Do you find yourself obsessively gabbing on about Outlander to your friends and family? Wishing your Saturday nights included a living room full of people with whom to watch, discuss, comment, cheers, jeers and well, experience alllllll the feels? Dinna fash, Obsessenach – you are not alone.
Good news – we can get new family and friends pour ourselves a dram and, through the magic of technology, enjoy it together! Each Saturday at 9:00 p.m., we’ll be LIVE blogging the episodes to bring you a two-screen experience into the world of Outlander. Like the Outlander Cast podcast, it will be SPOILER FREE for non-book readers.
So get all your post-18th Century gadgets ready and settle in, because the best things in life should be shared with a buddy. Hi, buddy.
Now let the show begin…
[9:00 pm] You guys, Laoghaire. That girl. She’s in this “previously on Outlander” sequence. I don’t know if I can handle all the emotions of last week’s episode AND a Laoghaire appearance in this one. ***Pours more wine***
[9:02 pm] This new Scottish-riffic opener – squeeaaaaaal! There is so much here to bite on, and I’m not talking about the potatoes. This will be enormous fun to analyze frame by frame . . . ahem – hint hint, Mary and Blake.
[9:03 pm] How fitting that writer Anne Kenney is the one bringing us back home – she wrote season one’s “Lallybroch”! She also wrote a little known episode a couple of you might have seen once or twice called “The Wedding”.
[9:04 pm] WE ARE BACK THANK GOD IT IS ABOUT TIME I WAS LOSING MY MIND WANTING THE FRASERS TO BE BACK IN SCOTLAND SO MUCH SO THAT IT MAKES ME YELL IN ALL CAPS AND RUN ON SENTENCES.
Side note: I can’t get back to this amazing country soon enough, and it’s only been two weeks since I was there. Let’s all live vicariously through fellow writer Anne Gavin’s The Scotland Diaries: A Sassenach Abroad.
[9:04 pm] Also, I don’t even know how to process my giddiness at this opening montage, but thankfully Claire did it for us in her voiceover, “…their welcome and the daily routines of Lallybroch worked like a tonic on our battered souls.” Same, Claire. SAME.
[9:05 pm] I’ve never been so relieved to be around this table with my favorite people (I’ve so missed you, Jenny!). You know, just talking potatoes, dirty boots, bills, PDA, Murtagh the farmer, you name it. I’m in, Lallybrochers – ALL IN. PLEASE KEEP GOING with your random and mundane Tuesday night.
Side note: They snuck in a mention of Aunt Jocasta. Please in the name of all things Blake foretold, just go ahead and commit to more seasons now.
[9:07 pm] Jamie Hair Watch – the King of Men has gotten a trim. And it looks marvelooooooous. Also, I love that his mangled hand is used as a visual tool to indicate how much time has passed instead of writing in a time stamp on screen. The brace is off, bruising finally gone. Congrats, Jamie – it’s been a verra long road.
[9:08 pm]
“Aye, Paris was bitter disappointment.” – Jamie Fraser. I’ll just leave that right there for reader interpretation, but weigh in for sport. Who thinks there’s a chance they added in this scene after the fact? They were doing some pick up shoots last month after the show premiered and this looks mighty similar to the photo Sam Heughan tweeted. It would also explain the inconsistent hair length. Hmm.
[9:11 pm] Oh no he di’int – Jamie used the ‘ol full name jab in the midst of this sibling power struggle with Jenny… err, I mean Janet. I’ve had a few of those with my own sister that have evolved in our adult years to include first, middle, maiden AND married names. By the time either one of mouths it out in its entirety, we can’t remember what our beef was to start with. Ahh, siblings – gotta love them. And thus, it’s sooooo good to see the Jamie-Jenny dynamic again.
[9:13 pm] Not to be a complete and voyeuristic pervert (warning: immature rant forthcoming), but why? Why must we fade to black? Have we not been patient? We’ve suffered right alongside our favorite couple and dammit, Jamie’s shirtless and apologizing and Claire’s compassionate and asking to go to bed (and be clear, it’s NOT to sleep) and their theme is playing and what do we get? Squat. Sigh. On a more mature note, good for you all that you’ve found your intimacy spark again after the unfathomable trauma of losing sweet Faith.
[9:14 pm] I just had a flash of the last time Claire awoke to find Jamie gone after a lovely night in the laird’s bedroom and let’s hope this one goes better than the last time.
[9:15 pm] Oh hell, I just found some residual tears in the aftermath of “Faith” thanks to this incredibly touching scene between not just Jamie and the bairn, but Claire watching Jamie with the bairn and Jenny therapizing Claire without doing so directly. Lallybroch, you are like chicken soup for my hung-over French soul.
[9:17 pm] I thought puppies doing toilet paper commercials were the most asininely cute thing I’d ever seen . . . and then came Fergus on a donkey. I’m going to need that as a collectible. ASAP.
