Hi and welcome to K Let's Talk, the podcast where we breakdown
storytelling across books, television and film with a
special love for book to screen adaptations.
Here we talk about craft, character arcs, structure,
dialogue, visual language, and the creative choices that shape
how a story lands. If you like thoughtful,
conversational, deep dives into the stories you can't stop
thinking about, you're in the right place.
Let's talk. This will be Part 1 of my
Outlander Season 8 Episode 4 review titled Muskets, Liberty
and Sauerkraut. As always, if you are looking to
avoid spoilers from the book or the TV show, please do keep on
scrolling. So at the top of this episode,
we see that Jamie has reconsidered Brianna and Rodgers
offer to go buy him guns for the Ridge in Savannah now that he
knows what Cunningham has been up to right underneath his nose.
And again, Frank's book is being used as a sort of guide for the
family, similarly to how Claire, Brianna, and Roger all use what
they remember of history in order to predict their current
future. Jamie confirms that in the book,
Randall refers to the end of the siege of Savannah taking place
on the 9th of October's. And the Continentals will fail,
but the inside of the city is going to be safer because the
battle takes place outside of it.
He knows that the two of them will be safe inside the city
with Fergus and Marsley. And then he hands a letter to
Roger to give to Lieutenant Colonel Francis Marion.
Marion was a real figure in history who was also known as
Swamp Fox, and he's mentioned quite a bit in Go and Tell the
Bees that I Am Gone. Roger then asks if that means
that Jamie is going to be starting a militia of his own
because he doesn't want to join Cleveland's, and Jamie admits
that the last thing he would like to do is take part in
Cleveland's specific militia and that he is going to try and
muster up one of his own on the rich.
Roger also asks if they want to turn the gold into musket balls
again, but Jamie says he has another idea for the gold.
So we again set our eyes on the bars of gold and there's a lot
of conversation about how Jamie has largely not touched the gold
that he has in his possession while on the Ridge.
Because as soon as anyone on the Ridge or in the vicinity knows
that he has it, they will come after it.
Similarly to how we saw Archbug do the same thing.
That is when we get the title card, which is muskets, liberty
and sauerkraut. And it's this really beautiful
slow pan over this table of all Brianna's painting supplies and
watching her hands pack them up as she gets ready to head to
Savannah. We're then back at Fergus's
print shop. We get this shot again of the
sign outside of his door, and we see Roger starting to dump the
sauerkraut out and everybody complaining about the smell.
Inside the containers are hidden bottles of whiskey and the gold
bars that they can use to make into musket balls in Savannah.
And Bree and Roger then fill Fergus and Marsley in on the
grander plan because they did not want it in writing in a
letter. And we hear Fergus start asking
follow up questions of Roger and what the plan is.
And it made me happy because it reminded me so much of when he
was younger. And he was always looking to
take part in these plans that Jamie and Claire were coming up
with. But he was too young.
And now as an adult, not only is he taking it upon himself to get
involved in the rebellion by writing his pamphlets, but he is
now actively being included in the same plans that Jamie and
Claire are coming up with themselves.
Rodger explains that many of the weapons that they're looking to
acquire are more than likely not going to be at the he's going
to, and so arrangements will have to be made with Marian for
payment. And so Bri and Roger were hoping
that they could leave the gold with Fergus and Marcely.
And Marcely is quick to figure it out and point out that Fergus
probably has hiding places within their home.
She wouldn't be surprised if they found the crown jewels
there. When Fergus and Marcely step
aside, Bri and Roger take a moment to discuss when Roger
should be leaving so that he has enough time to find Marian and
avoid the impending battle. And again, that's foreshadowing
to the end of this episode how the timing, even though they're
trying to manage it well, is going to be a hindrance to the
plan. And Brianna is uneasy about that
whole thing. Arguably her part in this plan
is the least stressful or dangerous to anyone.
Then back at the Ridge, we see Jamie coming back to the Big
House and he feels clear in on all of the information he's
collected about Cunningham from the tenants.
As he went out to collect rents, he was trying to get a sense of
where everyone's loyalties lie, and he's deduced that most
families here are loyal to the Crown, and those who aren't are
very much reluctant to join a militia who opposes it.
Because everyone at that time knew the power of Britain and
had very little faith that the rebels would be able to defeat
them. Jamie's also worried that if he
starts to pull together his own men, Cunningham will catch wind
of it. And even with the Ardsmere men
and a few others, it's not going to be enough.
So Jamie's going to have to expand his reach and start to
collect men from outside of his current circle on the Ridge.
