Outlander: The Birds & the Bees   Books Included 
December 31, 2018 12:40 PM - Season 4, Episode 9 - Subscribe

As Brianna struggles to compartmentalize the trauma she suffered in the wake of the tragedy that befell her in Wilmington, she refocuses on finding her parents.
posted by oh yeah! (14 comments total)
 
This didn’t suck. I thought the dynamics between the whole cast were very good, and I liked how Brianna got to see how affectionate Jamie and Claire were. Hooray for Jamie and Brianna bonding!

Oooof poor Roger though.
posted by olinerd at 1:51 PM on December 31, 2018 [2 favorites]


Oooof poor Roger though.

I dunno. I've been re-reading the book and between book-Roger and show-Roger...I was kinda cheering Jamie on at that point.
posted by Preserver at 2:13 PM on December 31, 2018 [1 favorite]


Guess this explains the opening credit shot with the natives on horseback leading a man with his hands tied.
posted by Catblack at 2:14 PM on December 31, 2018 [1 favorite]


I thought this was REAL GOOD, guys. I rewound the Jamie/Brianna intro scene immediately and watched it again in the middle of the episode. I haven’t done that since season one.

Roger seems pretty much the same to me as Book Roger, but in the book his personality is balanced by (and his poor behavior sometimes a reaction to) Brianna’s volatility. They aren’t communicating that part of Brianna’s character very well and it makes Roger seem mystifyingly dickish at times, given that they aren’t really changing the plot to compensate.
posted by something something at 2:32 PM on December 31, 2018 [5 favorites]


Did book-Brianna find Jamie while he was taking a leak? If so, I really wish they had changed that detail, as all I could think when Jamie was tremulously stroking her cheek was how he had just moments ago used that hand to shake the piss off his dick, really killed the mood for me.
posted by oh yeah! at 3:46 PM on December 31, 2018


Agree, this didn't suck. Aside from Brianna's trauma, it was a fairly bucolic episode. Roger got a beatdown thanks to PlotReasons but I expect that will be resolved in the next episode.

What rang true: Claire realising that Brianna wouldn't be staying in the past.
What didn't: If Lizzie is supposed to be acting as Brianna's maid, then she needed to leap out of bed as soon as B opened the door to the hotel room, not lay there and ask if B needed help.

I also wished for a scene or two of Claire and Brianna talking about what it's like to be a part of the history they studied in school. Wasn't Book-Brianna a history major at one point? I thought I read that here. It would be soooo tempting to nip up to Boston to meet some of the big players. Be a heck of a thesis.

Also since the soap-opera-who's-the-baby-daddy? plot was ruled out at the onset, has Brianna waited just a dite too long to avail herself of one of her mother's herbal concoctions?
posted by TWinbrook8 at 5:37 PM on December 31, 2018 [1 favorite]


Yes! This was good! I thought Sophie Skelton did a good job through the whole thing! Really liked seeing Bree and Jamie bonding, it was very sweet, and I'm looking forward to Bree and Ian's friendship
posted by banjo_and_the_pork at 6:26 PM on December 31, 2018


Did book-Brianna find Jamie while he was taking a leak?

Yep.

Also since the soap-opera-who's-the-baby-daddy? plot was ruled out at the onset,

Has it? There was intercourse with both men, so I think it is still a plot option. In the book, when Brianna tells her mother that Roger pulled out, Claire asks if she knows what they call people who use that method of birth control, and then says "parents." I'm not sure why it was cut from this episode, although it could come up later.

I'm still wondering how they're going to fit the rest of the book into the...what - three? episodes left. Granted, there's a ton of filler while Brianna hangs around at Auntie Jocasta's, although I do hope we get at least some of the Brianna-Lord John scenes.

I really loved the family scenes with Murtagh and Young Ian. I feel like the times when the show has slowed down and given us these thoughtful, quiet moments have been the best part of the season.
posted by Preserver at 6:38 PM on December 31, 2018 [1 favorite]


This is what I believe most Scots would understand by the word "Brie" (or "Bree" of you like):
1.The water that is left behind when you have boiled something - broth basically. For example the well known song "Freedom Come All Ye" (listen) talks about:
So come all ye at hame wi’ Freedom,
Never heed whit the hoodies croak for doom.
In your hoose a’ the bairns o’ Adam
Can find breid, barley-bree and painted room.
2. The brow or eyebrows or brunt of consequences.
3. The strong one or the exalted one (But as meaning of the girl's name - not as a stand alone word)
- The second set of definitions is much more archaic - I "know" the first one but am searching dictionaries for the second.

I am not aware of it meaning "disturbance". If Jamie and Claire had wanted to call their kid after something that meant disturbance then she be christened "Stramash" or "Rammy"!
posted by rongorongo at 3:36 AM on January 1, 2019 [1 favorite]


Was it Scots or Gaelic that was the problem?
posted by olinerd at 7:15 AM on January 1, 2019 [1 favorite]


Since we're talking Scots & Gaelic, one thing I would LOVE to hear out loud is the "mmhpmm" sound that Gabaldon uses so often in her dialogue. She talks about it like it is characteristic Scots. It often seems to be an expression of skepticism (or at least, the speaker's intention is ambiguous). Anyway, I could never really hear it in my head, unless it's just supposed to be like "mmhm" but maybe with a bit more punch to the second syllable?

I don't think they use it on the show.
posted by torticat at 4:46 PM on January 1, 2019


Was it Scots or Gaelic that was the problem?
Ah! "buaireadh" in Gaelic looks correct: it seems to be a word for the kind of disturbance you create by stirring up mud at the bottom of a pond - something which may be annoying, troubling distracting or tempting according to one's frame of mind.
(With the combination of local and archaic expressions - plus Scots/Norse/Gaelic/English to contend with - it can be pretty hard for Scots to determine that a given word never means something).
posted by rongorongo at 12:26 AM on January 2, 2019 [2 favorites]


I have been bingeing the show and it’s affected my dreams, to the point that I woke up with a premise in my head that I can’t shake.

December, 1988. A master gardener from Japan arranges large stones & rakes gravel in the executive suite of a new LA skyscraper. Meanwhile, a few floors down, corporate exec and rising star Holly Gennaro greets her new assistant, a Ms. Brianna MacKenzie...

Oh god I may be about to open an AO3 account
posted by sixswitch at 5:30 AM on January 3, 2019 [3 favorites]


I am honestly enjoying this season less and less. I think the shortening is really affecting the plot to the point where everyone is doing incomprehensible things and it’s frustrating. Like they talk about the “claim” thing but don’t mention that at that time it was a legal thing that a woman could be forced to marry her rapist, and Jamie being super vague about what should happen to Roger rather than having a plan.
posted by corb at 10:45 PM on January 4, 2019 [1 favorite]


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