#outlander 7x05 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

always-outlander · 10 months

Text

Outlander 7x05 Easter Eggs and Spoilers - “Singapore”

Spoilers below the cut!

Singapore is the name of this episode, and it opens with goats on a cliff face. This is in reference to the Highlander’s whom fight for the British, we later find out. The title is a direct reference to the battle of Singapore and the attack of the Japanese, which Claire describes to Jamie as a parallel with the impending attack on the fort, which informs his actions for the episode.

Lallybroch

Gem and Mandy are playing in a graveyard, as Mandy wanted to talk to Jamie. Jemmy tells Bree that Jamie told him to leave him a stone and built him a cairn if he ever came to Lallybroch. I try very hard to tolerate Sophie’s acting but she’s so wooden at times. Other times she’s fine (mainly in the more emotional scenes) but her line delivery is quite hard to swallow sometimes. She has changed her pronounciation of ‘Da’ like 4 times now, and that’s hard for me to ignore.

Roger and Bree read another letter from Jamie and Claire. The letter is dated June 18, 1777, which is our ONLY way of knowing the timeline and how much time has passed between episodes. In it, Claire writes that Jamie continues to dream about the children and Bree reveals she’s been to the fort before with Frank. Her and Roger decide not to look at the history books and find out what happened there.

Before Bree heads to work, these two have another attempt at a romantic scene that doesn’t quite land (a hard hat in bed and his hands down her pants just made me uncomfortable). These two try but they just don’t have it!!!! And I think Richard Rankin could if he wasn’t opposite Sophie, as he is a great actor.

Jemmy gets off the bus from school and Roger follows him into his hide out (which I think is referenced in the books as a place Fergus used to play). Roger tries to talk to him about it and Jemmy says he got in trouble at school for defending their family in Gaelic. This child actor playing Jemmy is so great!!! He’s doing such a good job!

Ticonderoga

They have now been there for months, and Jamie once again organically finds himself leading men, this time they refer to themselves as ‘Fraser’s Irregulars.’ Claire is practicing medicine under Lieutenant Stactoe, and the fort is under the command of Saint Clair. We also meet General Formoy (who is mirroring the ignorance of the Bonny Prince). Ian has reunited with them as well.

Sugarloaf hill is mentioned as a point the English can attack from. For those unfamiliar with the location of Fort Ticonderoga, it sits on the edge of the New York and Vermont boarders, along a narrow portion of Lake Champlain. The fort is surrounded by water on three sides, and as of now it doesn’t look like there is a Sugarloaf hill near the site. There’s a sugarloaf ski mountain in Maine, though!

Jamie has a dejavuex moment with Formoy when he uses his knowledge to advice against an attack and is found denied and insulted, akin to a goat for being Scottish (like the episode preview implies). Jamie is once again being sidelined and watching history repeat itself with the ignorance of leaders like Formoy and the Bonnie Prince (and simultaneously history is…happening? But where they know the outcome, could you consider that history repeating itself?).

Denzel Hunter and Claire finally meet towards the end of the episode and the two of them help a man named Walter Woodcock together. It’s the dream team finally united! They successfully opperate on Mr. Woodcock and amputate his leg, but only after Denny so kindly recognizes Claire’s struggle to be taken seriously and back door allows for her to help him.

The Hunters and William

Denzel makes a comment about attending medical school in London via a distant relative after their parents died. Their mother died in childbirth having Rachel, and their father died a few years later in a flood having drown. The Quakers who took them in made that connection for Denzel when they learned of a shared last name Hunter, so this scene hammers home the importance of their Meeting (and reminds us that they are now kicked out).

William and Denzel debate over morals and how Denzel can be within his beliefs while practicing medicine. They come upon a man on the road who offers them a place to stay for the night and they are fed a disgusting meal of rat stew. William is shown the realities of the war and he and Rachel speak outside. In the few short scenes they’ve had you can tell William has a crush on her, which is exactly how the books describe their relationship from Williams internal monologue.