That's when Claire tells Jamie he should just evict Cunningham,
and Jamie tells her pretty candidly that whether or not he
gets rid of himself, evicts him, someone will replace him or come
to avenge him soon after. Which I think is a really valid
argument and a good reminder to the viewers that this is a
little more convoluted than it might seem to Jamie.
It's better to have a close eye on Cunningham so that he can
follow his movements, keep an eye on him, and make sure that
he has his finger on the pulse of what's happening at the
Ridge. Even though up until this point
Jamies done a very poor job of that.
He then tells Claire that Cunningham reports to a man
named Patrick Ferguson who is someone that Frank had written
about in the book and he's the person who forms the militia
that fights at Kings Mountain. Claire at this point is still
not sure of Frank's intentions with the book so she doesn't
know if she can trust his word. But Jamie is seeing the words
that he wrote play out in front of them and he can't deny that
any longer. And so he tells Claire that
regardless of the book, if the man forming the militia is as
dangerous as Frank wrote about, they will need to be ready
either way. And it doesn't matter whether or
not Jamie's going to fight at Kings Mountain.
They have to defend the Ridge regardless.
We see Fergus, Marsley, Brie, and Rodger cheers one another
with the title of the episode and drink the whiskey inside the
print shop. And Marsley points out how
ironic it is that a minister and his wife are the ones that are
going to be smuggling guns back to the Ridge.
When Marsley jokes that she had thought they had come all that
way to actually visit them or to paint a picture for Lord John,
that's when Fergus tells the group that John has already
written to him too and suggested that he meets with an associate
of his, which we know is Percival Beauchamp, and he asks
if Bria Rodger recognizes the name.
John has claimed that this man has information that will be of
great interest to Fergus. And that's when Brie points out
that Claire's maiden name is Bouchon or Beecham.
And that's when the glass then behind her shatters from a rock
being thrown through the window. This very quick mention of
Fergus and the meeting with Percy and that storyline is sort
of meant to be a hook to gauge interest from us viewers into
that storyline. And it's one that in the book I
was interested in and found really compelling.
I liked getting all these little Nuggets of information that I
was trying to put together in the background of the larger
story. And so the show's doing a good
job of doing that. Again, here with the storyline
in the show, we see that Fergus's sign has been broken
and he runs after the men who threw the rock and destroyed his
sign and he calls them cowards. And Marsley then explains to
Roger and Bree that this is happening often.
They often have bags of dead rats or other awful things on
their door and Bree doesn't understand why.
And Marsley is able to explain to them that when people don't
like the news, they blame the printer.
Now, again, if you've read the book and you understand the
storyline that takes place between Fergus and Marsley and
their family, then this, again, is foreshadowing to what we're
going to see later on in the season.
And I also found it interesting that when Fergus is holding the
peace that broke off of his sign, the word sons is on the
front of it. And that's what we're looking
at. And it's foreshadowing to what's
going to happen to one of his sons.
Roger and Bree come to learn that even though they're
printing for both sides of the war, in doing so, they're
angering both sides evenly. And that is ultimately the
reality of being a printer during the war.
Back at the Ridge, we see Jamie, Jung, Ian and Josiah riding off
to go find more men to join the militia.
And in this short clip, we can see that the prospects are not
looking too hot in the lands outside of the Ridge.
He does earn the loyalty of a few men.
And that's when Ian calls Jamie over because he's come across a
Scottish man who claims to know Roger and Brie from Scotland.
And Jamie's face drops because he's already been debriefed on
why Brie and Roger had to leave Scotland in the 1st place.
And he knows that they've been worried someone would time
travel to find them. And this is when we get our
really the first big deviation from the source material when
Jamie comes across Buck McKenzie in this tent.
Jamie is convinced that the person he's going to come up
behind is actually Rob Cameron. And so when he confronts the
person, he asks, are you Rob Cameron?
And Buck has this really humorous reaction.
And again, we didn't know what was going to happen with Buck.
It's a complete departure from the source material, where we're
largely left wondering what happens to him when Rodger and
Bree leave him in the future. The show has him deliver this
line of dialogue where he says Cameron won't be bothering Bree
or Rodger again and that he's come to return Rodgers we book.
So from that negative information, we can deduce that
in the future or somewhere in the past, depending on whether
or Rob Cameron actually ever time traveled, he handled the
matter himself. And in the trailer for the
season, there is a very quick shot of him and Rob Cameron
fighting one another. So I have a feeling we're going
to see what actually happened on our screens at some point during
the course of the season. And the book that he's referring
to is the one that Roger had been taking all of his notes
about time travel in. And when Jamie realizes that
this is the book Roger told him about, he puts it together that
this is Dougal's son. I do think the casting's really
good because when we get this head on shot of him with his
tricorn hat looking at Jamie, you can see the resemblance for
sure. And Jamie has this really
humorous reaction by saying, you remind me of your father.
