Outlander: Castle Leoch Books Included

August 17, 2014 7:32 AM - Season 1, Episode 2

Claire is taken to meet the Laird. As suspicions about her grow, Claire befriends the mysterious Geillis Duncan. When the clan discover her medical skills, Claire goes from guest to prisoner.
posted by olinerd (19 comments total)

I am really fully on board with Sam Heughan after this episode. As the episode progressed I could feel myself thinking more and more that he really does look like Jamie. I still feel like he didn't get enough screentime, but I also appreciate that the story is Claire's and I like that they're taking their time with the story development and not pushing the romantic element.

Also loved the Geillis casting - beautiful but vaguely creepy.

I don't really understand the reasoning for putting in the fake "you can leave with the peddler" story and then withdrawing it at the last minute. In the books it was clear she had no choice but to stay there until they figured out what to do with her, no? That little conceit made Colum seem either indecisive (if he truly did intend to let her go initially), or petty and mean. I've always thought of him as pragmatic and self-interested, but not cruel.
posted by something something at 10:12 AM on August 17, 2014 [4 favorites]

I agree with everything you said. I don't get the point of the pedlar story either, except to make Colum less sympathetic. The book does imply that Claire gets too settled at the castle, so I suppose they needed to make her more of a captive.

And the faux pas with Hamish was a bit weird too -- I guess they did it so as not to add more to the narration. Hamish is totes adorbs, though. I thought for a non-book reader that wouldn't make a lot of sense?

Geillis is fabulous. Can't wait to see more of her!

And the costumes! I am really digging the knitted sleeves and shawls, and I know/heard there will be patterns released. I might have to make friends with a knitter.

The flashbacks to things we already saw might get annoying. Do we really need to have the past/future Leochs thing so heavily stressed? I think it was clear that would wind up being the surgery.

My husband laughed because in Jamie's flashback I called out, "Jenny!" Was NOT expecting Jenny boobs. Speaking of boobs, Claire's brassiere thing was great, because there was nothing in the book about Mrs Fitz being utterly confused by 20th-century undergarments.
posted by tracicle at 1:09 PM on August 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

Yeah, the show did a better job than the books of making Colum and Dougal into less nice people, and also into setting up their tension with Jamie. But the peddler story seemed random.

Have to say seeing the scars on Jamie's back is pretty different to reading about them. That was effective.
posted by olinerd at 1:36 PM on August 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

I'm a non-book reader and yes I would like that Hamish moment explained because I was totally confused.

I'm also a knitter and CAN NOT WAIT for those patterns.
posted by miss-lapin at 2:13 PM on August 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

> I'm a non-book reader and yes I would like that Hamish moment explained because I was totally confused.

I'm sure they will be more explicit about this later, but if Colum has Toulouse-Lautrec Syndrome, as Claire posits, he can't father children - hence, Hamish cannot be his, and everybody at that table knows it. That also explains why Colum and Dougal are so cagey about Jamie being around. He's their older sister's eldest son, and if Colum doesn't have a direct heir, Jamie could have a decent claim to the clan leadership if he wanted to press the issue.
posted by something something at 2:53 PM on August 17, 2014 [5 favorites]

There's a scene in The Exile of Mrs. Fitz tossing Claire's bra into the fire, with no explanation from Claire.
posted by brujita at 3:17 PM on August 17, 2014

I really liked the scene w/ Mrs Fitz (though found it mildly jarring b/c the same actress played a crazy alien on Doctor Who)--especially the detail of ALL the clothes Claire had to put on--they're doing a good job showing the historical stuff in a subtle way.

I vrey much look forward to more with Geillis.
posted by leesh at 4:52 PM on August 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

So far no Kenneth.
posted by brujita at 5:03 PM on August 17, 2014

So, oh yeah!, responding to your comment in the other thread, regarding Geillis's age, I always saw her about this age - remember she has a kid shortly here. And she shows up in the Americas 20 years on, still seducing young boys, so being young right now fits in that timeline too. Are you thinking of the Mrs Abernathy era Geillis for the 50+ age?
posted by olinerd at 5:31 PM on August 17, 2014

No, I was thinking of book 1 Geillis - but like I said, I have a tendency to blow past characters' descriptions and not realize I've done it until far into the book (or never), and my mental image gets formed around some snippet of the description rather than the full thing.

Do we know how they're depicting Colum's disability? CGI or body double? (And, oh my god, Colum is Billy Elliot's dad!? Never would have recognized him in a million years)
posted by oh yeah! at 6:08 PM on August 17, 2014

The little behind the scenes video said they had special effects socks on his legs (Colum's) so they CGI that, but he also has special shoes to help walk that particular way.

I LOVED that episode. I just wish each episode was two hours long because one hour is not enough for me. Sam Heughan is really selling it as Jamie, I am almost replacing him for my head image now in my re-read of the books, and by the time I've watched this whole season I will probably have forgotten how I imagined him for twenty years.

Claire's flashbacks to Frank (not of the stuff we've already seen, but the spy explanation stuff) were pretty nice. The show is definitely making me way more sympathetic to Frank than I ever was in the books.
posted by banjo_and_the_pork at 6:17 PM on August 17, 2014

I almost want to wait till it's all over and bingewatch it, jsut so I don't have this week to week wait! (And also b/c I don't get Starz and have to watch it in a tiny box on my laptop.) But let's be real, I'm gonna bingewatch it after watching it all season anyway.
posted by leesh at 7:04 PM on August 17, 2014

Geillis' hair is the wrong color. In the books it's described as creamy blonde.
posted by brujita at 11:42 PM on August 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'm rereading as we go (well, I'm ahead now because as usual I can't stop) and I'd forgotten that Geillis is described as tall and slender. I always picture her in her Mrs Abernathy phase, overweight and buxom.

I never read The Exile, because I saw some preview of it and it just looked all wrong to me. I didn't realise it had added so much to the story!

I had a moment of disappointment that Old Alec has TWO eyes. Clearly I need to get over myself.
posted by tracicle at 1:31 AM on August 18, 2014

The scene of Claire meeting Geillis: "Here, look: an abortifacient! Now I'm going to twirl my mustache!" I sort of willfully ignored this when I read it and which, over the three books I read, I came to regret. It's like a parallel to AskMe relationship advice -- that if you start getting vibes that you and your date have incompatible politics, well, you do. Stop now. Before you're heavily invested in the relationship and, oh god, there's a child and all this history and maybe it'll turn around...
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 4:15 AM on August 18, 2014 [3 favorites]

My recap/thoughts.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 10:52 AM on August 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'm rewatching and I'm still bothered by the way Geilie wears her shawl, with that big hole over the shoulder. I want her to stick her arm through it and wear it properly.
posted by tracicle at 7:14 AM on August 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

robocop is bleeding - you should add your recaps to the sidebar too. (And, whoever added the Jezebel episode 2 recap link, I'm getting a 404 error from it, you might want to delete & try again)
posted by oh yeah! at 6:37 PM on August 25, 2014

I know this is super late, but I got the sense the abortion thing was like "hey, I'm not saying you were raped, but if you were..."
posted by corb at 8:16 PM on January 10, 2016