Episode 9 The Reckoning

Episode 9

Droughtlander is over for the next eight weeks and I couldn’t be happier. Wow, that was a long time to wait. And I understand why, but it’s over now, like a bad dream and we finally have a new episode of the show we all love. So, I don’t want to take up more of your time with pointless preamble so let’s get it on with, aye?

1 The first thing we notice is Jamie skipping rocks and narrating. Gone is the Claire voice over and replaced with Jamie’s point of view. I noticed it a little bit in this episode but for the most part it didn’t seem to take away from the drama as much as the Claire narration did in the first eight episodes. I’ve said before I’m not a big fan of voice overs in TV shows. I’ve gone by the story telling role of “Show Don’t Tell” but in this case I’m willing to forgive it because it’s not constant. So Jamie has to choose to do one thing or the other and accept the consequences because that’s what it takes to be a man.

2. Then we see Jamie talking to Horrocks and the guys are trying to decide if this is a wise idea. My first thought was that Horrocks is pretty cool. And a lot of women probably think he’s got kind of a rugged cuteness about him. Then he drops the bombshell after Dougal hands over the coin. Jack Randall shot that guy, so there’s that. What are we supposed to do with this information? Horrocks is all, “It’s up to you buddy, I’m just the bearer of bad news, it’s up to you to do with the information what you will. I gotta bounce, fellas. Thanks for the coinage.” And then Willie shows up and tells Jamie about the whole Claire running off and getting kidnapped by the British thing and they ride to fort William.

3. They get to the fort and to the rescue of the damsel in distress. Which is all fairly straight forward and right out of the hero’s guide to castle rescues. Beat up a few soldiers here and there, hide behind parapets, knock out a guy with a rifle, get to the tallest tower in the castle, find the conveniently placed rope dangling right in front of the bad guy’s window, and affect your daring entrance with the clever heroic line. “I’ll thank ye to take your hands off my wife…” Swoon worthy, I’m sure. But Jamie, gotta do something about those knees, kiddo. One of your least attractive traits, I’m sure.
SIDE NOTE: I laughed at the first part when Jamie was running up steps and in the background an English soldier was coming around and then Rupert slams the butt of a rifle up against his face, like “Oh, you’re coming around? Not on my watch.”

4 So he’s got a pistol, and Jack Randall (I HATE THAT GUY) threatens to kill Claire if he doesn’t leave. There’s a witty banter back and forth about the scars that BJR gave Jamie, and finally Jamie puts down the gun. In classic Bad Guy overconfidence, Randall picks up the gun, aims it at Jamie (Who stands there all knowing) and pulls the trigger. Pooft! The look on his face was priceless. Jamie then punches Randall in the gut, grabs his face and slams it into the desk, knocking him out. And all the while I’m yelling KILL THAT GUY!!! But he doesn’t, because he’s too honorable to kill a defenseless man. And I get that, because it goes against the hero’s code, and he explains that in a cool voice over.

5. The duo affects their escape with the help of the others and a conveniently placed gunpowder store explosion, and jump into the sea to the next horse riding montage. They come to a stop to water the horses and he takes Claire to a secluded spot. The scenery here is gorgeous, and I’m glad I finally got to watch it on an HD screen because the green and the blue of the water is beautiful. So they have their first of many arguments. And it is right out of the books. In fact, the best way to read these is to have the audio books. Davina Porter has the inflections and everything down with these. But this one is perfect to the source material, and they nail it. He wants her to apologize and she doesn’t and they hurl insults at each other and she slaps him, he threatens to slap her, and then she calls him a fucking bastard, he calls her something that rhymes with ditch, and they stop because it’s gotten out of hand and then forgive each other like they always do. This argument is nothing compared to the ones Jamie and Jenny get into later on when they go to Lallybroch and I can’t wait for those.

6. They get to the tavern, and if I’m not mistaken it looks like the same one they were at for the wedding. But the upper room is different, so I don’t really know. The tap room is full of talk about the rescue, and boasts of killing, and in typical consigliere style, Ned’s all like, “dudes, I’m not hearing this” Claire tries to talk and butt in but they are having none of it. She tries to thank them, but all they’re doing is giving her a slice of cold shoulder to go with her ale. So she decides, “Aww, to hell with this, I’m out.” And leaves. Murtaugh’s eyebrows tell Jamie he has to take care of the situation and no mistake because he’s the guy here and has to punish her.