And it made me laugh because yes, he does.
But also Jamie has a very complicated relationship with
Dougal. So what does that actually mean
as it pertains to Buck? I think Buck has earned himself
a place as a very sweet and compelling character and very
much like an older brother or cousin to Bri and Roger's
children. We see later on that they refer
to him as cousin, so he very effortlessly fits into the
Fraser group. But I'm curious how they're
going to utilize him in the show.
And more than likely, I think he will go to battle with them
because his family, in this current timeline, they've
already left America and gone back to Scotland.
So even if he came back with the intention of finding them again,
he won't because they're not there.
And so he'll be kind of tagging along with Jamie and Brianna and
Rodger and their families. And I have to imagine it's so
that he can be part of this militia that Jamie is forming.
We go back to Savannah and we're outside of the print shop and
this is one of the scenes that I think is the most awkward of
this episode. It feels very soap opera E
esque, and and that's also in the way it's shot, but mostly in
how wooden everyone's acting is here.
But we also get this filler dialogue to again foreshadow
what's going to happen with Fergus and Marsley's family,
where Fergus suggests that when Bree's done painting for Lord
John, she could come back and paint him and Marsley and their
family. That's when everyone says their
goodbyes. They all are optimistic that
everyone remains safe on this journey and Roger heads out to
find the camp while Brianna heads to Lord Johns.
Back at the Ridge, the weather has taken a turn and Claire and
Fanny are preparing for the evening and having a
conversation about whether or not houses are alive, and Claire
believes that houses affect the people living within them
directly, so it is likely that it would work both ways.
Which segways into a conversation that is a lot more
emotional. When Fanny asks if Amy Lindsay
is still in her cabin haunting it, and Claire tells Fanny that
feeling people who are gone through their memories and your
longing for them is a very common feeling and Fanny says
that she wishes Jane would haunt her.
Claire insists that Fanny won't forget Jane and that Jane won't
forget her either, and the two of them are talking about the
people that they have lost and how they can best keep them
alive. And that's when Fanny starts to
reveal more about her parents. In the book, Claire makes a very
conscious effort to not press Fanny on information about her
family and her parents, and in this scene she reveals that Jane
used to whisper Goodnight Ma Cherie because that's what their
mother used to call Fanny herself.
And so Claire is shocked to learn that their mother spoke
French and Fanny starts to share more about their parents and
it's always good or funny things that Jane would talk to her
about, but nothing serious. And so Fanny figured out pretty
quickly that Jane would only tell the other girls in the
brothel about the serious things.
And that's consistent with the book and how young Ian had
consulted the women in the brothel when he was sent to go
get more information about Jane and Fanny's parents.
And he was able to find out what Jane had told them.
I didn't think we were going to get that storyline, but it does
come up in this episode. And you can infer then that
Claire had talked to Jamie about what was said between her and
Fanny this night. And the two of them came up with
this plan to have Ian go and find out more information as he
passed through Philadelphia. That's when the windows start to
rattle. And Claire goes to close it when
she sees Elspeth Cunningham approaching the house.
And she delivers one of my favorite book lines, which is
And Your Little Dog, too, which Fanny overhears.
And it's quite a humorous moment.
And you'll recall that Mandy had called her the Wicked Witch when
we were first introduced to the character.
And Fanny very clearly isn't excited by her visit, because
when Claire asks her to let her into the parlor, you can tell on
her face that she's upset about it.
And Elspeth basically falls into Claire's arms when she gets
inside the house and tells her that she's fallen onto her
shoulder and that her son is away.
And Fanny watches Claire remove her clothes and diagnosed that
her shoulder is dislocated and the two of them get her ready
and prepared for Claire to slip the joint back into place.
Claire gives her whiskey for the pain.
And almost every beat of this scene is word for word beat for
beat taken from the source material.
And Claire and Elspice relationship is one that I
really enjoyed in the book, and so it's nice to see that the
actors are able to translate it so perfectly on screen.