While sleeping, the Johnsons attempt to attack William, Denny and Rachel with knives and William is able to show his strength and skills as a fighter. Charles is such a great casting, as he is every bit the young man described in the book and his size and strength is akin to Jamie’s. The Johnson’s have evidently done this many times before so to steal from un expecting visitors.

William feels guilt over taking that man’s life and tells Rachel that he’d never killed anyone before. This scene you can see Jamie’s heart come through in him. He has a flurry of feelings about it that he cannot sort through and worries that Rachel might think less of him due to her beliefs but she reassures him she knows him well enough to know he did it to save them.

When they part William tells them to ask for his uncle should they run into trouble. He gives them the money from Ian and keeps the rosary beads. When Rachel watches him leave with fond eyes Denny reminds her that he is a British soldier, and violence follows men like that. There’s a sweet scene between the siblings where Denny gives Rachel an out, but she insists they stay together.

Loch Errochry

The Land Rover Bree and her boss drive around in is a dream, I want one. The setting is also stunning, having driven through the highlands last year it’s still so hard to believe that country looks like that. Bree meets her new male employees including Rob Cameron (!!!). He immediately locks her into the tunnel like a jackass and Bree discovers the light they gave her has no batteries. She quickly lights a match and finds some lights and proceeds to inspect the tunnel. I’d be clostrophobic down there and it feels like something out of a nightmare watching her walk through the tunnels.

She hears buzzing halfway down and a weird blue light at the end that she has to walk through (the graphics are strange but hey, hard to depict what was written) and it leads her to her escape. It’s implied that somewhere in the tunnel may be a portal for time travel.

Bree tells the kids at dinner about being trapped in the tunnel and how she escaped but you can tell she’s still unsettled by the event. Her and Roger step away from the table to discuss it. She’s worried the men are never going to respect her and Roger reminds her Claire did it at Harvard. A bit of a turn around from him being slightly sexist last episode about her working in general.

While in the office they uncover a hidden drawer in the desk and he gifts her a pen. Doesn’t undo his comments from last episode but that’s just me, and his insistence on her wearing knickers and a hard hat needs to stahhhhhp.

Bree heads to the bar where the men and Rob Cameron are hanging out and tries to awkwardly earn their respect. They all try and play it off as a joke and she tries to insert her dominance. Sophie also can’t say the word “anything” without a Scottish accent.

Young Ian

Joseph Brant of the Mohawk is at Shadow Lake and Ian is recruited to deliver a letter to him. Ian is reluctant because of personal reasons. He asks Claire how baby’s come to be and why he was unable to get his Mohawk wife pregnant. His belief is that his spirit was not strong enough and fears he cannot get a woman pregnant again and would refuse to take another wife. He tells Claire that Jamie told him about sperm and asks her to look at his (had to laugh). When asked, Ian tells her Iseabell was perfect and not deformed, but Claire has a Frank conversation to help Ian understand that it’s not a matter of his spirit but science and gives him renewed hope he may be able to have a child with another woman one day.

When he arrives at the Mohawk camp he sees Emily, who is happy to see him. She tells him she now has two children and is happy. Ian seems to finally be at peace with that, and asks to meet her son (who does not look Mohawk). He tells Ian that Emily’s mother tells him he’s the child of his spirit. Ian gives him the name Ian James and I’m sat here smiling like a fool over how cute that scene was.

Simon Fraser

One of the few scenes we get with Claire and a Jamie this episode, Jamie tells Claire that a Simon Fraser is one of Burgoyne brigadiers on the side of the British. Book readers will know that he is a ticket home to Scotland for them later on, and Jamie tells her it is not the same Simon Fraser she met in season 2 but not the old fox or his son but one of Jamie’s second cousins from Balnain (located outside of Inverness, not far from Loch Ness). It is also now understood that with their troops low on supplies they will need to attack the fort sooner than later. Jamie knows that a Fraser in the camp, the troops will know well enough to attack from higher ground as Highlanders do.

