The Review at the End of the Universe
“Better to Marry Than Burn” Outlander celebrates Jocasta’s wedding and Roger has to deal with a crisis at Fraser’s Ridge. One of the main challenges for Roger this season is that his skills don’t naturally translate to living in the past. He’s an academic in a time that calls for people who can work with…
“Perpetual Adoration” Outlander explores the events and decisions that lead people to where they end up as various characters reflect on their lives at the stage they are at. Every now and again the show chooses to overtly remind viewers that time travel is a significant factor. This often takes the form of a flashback…
“Company We Keep” Outlander continues with Jamie’s mission to assemble a militia to fight on behalf of the Crown with complications arising at a trading post. Every season of Outlander has an episode like this; one that focuses on setting things up and outlining the potential complications that surround the major events the episodes are…
“Free Will” Outlander begins the march of Jamie’s militia to confront the Regulators but puts a detour in the path of Claire and Jamie. As I’ve mentioned repeatedly and will continue to state as long as I cover this show; Outlander is at its best when focusing on the core Jamie/Claire relationship. It is at…
“Between Two Fires” Outlander begins Jamie’s difficult quest to hunt down Murtagh as Claire struggles to be an effective Doctor in her current surroundings. There’s a strong possibility that the current Jamie plotline could fail because of how complex it is by its very nature. He’s in a situation where he has been given land…
“The Fiery Cross” Outlander returns for a fifth season with a lavish wedding and the promise of difficult times ahead for the extended Fraser family. Relationships are everything on this show. Even in the tensest of situations time is always taken to celebrate the connections between the people attached to those events. For me, this…
“Providence” Outlander focuses on Roger’s treatment at the hands of the Mohawk tribe as Brianna confronts Stephen Bonnet. I mentioned last week that this show has failed to correct the stated observation that fiction never tells stories from the perspective of the Native Americans and this episode does nothing to fix that issue. The narrative…
“If Not for Hope” Outlander splits up the characters between the search for Roger and Brianna dealing with Jocasta’s attempts to find her a husband. There seems to be two types of Outlander episode at this point. The first -and most effective- is the character driven outings that let plot progression take a back seat…
“Wilmington” Outlander continues Roger and Brianna’s journey to find Fraser’s Ridge as they reunite in Wilmington and take their relationship to the next level. Giving Brianna and Roger a narrative this season has widened the scope of Outlander considerably. Instead of having one temporally displaced romance it now has two. This is a welcome addition…
“Savages” Outlander reintroduces an old friend while continuing to explore the tension between the settlers of North Carolina, those who claim to own the land and the indigenous population. I talked at length about the problematic nature of Claire and Jamie’s characterisation in “Do No Harm” during that review and this episode suggests it’s going…
