sibling.
Maisri the seer "sees" a baby that is obviously Claire and also a boy who will become a future Scottish ruler. Is this more of the 200-year-old baby crap? We know from the second season of Outlander that Lord Lovat is very into the supernatural, and when Davina strongly hints that the baby isn't Lovat's, he doesn't want to hear it in the worst way. That, or perhaps he already knows? Hard to tell.
The Grants receive a letter from Lovat that questions Ellen's virtue, which is so spot on considering that she was losing it to Brian at practically that very moment.
Since the story has literally come to a midseason climax, I'm going to stop here and do a second post about the final five episodes of the season. Very soon, I promise!
Billie
---
Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.
When I started this series, I had no idea Julia and Henry would time travel to 18th-century Scotland; I thought it was dual timelines that didn't meet. I especially loved Hermione Corfield's casting--she does looks like a clone of Caitríona Balfe! I liked Julia's correspondence courtship with Henry. I thought this series got a little better as it went on, but I nearly quit because I found it so disappointing. Especially Ellen and Brian's "love." They have one brief, inane conversation involving chickens, and the very next time they meet, they're willing to throw everything they've ever known away and risk death to be together. It's like the writers have never read a love story before. There is zero buildup. Most of all, every time I saw Ellen on screen, it was like nails on a chalkboard. Not because Harriet Slater did a terrible job but because her loose yet styled hair was SO WRONG for the period. Frock Flicks calls this style "beachy waves" and it kept forcibly reminding me that everything was modern and fake instead of letting me get lost in the story.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth Bell, that is such a good point! Ellen's hairstyle kept bothering me but I didn't really think about *why* and what you said is exactly it. And yes, it doesn't make sense for two people so intelligent and canny growing up in such difficult circumstances to fall for each other *instantly*. I used to think that sort of "falling in love" was like catching a serious illness. That's not how love works.
DeleteThanks so much. Great comment. :)
Thank you! I forgot to mention that I love the BoMB opening credits, especially the theme song. I looked it up, and that's an original Bear McCreary composition; he didn't base it on a traditional song like he did for Outlander's credits.
DeleteThanks for that tidbit; I didn't know that.
Delete