We also get this sort of removal of Elspeth's armor in the scene
because as soon as she has a few drinks in her, she lets the
profanities fly. And Fanny can hardly believe
that this woman who presents as so prim and proper is capable of
speaking in such a way. I feel like these two, both
Fanny and Elspeth, are presented as having more in common than
they realize. And that's a a theme I think
with Elspeth's character that we're going to see expanded upon
in future episodes and throughout the storyline and
situation with her son. And we get a sense for that when
Fanny leaves the room and Elspeth says that Fanny is a
remarkable child. And Claire explains to her that
despite her upbringing, she knows not to speak that way in
public. And the two of them have this
really subtle conversation with heavy undertones of finding
common ground between them. And that's when Claire invites
her to spend the night because there's no way she's having her
walk back home in her condition. And Elspeth has this really
hilarious line about her condition being either her being
drunk or her being injured. She can't deduce which one it is
at the moment because she's had so much to drink.
Back in Savannah, we see Bri arriving at Lord John's house,
and she's met with William coming down the staircase, and
he's clearly surprised to see her.
And Lord John appears at the very same time.
So it's made clear from the jump that William was not
anticipating seeing Bri or having her come into the house.
And it sets up this interesting dichotomy between William,
Brianna and Amaranthus, who sees Bree come in through the front
door and William's reaction to her and his face completely
lights up. And so she assumes that there's
history between them, and her face in the scene says it all.
She has this very clipped expression as John so happily
greets Bree and tells her that he was worried he'd never see
her again. And William all the while is
watching her so curiously. And John then introduces
Amaranthus, who admits that she is surprised that the portrait
painter is a woman and asks where she's traveled from.
And that's when Bri says North Carolina.
William is confused by this because the last time he saw
Brianna, her and her family were going to Boston.
So this is something that is getting his wheels turning as to
why she'd returned. And we hear him ask her that
question later on. That's when both Amaranthus and
Lord John excuse themselves and leave William and Brianna alone
in this room to talk to one another, because this was Lord
John's plan all along. And in the book, this was very
strategic to have Brianna come here and talk to him.
And it ends up being this really tender moment that we see
William kind of humanized as a sibling to Brianna.
And their scenes in the book were some of my favorites.
So I was really excited to see how this dynamic was going to
play out on screen as Brianna and William start to familiarize
themselves with how she ended up at Savannah and why she isn't in
Boston. She explains to William that
they returned to Fraser's Ridge to be close and safe with family
and William is excited to learn that because it means that she
has met Fanny and he asks how she's doing.
Brianna tells William that her parents have taken quite a
liking to Fanny and. Reminds William that Jamie is
their father, so she kind of segways the conversation into
the elephant in the room because this is the first time that the
two of them are actually conversing about that fact.
That's when William asks Brianna if she knew that they were
siblings when they met in Wilmington.
And I really enjoyed the pacing of this conversation between
them. And I did in the book as well
because she refers to her family as being his.
And, you know, Williams says in jest, it's a little late to lie
about the truth. Now, in the book, he says,
particularly when it's as plain as the nose on your face and
mine, since the two of them are written and described as having
Jamie's nose. And I felt like Charles van der
Vaart did a great job with this scene and really kind of making
William softer to this conversation than we would have
seen him a few years ago when he was younger.
And he says as much to Brianna. She is quite literally the only
person that understands exactly how he feels.
She did not learn that Jamie was her father until she was an
adult and she was able to come to terms with that and then form
a really beautiful relationship with him and admires him in a
way that I think William is still reluctant to do or accept.
But he has watched it from afar with her.
And I think that William finds comfort in the fact that Brianna
was able to get there with Jamie, and that even if William
kind of keeps that on the periphery of his life, the man
clearly is someone who is worthy of that relationship dynamic
with Brie. And therefore I think it gives
him confidence in him one day having a cordial relationship
with him as well. A lot of this dialogue is pulled
straight from the book where he says he's glad that Brie didn't
tell him back then because he wouldn't have known how to
respond to it at the time. And frankly, he still doesn't
quite know how to deal with it. I think the difference being
that he is more willing to deal with it now than he was back
then. In the book, William actually
finds a portrait that Brie had painted of Jane, and she tells
William of all of Jamies other children, how he adopted Fergus,
his wife Marcely, his stepdaughter Joan, their
children. And William becomes overwhelmed
with all of it and asks her to stop talking about it and save
it for another day. So again, that implies that even
though he doesn't want to deal with it all in that moment, he
is open to hearing about it. And I think that the scene, even
though it was truncated, does a good job of conveying that.
Then we cut to Fergus meeting with Percy Beauchamp in a scene
I never thought I would see on screen, and I'm happy that we
did. But I'm also curious about how
they're going to wrap this storyline up in the show, and I
hope they give it a really dignified ending.
Percy wastes no time telling Fergus about the circumstances
of his birth and that the Comp Saint Germain is his father and
all of the lore from the books is kind of dumped into this
scene. And I really loved that we had
this longer moment with the actor who plays Fergus because
he does a really beautiful job here.