7. Which leads to the spanking. He goes up to the room and tells her he has to punish her for disobedience. I’ve discussed the spanking in another blog post last week, so I’m just going to talk the technical details here since I didn’t have advance knowledge of how they were going to do it. It was actually rather comical in a sense because Claire was giving all she got. And I like the way they did it here, with the snap cuts to the guys playing a dice game. I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of people that have an issue with this scene, because it goes against our 20th century standards of how men should treat women in a relationship. I like how he explains that if a man had done this he would have lost an ear, been tortured, or killed. There is no right or wrong here, let me get that out. It just IS. But in order for her to understand the real danger here, in this time, in this place, she has to feel it. This is the only way he knows how to do this. Which he explains later on when he changes for her.
SIDE NOTE: One of my gripes with this episode, and with the writing in general, is that we don’t get to see much time in between things. In the book (and I know I hate saying that but it bears repeating for general context sakes) there is a scene the next day where Jamie explains how he was raised by his father. Whenever he did something wrong he got spanked and this is all he knew how to do when it came time to punish someone who had wronged him in some way. This hits Claire and makes her understand why he did it. So later on, there is less coldness as opposed to the amount of it there was in this episode.

8. So then the next morning, still smarting, the guys are genial and kind to her, as they feel justice has been done and everything is behind them. They ride home to a welcome. Not necessarily a hero’s welcome, but they are welcomed nonetheless. Then Leticia and Colum come in and welcome the happy couple on their nuptials, and it is visibly apparent that he is pissed off.

9. I’m so glad to see Miss Fitz again. Love that woman, missed her for a year. One of the reasons I like the Gathering episode so much.

10. Then Jamie has to go meet Colum and he’s off to do that when Leghair shows up. She’s all pouty eyed and I understand why. Here’s the best catch in the castle and he just married an English woman who appeared out of nowhere. She asks “Why did you do it?” he tries to calm her down and answers like “Because she’s hot, and you’re kind of hot in a crazy kind of way but Dougal made me do it so there’s that, aye. We can talk later. Right now I have to go get reamed out by Colum.” So he totally blows her off which will come back to haunt him later. In a big way. Like oh my god this girl is just bad all around.
Side note: Nell Hudson is doing a stellar job. Kudo’s kiddo. Love ya. Keep up the good work. Can’t wait to see you in later seasons possibly.

11. Dougal and Ned and Colum argue about the Jacobite gold. Colum isn’t too happy about the whole Fort William incident but Jamie steps up and takes responsibility for it. If Randall comes for anyone it will be me. You guys are off the hook so dinna fash already. Dougal and Colum get into it about the uprising and argue like brothers do until Dougal goes on a rant about doing everything for Colum and how he even continued the bloodline…. Ned and Jamie share a look like, Oh, right, now I get it… Yikes. Awkward. So, Hamish, turns out your dad is really that Dwarf guy off the Hobbit movies, congratulations. Then as he is leaving, Colum yells at Jamie “I took you in, gave you shelter, hid you from the British, and this is how you repay me? You marry a Sassenach witch?” Jamie explains what happened and Colum isn’t having any of it and tells him to get out. Which is fine because he has to go see about a girl.

12. Claire, honey. Would you ease up on a guy? Did he not explain what he had to do and why he had to do it? Talk about cold shoulder. Wow. He’s explaining all the stuff that happened in the principal’s office, and she’s like, “Yeah, whatevs. I’m going to bed.” And as soon as he starts getting undressed she’s like, “Um, I hope you don’t think you’re sleeping with me, dude, because think again.” So he looks pitiful and figures, well, guess I’m on the floor… again. Claire, ease up on the dude, please!

13. Willie is getting beaten up by the guys and all I can think of is what is that white stuff flying around them? Snow? Ash? What? Turns out it was a flurry. See, turns out Willlie was a spy for Colum and told him about the money being raised for the Jacobites. Which is what he was ordered to do and he was just following orders so you can’t really fault the kid. Jamie and Murtaugh stick up for him, and are told this isn’t their fight. Dougal shows up and says, hey, let’s go hunt, aye? Leave the kid alone. Then they all turn away from the Fraser duo and walk off.

