This is the episode I’ve been waiting for. And while it wasn’t everything I wanted it to be, since this half season is flying past with Spitfire speed, I was happy to get some of this part of the story at least. This episode review is dedicated to all my book reader friends who had to wait YEARS for Jemmy to get out of that tunnel!

Joy

Yes, we had a lovely wedding – the relationship between Ian and Rachel has been very rushed, I think. It’s been difficult to see all the lovely little things that have attracted such an upright Quaker girl to this unconventional man. But it’s understandable, as there are definite time constraints (and frankly, if they spent a LOT of time on the Rachel/Ian story, how many people would scream that they only watch Outlander for Jamie and Claire?).

However, this wedding was wholly unsatisfying. It felt like it was shoehorned in – they have to get married, we don’t want to spend any time or money on it, look, we have a really packed episode. Much of the dialogue is directly from the book (Written In My Own Heart’s Blood, chapter 94), but the setting is completely different. Nevermind that the original text was a double wedding – Denzell marries Lord John Grey’s niece, a plotline I have no trouble losing (not that it wasn’t charming and fun, but it’s one of those things that fits in an 800-page book better than it does an hour-long TV program) There was so much loveliness to the original wedding – not just sitting, mostly in silence, with just a handful of guests, in Mercy Woodcock’s home.

And then – altogether too much time was spent on the wedding night. Sorry, that’s my opinion. I did love Ian’s nervousness when sitting with Jamie, about Rachel’s first time. “I was the virgin on our wedding night,” Uncle Jamie tells Ian. “I was given a great deal of advice beforehand from my uncle Dougal. And Rupert. And Angus.” “Any of it good?” Ian asks. “God, no,” Jamie laughs. “I think ye already ken, ye should be gentle about it. The only useful thing was what my wife old me, on the night. Go slowly, pay attention. I’m sure ye canna go wrong with that.” “Was she gentle with you?” “God, no.”

Grief, In a Mixed Bag

Roger finds his father, finally. This could have been much longer, taking some of the time given to the wedding night. (NOW!!! Go read A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows. I beg you, please. That’s what these novellas are for – to fill in spaces. Even if you don’t read the books. ESPECIALLY if you’re not reading the books.) After riding all over the Highlands, Buck and Roger find RAF pilot Jerry MacKenzie, lost in time, confused and injured. How hard it must have been for Roger to not tell him their relationship, to not spill his heart out! But he knew you can’t burden people with knowledge they’re not meant to have yet, and there wasn’t any time, anyway, for anything except a quick, hushed “I love you” not meant for his father’s ears.

It was quite fun for me to see who played Jerry – it’s Nicholas Ralph, the star of PBS’s All Creatures Great and Small (continuing my belief that there are really only 10 British actors, because they turn up in everything). If you haven’t watched this delightful, sweet series, please find a way – it will help heal your heart during the next Droughtlander.

What is the nature of memory? Roger knew his father died when he was a child. Buck asks, “Have you thought about what you’re going to say to him when you see him?” Roger is unsure – “I don’t know. I was so young when he disappeared. He was more of a myth than a man. You know, the hero of all the stories I was told about him. But even now it’s hard to imagine he’s a real person.”

In the minutes they have, Roger asks about what happened, confirms that he’s gone back the normal 200 years (plus a bit) to 1739, and rushes him to the stones when tracking dogs are heard following them. He mysteriously tells Jerry to think about his wife, to think only about Marjorie – baffling Jerry. “How do you know my wife’s name?” he asks. Of course, Roger can’t answer him, but shoves him through the stones.

And then he worries that Jerry didn’t make it safely through. We see a brief memory photo of Jerry holding a very young “wee Roger” in what must be the London underground during the Blitz, and Roger had told Buck that this is when his mother died, before they found Jerry. But Roger has no other memories, nothing new. “I sort of hoped I’d be flooded with memories of my father. Like suddenly he would have been part of my life. He isn’t there, Buck. I don’t think he made it back. I did see something – I don’t know, it was just a, an image, I think he was holding me in his arms. But I don’t know if it is a memory, is it old or new?” “Does it matter?” Buck responds.

“All of this, you and me, here, it’s already happened. Before either of us were born. And I don’t have a memory of it, nor do you. So I wouldn’t put much stock in memory for ones such as us.”

Roger has a lot to come to terms with – as a man, as a father and son, as a Presbyterian minister who has doubts about predestination, which is a pillar of his faith. He’s wrestling with the same questions his fellow time traveler Claire tackled earlier in the series – can history be changed? By coming back, did she change things when she saved people’s lives with her 20th century knowledge? Or WAS it predestined? It had to happen, it did happen, it never would have been any other way?

And the new thought hitting him – what about Jemmy? “That day, at Craigh Na Dun, when we came back, I was so focused on Jem. How scared and alone he must have been without his da. And just as I touched the stone, I thought of my own father, how scared and alone I’d felt without him. I think the stones brought us here so I could save his life. It’s always 200 years, give or take. But if you think of someone, you can go farther. There’s no choice on how far you can go, but sometimes I think the stones make the choice for you. And now I think, if that’s why we’re here, maybe Jem isn’t.”

Joy Can Also Be a Mixed Bag

Another unsatisfying part of this episode was the search for Jem. The terror the young boy must have felt was given short shrift. The terror of coming across the stones was rushed. The hot/cold game took way too much air time, even though we were shown how long it must have taken. And suddenly, there he is, he says he’s fine, Bree is questioned by the police who insinuate this was a romantic tryst gone awry. Jem and Mandy are shuffled off to Fiona.

 

I understand that minutes are ticking away, we’re nearing the end of the episode, can’t leave Jem in a tunnel on the show for anywhere near as long as we had to put up with in the books (readers had to wait for the publication of Written in My Own Heart’s Blood for years), but – ALLOCATION. Let’s spend lots of time on Rachel and Ian, and make Jem’s little jaunt through the dark, damp and scary tunnels a walk in the park!

But that doesn’t solve the problem of how do they let Roger know he can return? (And truly, in the books this is not adequately addressed either.) Brianna is rightly worried as she talks to Fiona. “Surely Roger will come back when he realizes Jemmy isn’t there,” Fiona tries to reassure Bree. “That’s what I’m afraid of,” she answers. “That he won’t realize it. And I know Roger. He will never come back without our son. Never.” Here’s our next big cliffhanger – how is this family reunited? Will the show do a better job than the book on this huge question? We’ll have to wait and see!

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