The way the scene was written is, I think, really effective as
well because it takes a pretty complex storyline and makes it
very easy to understand if you haven't read the source
material. Because Percy tells Fergus about
his wife's elder sister and that she had an affair with the
compt, and Fergus confirms that he knew a young girl named
Emily, but she died a long time ago.
Percy explains that yes, she did die a long time ago.
And he walks him through all of the information that he's
discovered, and Fergus is able to fill in the blanks with the
name of the brothel that he was born in, and Percy's able to
confirm that and that Emily gave birth there to a young child
named Claudel. You can see in real time how
Fergus is reframing a lot of his childhood, his whole existence.
And again, you have to remember that he met the Comp Saint
Germain, and he was Privy to how horrible a man he was.
Fergus, though, understands that this proposal that he petitioned
for the estate is something that can't really happen because he
is a bastard. And that's when Percy shows him
the marriage certificate and proves to him that should this
be legal, he is the rightful heir.
I did get a good shot of the actual contract and hopefully I
can zoom in and read what's written on here.
I really love being able to screen grab moments like this
from the show and look at the work that someone put into
writing this whole thing out and creating the seal for it and
creating the signatures. I think it's just like a
beautiful part of storytelling that often doesn't get the
appreciation it deserves. And Fergus is smart, so he knows
that Percy wants something out of this conversation.
And that's when Percy explains that the Compt owned his estate
and still does own a majority of the stock of a syndicate
investing in land in the New World, though main asset of
which is a large parcel of land in what is called the Old
Northwest. And Percy has people in Paris
that truly believe that while Britain is fighting in this war,
the opportunity to establish a French colony on the land with
French settlers is ripe for the picking.
And unfortunately, the comp solicitor will not sell the
stock to anyone at any price. But if Fergus were the
legitimate heir, then he could sell it to them.
And Percy tells him that they would pay him a very significant
sum of money for the land. And so we're left on this
cliffhanger, wondering what Fergus is going to do with this
information when he stops and actually thinks it over.
Back in Savannah, we see Amaranthus outside reading when
she's approached by William and he asks her point blank if he's
done something to offend her. William rightfully calls her out
for being jealous and he gets this confirmation that
Amaranthus is interested in him. And this is when he decides to
tell her his truth and that he enjoys her company.
And we slowly see them start to move closer to one another over
the course of this conversation. And as that dance is happening
between the two of them, the look on Amaranthus face gives
away so much about what is at play here.
She's really got him eating out of the palm of her hand.
The show takes this very different approach by having
William tell Amaranthus that Brianna is his half sister and
therefore not a threat to her, and he continues revealing
things about himself and tells her that he is a bastard and he
doesn't actually have the title that he holds.
Not legitimately, at least. There's this great moment where
Amaranthus points out that if the two of them share a father,
he must have been a very striking person.
And William's face is so perfect because I feel like they were
very much channelling facial expressions that Jamie made when
he was younger. And he has this really adorable
smile on his face. And his eyes are lit up in the
same way that we would see Jamie's when he was younger.
And I really loved that call back and how he also admits
that, yes, he is a striking person.
And again, that feeds into William becoming far more
accepting of the fact that Jamie is his father and someone that
he can be subtly proud to say is his father.
When he starts talking about renouncing his title, this is
when the show weaves in the conversation that Amaranthus has
with him, where she proposes that they get married and she
give him an air that he can pass the title onto instead of
renouncing it. So again, this is rearranged.
In the book, it happens before their conversation at the top of
the episode. Here it's happening after.
And they make them seem like they are on such close footing
with each other, having their parentage be similar.
And Amaranthus then gives this grand speech of titles and how
William is more than a title, at least he is to her.
And that again pulls William in closer into her orbit.
She makes him feel seen and accepted and special.
And on the surface you could deduce that this is a really
sweet, budding young romance. But Amaranthus has a plan.
She wants protection, and she needs protection because she's a
widow and she no longer has a husband to protect her.
And she is very young. And so you can see that she's
positioning herself as best she can strategically here, and
William is none the wiser. Back at the Ridge, it's the next
day and Claire and Elspeth are continuing to converse with one
another, and Claire asks Elspeth if she believes what her son
says about her grandson's death. At first we can tell that she is
being diplomatic, but she reveals that she believes that
Cunningham believes it, and to her, that's enough.
So at least it plants a seed in Claire's mind that L Smith is
looking at it maybe a little bit more objectively than her son
is, but is choosing not to contradict him in any way.
If he wants to believe that to be the truth, she's not going to
be the one to tell him otherwise.