Jamie brings Formoy and the men to higher ground to show them that it is possible to the English can reach them by cannon, and once again finds himself standing across an incompetent soldier (with a terrible accent). These scenes are so short and choppy, and for that I dislike them. It’s not enough time with Jamie (or Claire for that matter) before we are abruptly switched over to another character. The atmosphere of them walking around at the Fort was palpable in the books, and we are missing it so far in the show sadly.

Later on the British set up shop in the exact place Jamie warned of, and Jamie uses his knowledge how Highlander warfare to help lead an evacuation by boat. Claire won’t allow Walter Woodcock to leave the fort because his injury is still too fresh, and sadly has to leave him. She tells him due to his injury the British will have to show him mercy, but also gives him laudanum. I was surprised she didn’t outright show him how to use it if he needed to drift off to sleep. The civilians are all put into boats in the lake and the fort is abandoned. The next sequence of events in the books is fairly action packed so I’m curious how they go about it all next episode.

Ian and Rachel

When Ian returns to the fort, he spots Rachel. A critique I have of this season is that they make the traveling seem so fast, and it’s incredibly hard to keep track of time passed. Ian was just in Virginia, now he’s suddenly back in New York. That said, these two have great chemistry without even trying, and Ian let’s Rachel know Claire is his aunt. It’s implied they will be seeing much more of one another, thankfully. I think the actors have done a great job of establishing the differences between Rachel and Ian and Rachel and William - Izzy plays Rachel differently around Ian and it’s great work on her part.

In the End

Roger goes out into the dark to search for the Nucklavee and we see a camera angle from across the yard watching the front door of the house. I suspect next episode we will actually set eyes on Buck for the first time.

The episode ends when Bree goes to the graveyard to talk to Jamie and brings him a stone. She tells him about her new job, buying Lallybroch, etc. and it fades to black (a weak ending and my least favorite thus far). Nothing happens this episode action wise, and it was mainly an episode used for establishing upcoming plot. The pacing is getting really bad in that such large expanses of tiem are not being explained. How in one episode did Jamie have two conversations about Sugarloaf Hill and the British Invasion, and The Hunters / William Travel by Horse to New York from Virginia, Ian leave camp to go see Emily and return…it’s so many moving parts and it’s not clear how they all make sense. Even having read the books I’m getting confused with how they are choosing to speed things up.

I will say this until I’m blue in the face, but this show works best when Claire and Jamie are together and on screen, and every time I dislike an episode it’s in large part due to a lack of them. That can be said with this episode, but I’m optimistic we will see much more of them next episode thanks for the preview.

Episode 6 Preview

Preview for episode 6 shows what looks to be an action filled attack on the Fort - we see Jamie attacking British soldiers, William in a red coat again, Roger running into the yard angrily, and Ian and Rachel getting closer. Lots of good things that I hope we get proper screen time to dissect.

#outlander #outlanderedit #jamie x claire #jamie fraser #claire fraser #sam heughan #claire x jamie #jammf #caitriona balfe #james alexander malcolm mackenzie fraser #outlander spoilers #outlander season 7 #outlander 7x05 #outlander review #outlander books #outlander ep: Singapore

66 notes · View notes

nellie-elizabeth · 10 months

Text

Outlander: Singapore (7x05)

Huh, interesting. A couple of significant changes I'm not sure how to feel about, but an otherwise solid episode!

Cons:

Now, as a caveat, it has been a minute since I read the books, but I'm almost sure the scene with Ian meeting Emily's son goes a lot differently. For one, Ian is the one to name the kid Swiftest of Lizards, and Emily actually asks Ian to name her daughter, but he feels a connection to the older boy, and names him instead. It's left incredibly ambiguous as to whether or not this really is Ian's biological son, although later events strongly suggest this to be the case. In the show, they cast a little white kid to play Swiftest of Lizards, so it seems pretty clear we're not supposed to have any doubt. And he already has his Mohawk name, and Ian gives him an English one: Ian James. I'm... not sure how to feel about this. I liked the subtlety, the ambiguity, in the book. And I liked that Ian claimed the right to name him in the Mohawk fashion, instead of being handed the opportunity by Emily. It makes Ian's connection to his Mohawk identity stronger, that he names this child of his spirit in the tradition of one of his chosen people, instead of the people of his birth. I don't know, it just felt a little too neat and tidy, the way this played out.

