Droughtlander is officially over, at least for a couple of months. And as usual, Matt Roberts and company start us off with a heart-rending episode, filled with moments of pain, a bit of a laugh, and a good appreciation for the familiarity we’ve come to know with this family.

You Can Go Home Again….

It was soooo good to be back in Scotland! Even though the production’s “America” scenes were shot there, so we never REALLY left, it was wonderful to see Scotland AS Scotland. The hills and the rocks called to all of us devout fans. I appreciate the use of location shooting – you can’t replicate the long walks through the moors unless you’re actually on the moors. And the opening scene, at Simon Fraser’s graveside, showed that our newly returned Fraser family was feeling that as well.

I stood on my native soil, felt the wind’s keen embrace, saw the heavens darken. Seems to me a storm is coming, and not one of this earth, but one of my own makin’. And one I know we must face, as we headed home to Lallybroch. 

That Lallybroch reunion was incredibly sweet and heart-breaking at the same time, as they learn that Ian Sr. is deathly ill. The “mother and child reunion” (tell me you didn’t hear Paul Simon there) was a beautiful introduction to our new Jenny, Kristin Atherton. Wee Ian has been so nervous about going back home – he was so eager to leave in his younger years, and has changed so much in attitude, life experience and appearance, that he doesn’t quite know what to expect. But he’s reverted to much more of the young man he once was as he sees his parents again, and his joy and fears all bubble up at once! I loved the hugs and tears.

But the hug that truly got to me was Jenny and Jamie. Even more than Ian, Jamie was worried about how his sister would react to him after what he had perceived as his failure to do right by her, keeping her son away from her all these years (and even though Jamie wouldn’t see it this way, it certainly wasn’t his fault). But Jenny threw herself at him, relief and longing, need for family, fear for her husband, all exploding in that hug!

 

A note about Kristin – yes, she’s not Laura Donnelly. Nobody but Laura is. And it was Laura’s choice to leave, not Kristin’s. I’ve been appalled at reports that fans – without even having seen her on screen – have already chased her off social media, in the same way that the more entitled members of our fandom have done to others in our cast family. While I trust that the vast majority of my fellow fans have welcomed every cast member, and treasured every interaction with them, I’ve been with this fandom since the very beginning and have seen the nastiness that has taken place – toward Sam, Caitriona, Nell, and others. We all have our opinions, including me – that’s what critique and discussion are for, and we’re allowed to have opinions, as long as we all realize that these are PEOPLE doing a very visible job, people you really don’t know, but who can have their feelings hurt just like you can. Kristin is an older, wiser, longer-suffering Jenny, and while we really don’t know how much we’ll see of her (see the interview below), we can welcome her to our favorite cast.

Last month, Starz gave me the opportunity to speak with several cast members, and our executive production team of Matt Roberts and Maril Davis, in a series of Zoom interviews. I’ll have a couple of these in each of the first episode reviews of the season. The first is Steven and Kristin, talking about being a newcomer and returning cast member, and whether Steven feels like a bigamist as he acts with the “new Jenny.”

Ian has always been one of my favorite characters, from the books and the series. In his own way, he’s been as adventurous and romantic as Jamie – if you  haven’t read the prequel story “Virgins,” find it and read it! He’s always been on Jamie’s side – literally, with his father teaching him to always stand at his chief’s weaker side; he loves Jenny despite clearly seeing her faults, as Jamie has to Claire. He’s a steadfast husband and father, a fierce protector of the people who depend on him. And Steven Cree has been a treasure since Season 1. So seeing our Ian so sick, with his joyous soul shining through in this episode was a gift. I’m so glad this storyline wasn’t dropped or minimized, and that Steven was able to come back and finish out his part!

One bit of unfinished business is Claire’s big secret. Knowing what’s coming in France, and how it could directly affect the family as Michael has taken over Jared’s wine business, she believes she MUST tell them. Did you get as big a laugh as I did from Michael’s completely stunned, unblinking look while Claire talked? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone with their eyes as wide – the only thing that would have made it better would have been if his jaw had hit the table. But I understand why she had to tell them, and for Ian Senior and Jenny, this probably wasn’t as stunning – after all, she knew enough about what would happen after Culloden to get them to plant potatoes, and Jenny was so suspicious when Claire returned after Culloden without a word for years. But Michael will be thinking about  his fairy aunt for the rest of his life.