This is going to be important later on in the story because
Elspeth naturally, you would assume, is going to stand behind
her son no matter what, but they're planting the seeds here
that she might be willing to side with someone else and have
a more objective view on the situation at hand than her own
son does. Claire, I think, is doing a
really great job of collecting information without it being
obvious that she's doing so. And that's when Cunningham
appears and he enters the house without being welcomed inside to
fetch his mother. We see him walking around inside
and Claire having to steer him back towards her surgery because
he's letting himself in. And when the two of them
interact, you can tell that it feels quite rehearsed.
The dialogue that Cunningham delivers to his own mother feels
very practiced, rehearsed and sort of icy.
Claire tries to make it clear that her and Elspeth actually
have a very good relationship and that she enjoyed having her
at the house and that she's fine after spending the night in her
care. That's when Elspeth let's her
son know that Jamie is away on business.
And I don't think that this is necessarily meant to throw
Claire under the bus. I think it was just an honest
statement that she made. But everyone in the room picks
up on the fact that it's like a shark in the water with blood
that Cunningham starts to pivot the conversation and point out
that Claire must feel so lonely when Jamie is away.
And his face, again, is that very rehearsed face that is
hiding so much but is also just unapologetically transparent.
For him to say. This house must feel so empty
with Jamie away and you being there all alone, it's very, very
loaded. And you can tell that his mother
picks up on that and can feel that something is at play here
that she's unaware of, Especially when we see her
looking at her son and then slowly panning her eyes over to
Claire. And Claire paints on this face
and reassures him that she's fine alone.
And I think this is, again, a great example of us watching
Claire in this time, being so much better equipped to deal
with situations like this, even though they are inherently so
dangerous. She knows how to converse with
these men in a way that women of that time would never dare to.
And this is another perfect example of her doing that.
And essentially, she warns him so much as she is defending
herself and tells Cunningham he should be back any minute.
So basically, back off. His expression in that moment is
just so devoid of any sort of empathy.
And that's when his mother asks him if he's brought the wagon
and cuts the conversation off at the knees.
And they exit the big house, and when they leave, Cunningham has
this really kind of eerie commentary about how this is to
be continued once Jamie returns home.
And Claire knows that this isn't going to end well.
Back at Ferguson Marsley's home, they're discussing the news
about his parentage and how Amelie was his mother and that
he had remembered her when he was young and in the brothel.
I really loved Marcely in particular in this scene because
she's always been such a steady presence in Fergus's life and
such a rock for him, and she does this wonderful job of
guiding him through his feelings and being supportive without
being patronizing at all. She asks him questions that walk
him through his feelings, like I said, and asks him in particular
about his mother. Fergus remembers that she had
been called the Baroness, and now as an adult and with all
this added context, he realizes how cruel that name had truly
been. And when Marcely asks him if she
had been kind to him, Fergus tells her that she actually had
detested him of all of the children in the brothel.
That breaks Marsley's heart, and Fergus explains to her that he
understands why she would detest him so much.
He was, as he says, the spawn of the man who took everything from
her, and that's a really difficult thing for him to wrap
his head around. He had only been around six
years old when she had died, and he remembers that she had
summoned him to her bedside and told her in French to be a good
boy. Fergus at this point is
recontextualizing his entire life since he knew the Comte and
recalls that he had tried to kill Claire.
Marsley then reinforces in him that just because his father was
that person, it doesn't mean that Fergus is like him or takes
after him at all. When she says that maybe he
could take this land and do something good for it and use
this plot of land that he's entitled to, Fergus calls out
the fact that he can tell that Percy Beauchamp is someone who
lived the same life as him. And again, if you read the
novellas, you get a much better picture of Percy Beauchamp.
He's actually very compelling character.
But Fergus ultimately needs to know why Percy and the people in
Paris want the land so badly. What effect will that ultimately
have in the long run? Because him and Marcely have
devoted their lives to this patriot cause.
And so if he inadvertently goes against that by giving up this
land, he wants to know what the outcome's going to be.
Marseille then counters that by asking why this offer is
weighing on him so heavily. And I absolutely loved this
moment and this dialogue. Because Fergus explains to her
that having someone tell him that he wasn't a bastard and
that he had a father of great significance and who was on
paper a great man would mean more to him if he wasn't already
the son of a great man. For Fergus to claim this title
and all of what he's entitled to by it would mean he would have
to publicly acknowledge who his real father was.
And yes, that's what every orphan wants to hear.
But it would mean that he would not be claiming Jamie as his
father. And to him that's not worth it,
because he doesn't need to be publicly acknowledged as the son
of a great man when he already is because of Jamie.