Another change from the books is that I think Brianna realizes that the hazing is something they've done to the other people a little sooner? She doesn't go home and talk about how this was an act of sexism with Roger, and get his reassurance. I don't... mind that, strictly speaking, but I do think the stuff with Roger works a little better if he's not quite so perfect at atoning for his mistake of not supporting her perfectly. He's got a lot of sexist ideas that he has to work to overcome consistently.

Pros:

I will say, Bree and Roger are a lot easier to like as a couple in the 1980s than they were in the past. I don't know why, exactly, but something about Sophie Skelton's acting style (she's still a weak point in the show for me) works a little better in a more contemporary setting. And gosh, Roger looks handsome with his 80's haircut and clothes, holding his daughter in his arms... I also like the sinister hints that something's going on, with the food wrappers, and Mandy seeming to see someone lurking outside.

I'm glad they kept in things like Jem talking to his grandfather in the graveyard, and Brianna wondering if her parents might be buried there at Lallybroch. She's afraid to look. And the bit about Jem speaking Gaelic at school and getting in trouble for it - it's so wild to me that things like that can happen. How evil do you have to be to actively try and stamp out language and culture like that? It's cool that we're keeping these little subplots in, when there's so much else we need to cover. Another highlight is Brianna weeping over her parents and deciding to read another letter. The device of having Claire's narration come through the form of letters to Bree and Roger works better than just the out of nowhere narration that the show has been struggling with since day one.

Meanwhile, the Hunters and William are traveling together, and they stop for the night with a couple who lures them off the road and tries to murder and rob them in the dead of night! William saves them by killing the man and incapacitating the woman, but he has complicated feelings about having killed someone for the first time. I loved that the scenes with them started with a moral debate over the merits of taking a human life. Obviously the Quakers are anti-violence, but William points out that part of what allows them their stance is that they depend on others to enact violence on their behalf. Denny used medical cadavers for his research, and they were executed criminals! How does he circle that square?

I will also say, in contrast to my thoughts last week, I was a little bit charmed by Rachel here. I thought she had decent chemistry with William, and I also thought the moment when she and Ian ran into each other was pretty sweet. I've found that when Ian gives a big smile, it makes him look young and boyish and super charming in a not-conventionally-attractive way. (The scene between Ian and Claire about his chances to father children in the future was very sweet, too.)

I was excited for Claire and Denny's team-up as surgeons at Fort Ticonderoga, it was super refreshing to have him show up and immediately respect her opinion, the same way she respected his. They work together to amputate a man's leg, but are forced to leave the injured man behind as the British approach to take the fort, meaning he'll end up a prisoner of war. Book readers know that this man has a role to play later on, so that'll be interesting to see.

Meanwhile nobody takes Jamie seriously about his worries that the British army will approach from over the water and take the high ground, and even after he tries to convince the higher-ups, they ignore him. Turns out, he was right, and the Americans are forced to flee and let the British take the fort. You should always listen to Jamie Fraser, he knows what he's talking about here! I like that we're seeing some of Jamie's tactical brilliance, but also the way he stays cool under pressure, and has learned how to keep his mouth shut when he's being disrespected. He will lead the men under his command with honor, he'll fight for what he thinks is right, but he's also got his survival, and that of his family, front of mind. It's a good balance for his character!

So there ya have it. Lots of stuff going on. I know I keep saying this over and over, but it impresses me how little they're cutting out of the books. Every time I realize we're getting a particular scene or a setup for a character to arrive, I find myself a little surprised, thinking about all the stuff that could have been cut off to make room for the main plot. There wasn't a lot of Claire in this episode compared with most of the other characters, and I think that's okay - she has plenty of time to shine later on!

8.5/10

#review #outlander #outlander review

2 notes · View notes