Outlander: La Dame Blanche   Books Included 
May 1, 2016 2:20 AM - Season 2, Episode 4 - Subscribe

Claire and Jamie throw a dinner party to turn investors away from Prince Charles' war effort; Jamie is shocked after Claire reveals that Jack Randall is alive.

To whit: this episode stuck quite close to the book, I think, or at least caught up some previous loose threads. This episode also has a reasonably graphic rape scene, so if you haven't seen it yet, fair warning.

* Charles and Louise are lovers and she is pregnant with his child; Claire convinces her to trick her husband into thinking he is the father. Chekov's monkey is fired.

* Claire is first poisoned, during Jamie's and Duvernay's chess game, while St. Germaine looks on, and then is assaulted by a gang prior to the dinner party. Mary is raped. St. Germaine, who has a credible alibi by being at the dinner party, seems surprised to see Claire walk in. St. Germaine has been invited by Sandringham, who really knows how to push Jamie and Claire's buttons. He is a master manipulator.

* Mary declares her love for Alex Randall, then gets raped by strangers, then freaks out (quite understandably) to come to in Claire's home with Alex leaning over her. She rushes downstairs where a scandalous scene turns into a scandalous fistfight between Jamie, Murtagh, Silas Hawkins and Mary's fiancé.

* Jamie and Claire's relationship is back on track after she finally owns up about BJR being alive. Jamie is surprisingly delighted at the news, because now he can kill Randall properly, and watch him die. It seems to be just what he needed to start feeling better, along with the lean-to that Claire helps build over his secret inner self.

* Master Raymond hints that he might know something about Claire's time travel ability, saying he appreciates things from other times while waggling his eyebrows.

AV Club Review: B+
Claire feels alone in her pregnancy, unwanted by Jamie. She wants so desperately to understand what’s going on in his mind, but she can’t. And Outlander doesn’t romanticize one bit of that. Caitriona Balfe and Heughan hurl themselves into tumultuous and visceral performances.
posted by tracicle (10 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
I was surprised that the AV Club rating for this episode was lower than previously, given that certain elements of the plot are starting to move forward. The thread for "Prince Charles seeks financing" continues to plod along, but that's French bureaucracy I guess.

Mary is so adorable, the fact that she loses her stutter when she talks about Alex is very sweet. She is visibly more confident and it's horrible to see her assaulted when she is on such a high. Alex in profile looks way, way too much like Jack Randall -- it's so impressive. I thought one of the bandits that attacked Claire and Mary had BJR's eyes, for a moment.

And Master Raymond continues to be awesome. I want to keep him.
posted by tracicle at 2:24 AM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


Yeah, I really quite liked this one, and it was nice to feel like the plot was moving forward again. (I don't know whether some of the episodes really do feel slow or if my impatience for certain events I know are coming is making me feel this way)

I was glad to finally have the Jamie/Claire relationship tension come to a head, and thought the acting was fantastic.

Fergus explaining women to Murtagh was lovely.

I'm really enjoying Master Raymond much more in the show than I did in the books. Much like Frank, I think Gabaldon intended them to be more relatable/interesting/fleshed-out characters, but it never happened for me. Here, I'm loving his character, his shop, his crocodile, and his hinting about "things out of their time" - even though I know he shows up later (in mentions) in the books which makes his role a little more obvious, it's a bit of a thrill for his mysteriousness to be a bit more explicit here.

And I agree, the resemblance between Alex Randall and Jack Randall is positively spooky. How on earth did they manage that casting?

Claire's navy blue dress with that embroidered hood. Love.
posted by olinerd at 4:36 AM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


Were we shown earlier that St. Germain has a birthmark on his hand? I can't remember.
posted by brujita at 6:49 AM on May 1, 2016


No, I think it was supposed to be one of his compatriots who had it, not St Germain himself.
posted by olinerd at 2:31 PM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


I totally agree with you all on, like, everything. I thought this was the best episode of the season so far, finally all the dominoes are starting to fall. I was really surprised by the lower AV Club rating, too. When I saw Toni Graphia wrote the episode I knew we'd be in good hands, she and Anne Kenney have the best grasp on the material and translating it to screen.

The casting for Alex Randall is insane, I exclaimed that when he came back on screen this episode. How did they do that?!

Also totally agree about Master Raymond, I never got him in the books and I was always kind of frustrated with how much book time he took up because he bored me to tears, but in the show he's more interesting.

I love Louise so much. She's really coming alive on the show in a way she didn't for me in the book. And the guy playing Sandringham is killing it, everything he does is gold.
posted by banjo_and_the_pork at 6:04 PM on May 1, 2016


Oh my god, Louise! She is awesome! I hope we get a scene with her and Charles alone, because it would be really entertaining.

I remembered there was a review that compared Louise to Regina George in Mean Girls, but when I tried to find it, I found this instead.
posted by tracicle at 11:17 PM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


I loved Murtagh bursting into the sitting room in his kilt and dirty old shirt when he heard the commotion of the fight. "YES, something to do!" It's so true to his character that he wouldn't bother with getting dressed up in French clothes and attending fancy dinners.
posted by something something at 4:31 AM on May 2, 2016 [1 favorite]


Yes, I really loved Louise as I never have before. She's just this utterly charming woman, which moderates a lot of the "uh not this"
posted by corb at 2:30 PM on May 2, 2016


Has Jamie been calling Claire "Sassenach" the last few episodes, or by her name? There was something about the way he called her Sassenach when she told him about Randall being alive that made it feel spontaneous and as if it were the first time he'd used the nickname in a while. And it occurred to me that I couldn't remember the last time he'd done it. It would have been a nice way to low key augment the tension between them over the last few episodes...unless I am misremembering. In which case forget it.
posted by angeline at 10:09 PM on May 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


Master Raymond is ahead of his time if he believe in extinction, which he seems to say when talking about the dino skull.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 10:49 PM on May 3, 2016


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