And no one understands that better than Marcely.
Back at Lord John's house, we can see that Bri hears cannon
firing, and John tells her that there's a ship that's moored off
the coast. There's nothing for her to worry
about. They're safe inside the city.
But ultimately, we know that she's actually more worried
about Roger, and Lord John knows that something's going on with
her. But first she confronts John as
to why he didn't tell William that she was coming.
John then admits that he hoped Bri's presence would help give
William some guidance and a sense of purpose because she's
the only person he believes that could talk some sense into him.
And again, this is all sentiments coming from the book.
He had originally written the letter to Jamie to try and get
Brianna to come. And when he was writing that
letter, Hal had been giving him advice on what to say, and John
had expressed all of the things that he says in the scene with
Bri to Hal. That's when John flips it around
and asks Bree about where her husband is, and she owns up to
it pretty quickly. Then we get this really
beautiful scene and dialogue where John starts to talk about
how William and Bree and Jamie all share this same
stubbornness. And again, this is incorporating
that borrowed dialogue for the scene originally between John
and Hal. And it's this beautiful
commentary on what it feels like to be a parent and having this
ache in your body worrying about the outcome of your child.
And Brianna and him are able to relate on that feeling and what
it is to be a parent, which means so much to John because
even though he is not William's biological father, and now
William knows who his biological father is, he is still a father
to him. And I think that that idea and
concept is really beautiful to map out in this way.
I've always really enjoyed the relationship dynamic between
Brie and Lord John in the book and in the show, and so I think
it was nice to have this scene inserted and have it repurposed
to be a conversation between these two, and I felt it was
really effective. After we leave Brianna and John
and Savannah, we go back to Fraser's Ridge where we see
Rachel and baby Auggie outside of the trading post, and Rachel
sets her eyes on a paper which notes that there's been a
tragedy up where Ian's Mohawk wife and child are from.
We see her go back to the Ridge with that information and she's
sort of going through the motions with Claire and Lizzie
here, and she's very quiet. And we also can see that being a
mother to Auggie, who is very colic, Ian cries a lot, is
weighing on her quite heavily. But then this added notion that
Ian's Mohawk wife and child could have been injured in these
raids is weighing quite heavily on her because Ian is not home
yet. Claire can sense that
something's going on with Rachel here and is very quick to pick
up on it. And we see the children playing
at the big house. Lizzie is.
You know, thrilled to death that her children are getting along
so well with Brie and Roger's children and Claire makes a
point to go over and talk to Rachel.
The baby in the scene looks incredibly fake.
That's the one commentary I have on it is I wish it didn't look
so fake or at least like they covered the face more because
you can clearly tell that it is plastic.
And then we hear the kids who are up on the deck looking out
at the land. They're able to spot that Jamie
has returned home. And we see three men riding back
together. I don't know where Josiah is
because all of a sudden he's no longer with them.
It's like they they gave him up for Buck.
And as Buck gets off his horse, we can see that Jamie and Mandy
recognize him right away and run towards him and announce that
their cousin is here. So even though Buck is actually
their great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather,
however many times great they refer to him as a cousin.
And this is when Jamie very proudly and excitedly introduces
Buck Mackenzie to Claire, and Buck says right away that
Claire's reputation precedes her.
And she agrees and says that his does too.
And they have this offhand commentary about how long his
journey might have been because Claire is well aware that he has
time travel to get there. That's when the offer for Buck
to stay as long as he'd like on the Ridge is extended.
And that's when we see Rachel and Ian reuniting.
And Rachel is not as excited to see Ian because something's
wrong and he can tell right away.
This is when she tells him about the massacre and she speaks of
Joseph Brandt and shows Ian the newspaper.
He reads through it and gives us more context clues as to what's
going on. And Rachel knows in her heart
that Ian's going to want to go north to see if his wife and
child are okay, or at the very least find out what happened to
them. And Rachel, at that point, says
that she will go with them because she knows that he is
going to be called to do this, and nothing she says is going to
convince him otherwise. And so they agree that they're
going to head north. And this is a storyline that I
sort of felt like they were going to omit from the series
just because it removes him and Rachel for such a long period of
time and for a payoff that I didn't know would add to the
greater storyline. But they are including it.
And they also are going to use it to fill in the moment when
Ian goes to the brothel in Philadelphia to find out more
information about Fannie and Jane's parents.
So we probably won't see a lot of them on screen because it's
going to be a full calendar year before the Battle at Kings
Mountain when he returns. But they might do some cutaway B
plot scenes between these two. And that's when we start to see
them packing up already to head north.