14. Jamie and Murtaugh talk about leaving the castle. Murtaugh’s eyebrows want to leave and Jamie says where will we go? And Murtaugh says we can live off the land. Jamie’s all like, “dude I have a wife now, she isn’t going to be sleeping under trees, ken?” Murtaugh says, leave her here and Jamie wants to repair the rift growing between the brothers. Jamie gets an idea and goes off to talk to Colum again. This time as an equal and a peacemaker.

15. Jamie asks him to forgive Dougal and give back the gold. Tell Dougal to go ahead with the Jacobite cause. Stay neutral until we know what is going on with Prince Charles. We have a few years yet. All of this political stuff is setting up the rest of the series and season two, but it was a good time for me to go to the bathroom. Not saying it was boring, but it could have been done without. Oh well, just a nitpick, but I said earlier I had a few.

16. So another scene where the guys are in the office of Principal Colum. He tells Dougal go ahead and raise money, but leave me out of it and keep it on the DL. Oh, and Ned, fuck off. No really, don’t talk to me. Then he tells them of the Duke of Sandringham coming so we’ll put on a banquet. And he likes the boys so Jamie stay away from him. So Ned and Dougal leave and Jamie look at his uncle and smiles like, yeah, you did the right thing uncle.

17. Then he’s back to skipping rocks. Talking about what to do about Claire when Leghair comes up and throws herself at him like some common piece of trash. And she is wearing next to nothing and all pouty eyes and grabs his hand and puts it to her breast and all the while he’s thinking, no no no no maybe no no. maybe… NO. After all he’s Jamie Fraser so he turns her down which is the right thing to do because you wouldn’t expect him to do anything with the girl but that is going to come back to haunt him later on. I mean, REALLY haunt him. And from now on in the blog I’m going to call her Leg Whore. Because she turns evil, and she has the choice to let him go but she doesn’t. She just stews in her bitterness like a child.

18. So he goes back up to the room and tells Claire about Colum and all that but she is so like “whatevs, I give a shit.” And he says he wants to get back in bed with her so he does the oath that they do at the gathering swearing to never hurt her again as long as he lives. He upholds this too, which isn’t a spoiler if you haven’t read the books because he’s Jamie Fraser, King of Men and all around good fella (still have those knobbly knees guy, if that’s the only flaw I can find. Oh, and do something about that mole on your face. Totes unattractive.)
And then they start making up and she pulls a knife on him while they are doing that thing you do. I had a big nitpick about this, as I felt it was unnecessary, but I’m not writing for the show so whatever. She could have just strangled him, and I don’t remember her doing that in the novel. (Which I’ve since been reminded that yes, she does it while they are on the road) And then they really make up in spectacular style. And I like that the sex is kinda hot but not pornography but it isn’t stylized with fades and all that. It’s just good old honest lovemaking. The hottest part of it wasn’t her O face, or his O face, but that last bit near the end where she puts her leg up over his buttocks. That calf looked so delicious against the tartan of his kilt. I was just, Wow…

Yeah, that one.

19. Later, after the deed, they are talking about innocent nothings he asks her what fucking means. And sadist. So she explains and we have a good laugh. Then he gets up to get something to eat and she looks under the bed and brings out an ill wish omen. She asks what this is about and who would put it there and he looks all grave like, oh shit what did I do? And she’s all like, dude, what’s up with that who would do that. And he answers

20. Leg Whore…… dunt dunt dunnnnn!

End Credits.

So my initial impressions after watching are that this was a great episode. I’m still putting the Gathering as the best of the series so far because it had a lot going on, but this one is really good. The scenery was pretty, the acting was top notch. One of the things that gets me is during the argument scene where they were just going at each other, and then the tenderness in Claire’s face when he broke down. I mean, here’s a guy who doesn’t know what marriage is all about. He was thrust into the role of husband without any lead up, and he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Already he has had to save her, get her out of danger a couple of times, and he’s just flying by the seat of his pants here. It shows in his face, and she gets it at the end of the argument, and that’s why she forgives him. I could have done without the political stuff, but I understand the need for it. I’m happy the show is back on, and I look forward to the rest of the season.
Again, thanks for coming to my little corner of the Outlander fan world. Stick around for more fun in the coming weeks. And I’ll see you all friday for a Follower Appreciation post where we get to talk about some of the issues you have with this blog post and the episode.

And as always, here is your Jamie Fraser Moony Eye pic of the week.