[9:18 pm] Oh Bear McCreary, I love you so. This sweeping score does it to me every time, especially when we’re on horseback bounding across this incredible landscape. I’m just going to ignore the fact that Claire talked through the whole thing nearly ruining it for me, like someone yammering on their phone in the middle of the movie theater.
[9:20 pm] Enter Lord Lovat, family man of the year. Hi there, Grampy Simon! Is it me or is Clive Russell perfectly cast here? Score yet another one for casting director Suzanne Smith.
[9:22 pm] And there she is. “I believe that it is God that has brought us together here so I could do so.” God . . . or Ron D. Moore, in an effort to course-correct a couple novel-led subplots, I’m guessing.
[9:25 pm] “So honey, you’ll never guess who I ran into while you had a dram with Grampy…”
[9:28 pm] Like I said, father of the year. Irony – an adult publicly infantilizing his teenage son as a way to assert himself as the big man. Suuuure, because that’s the sign of a mature and balanced grown-up. Old? Yes. Sly? No, this fox is not.
[9:30 pm] Have I mentioned to you guys how I’m like a mythical creature who’s half Mary, half Blake? I’ve read the books, but apparently this is the area of my life in which mom brain decides to kick in because half of the time I can’t remember squat making me more akin to a TV-only fan. The point being – is Lovat’s fortune teller in the book? I can’t remember. Comment below.
[9:33 pm] “Implying your grandmother’s a whooore to keep what you want – oh you’re my kin alright.” – Grampy Simon, making me spit wine in laughter.
[9:35 pm] Jamie’s controlled reaction to Simon threatening to violate Claire is bloody brilliant. We know he’s got a temper – especially when it comes to his beloved wife – but going nose-to-nose with his cantankerous and vindictive grandsire using this quick-on-his-feet wit? FAR more effectively intimidating than any physical rage could have ever been.
[9:38 pm] “I asked for God’s forgiveness, and he told me to repent by saying a few Hail Marys and inhaling your husband’s sweat off his shirts like a certifiable stalker. So you see, I have changed. Leave me be.” – Oh, Laoghaire. ***shakes head in judgment***
[9:40 pm] We interrupt this important scene to geek out about the welcome re-appearance of the talented Gary Lewis as Jamie’s Uncle Colum. He played the disapproving father who has a change of heart in 2000’s Billy Elliot, one of my favorite films.
[9:43 pm] Laoghaire cutting off young Simon’s gawky teen poetic ramblings was fantastic and almost made me like her. Almost. I attribute that to the timing of Nell Hudson, who I can’t dislike as an actor just because I have an eye-roll reaction every time her character appears on screen. Much like how we felt about Bonnie Prince Charlie . . . mark me, they’re doing a smashing job as actors to make us feel as turned off as we do.
[9:45 pm] Claire getting annoyingly interrupted by Laoghaire just as she’s about to get to the meat of Maisri’s grim vision about sums up trying to watch Outlander in our household with a small child. I digress.
[9:49 pm] And the Oscar goes to . . . Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser!
[9:52 pm] Apparently this week’s “best laid schemes” are on the board as a win for the Frasers. And like any good Highlander deal, we’ll lock it up with a celebratory dram.
[9:54 pm] Don’t get me wrong, I fell in lavish love with all of Claire’s Parisian wardrobe, but boy does it do an Obsessenach heart good to see her back in tartan plaid, all belted up and ready to ride.
[9:55 pm] Ah that hospitable Scottish weather, welcoming our Frasers back. #WetJamieHairDontCare
[9:56 pm]
“I hope one day I can also earn your forgiveness, Jamie . . . and your love.” Slow your roll, Laoghaire. Girl never knows when to stop while she’s ahead.
[9:58 pm] Watching Simon and Young Simon interact hilariously reminds me of Christopher Walken’s Sen. Cleary in
The Wedding Crashers when he has zero clue how to relate to his quirky, pasty son that’s nothing like him.
[9:59 pm] Jamie:
“Please tell me I’m nothing like him, Sassenach.”
Claire:
“I’m afraid I have seen a similarly devious turn of mind.”
Jamie:
“I might have to rethink our agreement not to lie to one another.”
That banter + the connected smirks + on horseback = everything. Also, knee porn.
[10:00 pm] Oh praise to be all things High[lander] and mighty, we are back! Reunited with Scotland and it feels so gooooood. Between a stopover to Lallybroch and Jamie and Claire strategizing together, I’m one happy Obsessenach. Hell, even Laoghaire and the grumpy, manipulative Fox can’t dampen my high. And crowd pleaser (at least for me) Graham McTavish is back next week as Dougal, along with kilted warriors and battle training and rousing Scottish music! Could life BE any better?
How did this episode rank for you?
Thanks for reading! Please be sure to catch up on all live blogs from Season 2:
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