Claire trying to convince them to stay, but Rachel knows she
can't allow her husband to travel that far alone and she
also doesn't want him to find out what happened to his wife
and son or alternatively find them both alive and then forget
the life that he has at the Ridge with her and their their
son Auggie. Rachel wonders if that makes her
evil to be that what she presumes is selfish about the
situation, but Claire reassures her that that's a normal
reaction for her to have. Separately, we see that Jamie
and Ian are having a discussion about his travels up north, and
that's when Jamie asks Ian to inquire about Fanny and Jane's
parents in Philadelphia. So again, this storyline being
included is something I previously suspected they were
going to skip. But again, I think it feeds well
into the faith storyline that they're trying to write.
They can insert any sort of dialogue that they want there.
They can make a story up that would fit the narrative that
they're trying to achieve. So I am curious how that's going
to go with Ian going to the brothel and Rachel allowing him
to go to the brothel, and how that's all going to play out on
screen. But we can see that Claire also
strategically pulls Rachel and Auggie away so that Jamie can
address the elephant in the room, which is when he brings up
Frank's book and the battle that's going to take place on
Kings Mountain. He asks Ian if he's been filled
in by Brianna about her other father, and Ian says yes.
Frank Randall. And Jamie explains to him that
he's been reading his book and he learned of this battle on
Kings Mountain that Frank says he fights in, which take place
October next. The subtext of all of that is
that Jamie is convinced Frank is telling the truth, and Ian can
sense his nerves and apprehension about it.
And so without hesitation, he promises to make sure he's back
in time for that battle so that he can guard Jamie's left in his
father's stead. And I've always loved young Ian.
I think he's just a beautifully written character, and this
dialogue and this whole delivery of it was really compelling to
me. And you can tell on Jamie's face
how much that means to him, that his own kin is going to be with
him in this moment, that he's really, pun intended, staring
down the barrel of a gun. You know, of Ian is not someone
to shy away from a battle. And he's heard of Kings Mountain
before. And if you've read the book, you
know that he is going to be really important in that whole
moment of the story. And so again, it's it's a full
calendar year before that's going to take place in the
timeline of the show. I don't know how many episodes
are going to take place in between that.
There's a lot of plot that still has to happen.
But where they have so much to wrap up, I'll be curious how
much they truncate his journeys up north off screen, or
transversely, how much they include of it.
That's when we see them all standing together performing a
blessing for a warrior going out.
Personally, I didn't love how this was shot.
I feel like it would have been more effective if the camera
wasn't swinging from so far away from them.
But the sentiment of it I really enjoyed and I thought was really
nice to include. Especially when we know that
Jamie really, really wishes for Ian's protection as he ventures
into what is a very dangerous situation.
This is when we finally set eyes on Roger, who has been searching
for this Continental camp, and he walks onto it.
We can see that it's the same set that they used for Saratoga.
That's made more clear here with this shot in particular.
And Roger has been looking for Marianne, who evidently is a
very difficult person to find. So he introduces himself to
Marianne and explains the situation in North Carolina to
him very succinctly because he's a very busy man.
Francis Marion, as a real historical figure, was referred
to as the Swamp Fox. If you're interested in American
history, he's someone who's definitely worth looking into.
He has a very interesting back story and Roger very proudly
hands Marian the letter from Jamie and asks him if he would
be willing to help their cause like he's helped others before.
You can tell that Roger is very proud to be associated with
Jamie, so it's a very comical moment when Marian recognizes
Jamie's name and negatively associates him as a man who
abandoned his troops to tend to his wife.
So all the confidence that Roger went into this conversation
having dissipates almost instantly when it's made clear
that Marian is not impressed and cannot give his reassurances to
someone who he cannot trust. At that point, Roger realizes
that he's sort of hit a dead end and it's time for him to take
his leave. But that's when Marian tells him
he cannot leave, something Roger never anticipated as part of
this plan. Marian tells him it's only a
matter of days before they siege on the city, and they're not
letting anybody leave the camp so as to inform the British of
what their plan is going to be. Which makes total sense.
Roger does not wish to fight, and Marian essentially guilt
trips him. If he doesn't want to take a
weapon and fight alongside them, then he'll be there to bury them
all if need be. And Roger being a minister and a
preacher is one thing, but him being a patriot is another.
And while yes, Roger has promised his wife he'd return to
them, so did every other man at this camp.
And Roger recognizes that. And that's when he switches and
says, if you have a sword, I'll fight alongside you.
This is foreshadowing to some of the clips from the trailer where
we see Roger in the full uniform and so I suspect we will be
getting that in the next episode.
Play Akka song.