Outlander: Blood of My Blood Books Included

December 10, 2018 10:54 AM - Season 4, Episode 6

Jamie and Claire are surprised when Lord John Grey drops in on Fraser's Ridge with an unexpected traveling companion; when Grey takes ill, Claire must reconcile her personal feelings with her duties as a doctor.
posted by something something (11 comments total)

Once again, I do not understand what they are doing with the Cherokee. They give us the time with the adawehi to show complexity, but then posit that it’s a totally normal thing to potentially kill a child for fishing in the wrong place? It just feels like they’re tacking things around as to how they affect Claire and Jamie without actually having any narrative cohesiveness.

Also, my husband is continuing to shout about how Jamie and Claire are supposedly poor now but all of their furniture is beautifully crafted and turned, with their house having decorative rivets and glass panes.
posted by corb at 5:27 PM on December 10, 2018 [3 favorites]

I felt like I bought into the Claire/Lord John tension better here than in the book. The book just felt straight up homophobic to me. Here, Claire’s lost time with Jamie really resonated.

Willie’s actor is great at being kind of a priggish snob. I never felt like I had a good handle on William but this interpretation is working okay for me so far. He and Jamie didn’t seem to have amazing chemistry, but it worked for me well enough.
posted by olinerd at 4:08 AM on December 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

That felt like such. A. Slow. Episode. But some development points that I suppose needed to be tackled, and I do love how complicated John Grey's character is coming across on screen. I wasn't a huge fan of him in the books, but now I am getting a better sense of *him* and an contemplating giving that book series another go. William was perfect, but agree that the brutal portrayal of the Cherokee was problematic. I'm not sure they ever intended to kill anyone, but the scene came across as overly dramatic, where I hope the intention was just to portray them asserting themselves against the colonizers that they have likely not had good interactions with so far. These weren't Cherokee Jamie had met before, correct?

I'm so very ready for the Brianna storyline to finally (hopefully?) play out next week, enough teasing already!
posted by danapiper at 10:37 AM on December 11, 2018

I don't know whether it's my own massive cringe-fest influencing my impression, but the Cherokee parts seem poorly staged and acted, too, in addition to being strange and problematic in every other way. Surely there is enough story in that 800 page book without inventing stereotypical conflict with the natives.
posted by something something at 11:43 AM on December 11, 2018

These weren't Cherokee Jamie had met before, correct?

There's a ton of really great story in the book - they have the Creek, the Tuscarora, the Cherokee, and the Mohawk, just off the top of my head, and have them all having different ideas about the settlers. This is, I think, them trying to condense all those different ideas into one tribe. It's really unlikely that the Cherokee population within a three day ride of Fraser's Ridge wouldn't know who Jamie was, especially since he's supposedly done a huge thing and rid them of this problematic person and his wife is studying under their healer.


*grumble grumble*

However, I too can't wait to see Brianna next week!
posted by corb at 12:58 PM on December 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

It also makes no sense that if the Cherokee were that dangerously combative, Jamie would take Willie to the very edge of their land to hunt and fish.
posted by something something at 1:33 PM on December 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

I should stop complaining! I want it to be good! Something feels so different this year, though. Is Ron Moore still as heavily involved, does anyone know? In previous seasons he did the little post-show interviews about each episode along with the main writer, but now it's a different person. In the post-show interview for this episode, they talked about how Jamie getting Claire a new ring allowed them to "get back" the way the ring was handled in the book, which makes me wonder if someone else is calling the day-to-day shots now.
posted by something something at 1:36 PM on December 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

Something something, I so totally agree! I want it to be good, but it does feel so different this year. I think most of the writers are different now, and the magic they had for season one feels missing.

Totally agree with everyone about how the show is portraying the Native Americans, too. Also, wasn't Adawehi in the book for much longer? I thought Claire spent a few years being friends with her? That was so fast. The whole season feels like the episodes move slowly, but the timeline of the story is on fast-forward.

Was never a fan of Willie in the books, so I guess I can't quibble with how dislikeable the kid is in the show, it's pretty true to character, but wow, I just find him really annoying. I did like the John Grey and Claire scenes, and his character has really grown on me during the show. I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I'm also actually looking forward to seeing Bree next week.
posted by banjo_and_the_pork at 6:46 PM on December 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

I think most of the writers are different now, and the magic they had for season one feels missing.

That's an interesting point. It seems like a couple of the key season one writers (Anne Kenney, Ira Steven Behr) departed after season one or two, and Ronald Moore, Toni Graphia, and Matthew Roberts are only involved in a couple of episodes now. Starting about the middle of last season, they had a whole new group of writers.

It's hard to tell, though, whether it is the writing or the source material. Starting with Drums of Autumn, the series gets a lot more episodic rather than having a single story arc through the book like Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, and, to a lesser extent, Voyager. I'm finding myself much more enjoying some of the single - restful? - moments in this series, like the reunion with Murtagh and Claire's time alone in the cabin, rather than the events that move the story.
posted by Preserver at 8:05 PM on December 11, 2018

So - is was hanging a towel over the back of a bathtub so that it wicks up the water - ever really a thing? And if so why? Dry towel= potentially sexy; wet and probably cold towel=never sexy.

Also: Have Jamie and Claire added a new storey to their house since last week? If so then quick work!

Also too: Willie is how old? I guess I thought that, by the time Jamie leaves to be a printer in Edinburgh, meets back up with Claire and does everything in the last series - the kid would have been older than that.
posted by rongorongo at 1:46 AM on December 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

Isn't the towel meant to cushion the bather from the metal tub? I feel like I've seen that in other period piece bathing scenes.
posted by Preserver at 8:00 AM on December 13, 2018