Going home also meant, for Jamie, wrapping up some more “Unfinished Business”, sorting out his break from Laoghaire. This is prompted by the second part of the next thing I want to talk about, Jamie’s end of the knock on the door. And at the door for Jamie is Laoghaire’s daughter Joanie, looking for help from her “da.” Jamie’s already had an unsatisfying encounter with his former wife, met her current lover, and come home a bit worse for wear. And now, he has to figure out how to help Joanie get her dowry, allow Laoghaire to marry Joey without the penalty of losing her ownership of her home, and get himself out of the debt of the alimony he has to pay. The only thing that would have made this better would have been to have another former cast member return – it would have been great to see Bill Paterson return as Ned Gowan, now “toothless and wrinkled, but jaunty as a cricket,” according to Jamie!

The Knock(s) at the Door(s)

There was a second major storyline to this episode – the continued search for Jemmy. He’s been presumed to have been kidnapped by Rob Cameron and taken back in time to find the gold Cameron learned about in Roger’s notebooks. So at the end of the first half of the season, Roger and Buck themselves step through the stones. We only saw her for a minute, and she didn’t say a word, but Sophie Skelton conveyed all of Brianna’s fears and anguish at letting Roger go.

Here’s another of my short interviews, as I talked with Sophie:

That led to the next of my favorite moments in this episode – the knock at the door. This reminded me of the exit from the plane at the beginning of Season 2 – you think one thing is happening, but NO, it’s really something else! Jamie answers the door – cut to Roger standing there – cut to Brian Fraser opening the door to Roger and Jamie actually opening to Joanie! “He should be dead! Why isn’t he dead?” Roger thinks in his voiceover. Time travel is an inexact science, if you can even call it that, and you never quite know where you’ll end up. Here, Roger finds out that he and Buck have overshot their target and landed a few years early. If Brian Fraser is still alive, and Jamie is at university, that puts it at – hmm, 1739 or ’40, he figures – nearly 35 years earlier than they expected. That puts a major kink in their search, but Roger quickly hears that maybe he’s where – and when – he should be when John Murray, Ian’s father!, tells him of a “fairyman” wearing a short coat and odd boots roaming the countryside. No sighting of a child, though.

This sets up an interesting “buddy movie” plot with Buck, who didn’t make it unscathed through the stones. Buck came through accidentally once, and now has gone through again – not everyone gets through without damage, apparently. But Buck’s personal life, even before his “accidental tourist” event, was tumultuous. He hasn’t had the same deep-down need to find his family that Roger and Bree have, so he goes on an errand of mercy for his newfound friend Roger. And if the truth be told, I think, he’s excited about the adventure of it all. He isn’t recovering well, though, and we got a big surprise right at the very end – were you expecting an old frenemy to answer the door when Roger and Buck visited the herbalist? I’ll have another short interview with Lotte Verbeek next week!

Between this week and next, we’ll have several returning cast members, and I love the way the story loops back on itself. (If you’re attempting to match the book to the series, you’ll want to find Chapter 101 in Written In My Own Heart’s Blood,  and be looking for Diana’s novella “A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows.” You may want to put off reading them until after the next couple of episodes, unless you’re already familiar, in which case it can’t hurt to reread and brush up.)

In another short interview, I talked with Diarmaid Murtagh about Buck’s motivations, and with Richard Rankin about filming those internal monologue bits that I thought were a great addition.

… It Can Also Break Your Heart

Wee Ian and Claire make plans to leave Lallybroch, sooner than either would have liked – the younger man is pushed to return to Rachel. “Your da wants you go and live the rest of your life,” his mother tells him after showing him how they’ve mourned the loss of his young daughter Isobeail. “A dog does not a wife guarantee,” his father says – just because she’s holding on to your dog, doesn’t mean she’ll wait. And Claire has received an urgent letter from Lord John requesting that she return and operate on John’s nephew. ** In the most heartbreaking moment of the episode, older Ian very gingerly comes down the stairs and says his goodbyes, knowing he’ll never see these two beloved people again. I lost it when the camera turned to him as he watched the carriage pull away, a brave smile turning to deep sadness.

**This was an understandable change, I suppose, but logically doesn’t make a lot of sense – if you assume that it takes several months from the time Lord John sent the letters out trying to find Claire to the time it would take for her to return, what made him think that his nephew would still be alive by the time she got back? But the importance of what happens on that other end necessitates some plot device to get Claire back to the colonies. So we’ll suspend disbelief, and imagine the writers gritting their teeth over how to manage this hump without adding in the original storyline. **

Make the most of these eight episodes, friends! It will fly by, sadly. Fortunately, we have one more season to look forward to.

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