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teenybeanielinguine · 5 years

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Outlander S4 - A Reflection

With that explosive finale behind us and a long Droughtlander ahead, I’m taking a moment to look back on this season and reflect on the good, the bad, and the ugly.

(I’ve had some time to unpack and process, so be warned: this is a LONG review, with mild spoilers for The Fiery Cross.)

The Good:

I understand that this was a divisive season for many fans, but I personally loved it! I could write a whole book about everything I loved, but for the sake of time, I’ll confine my praise to the best part of this season: the amazing cast of actors who bring my favorite characters to life.

Caitriona Balfe reprised her role as Claire Fraser with stunning success, and really sparkled when she shared the screen with her fellow cast members; her most powerful moments this season were definitely the mother/daughter conversations she had with Bree and Marsali. Though she handles tragic scenes with ease, I hope she is given a chance to enact lighter, happier sequences in Season 5; Jamie and Claire need more laughter and teasing, less heart-felt speeches and drama.

As our leading man, Sam Heughan played Jamie to perfection; he managed to tell entire stories with his eyes alone. Same as with Balfe, he captures tragedy easily, but I want him to stretch out a little and show off his acting chops. There will always be drama in Claire and Jamie’s lives, but please sprinkle in some more fluffy moments, so we can see Heughan laugh! Jamie’s roles as patriarch and leader are also going to be significantly expanded in the next season (the last few moments of the finale teased that a bit), and I can’t wait to see Heughan tackle that challenge.

I’ve been tentative about Sophie Skelton in the past; after all, Brianna is one of my favorite characters, despite her polarizing nature, and I was worried about her portrayal. But Skelton nailed everything (the rape scene and its aftermath, in particular, were deeply chilling), and I have complete confidence that Bree is in safe hands. In the finale, we saw Bree finally become a mother and reunite with her husband (not gonna lie, I’ve had that reunion on a loop ever since it aired); these two events are going to play major roles in her character growth (so excited for next season!).

Richard Rankin was a tour-de-force as Roger; I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the screen every time he appeared. Any issues I had with his character were purely a result of writing and production choices, and despite those issues, Rankin still managed to make the character wonderfully, emotionally, lovably human (for further evidence, please refer to the idiot hut). Roger’s journey is one of the most difficult transformations in the series, and next season will be challenging for Rankin; I’m particularly interested to see how he handles Roger’s growing relationship with Jamie.

All the leads were supported by a strong set of secondary characters, from Duncan Lacroix as the miraculously resurrected Murtagh to David Berry as the fabulous Lord John Grey. John Bell was one of my absolute favorites, with his spot-on portrayal of Young Ian (that proposal! the emotional goodbye!! running the gauntlet!!!). Ed Speelers played Stephen Bonnet in a way that brought back shivery memories of Black Jack. Honestly, there was no weak link in this cast. Special shoutout to Braeden Clarke (Kaheroton) and Tantoo Cardinal (Adawehi/Nayawenne in the books); hopefully we’ll be able to see even more powerful and complex First Nations characters in the coming season (to this effect, may I humbly suggest showing Young Ian’s time among the Mohawk? Would love to see that first-hand rather than having the character describe it after the fact; also, you can never have too much John Bell).

This Season’s MVPs: Lauren Lyle and César Domboy. Marsali and Fergus are never more than side characters in the books; you never hear the story from their POV. Thankfully, the show saw a chance to expand their roles and took it. And oh boy, did Domboy and Lyle deliver! Their nuanced performances just blew me away (”If Not For Hope” comes to mind). I hope that we see even more of them going forward.

The Bad:

No adaptation is perfect (although if you have found one that is, please message me immediately). It is especially difficult when the adaptation in question has to fit an 880-page book into a mere 13 hours; to put it into perspective, the audiobook version of Drums of Autumn is a whopping 45 hours long! Though I like to nitpick and criticize, I am not so arrogant as to think that I could have done a better job, and I am very grateful to the writing and production teams who tackle this impossible task. I am also strangely content with most of the deviations they’ve made from the source material (Murtagh as a regulator is particularly genius, with really interesting implications for next season).

That being said, there is some room for improvement. And one area that definitely needs some fine tuning is Claire and Jamie. This year, some very vocal fans found issue with the fact that we didn’t see our main lovebirds enough, and there weren’t enough sex scenes, and why weren’t they in this episode?! For me, none of those things were an issue, especially given that we saw Jamie and Claire way more than any other characters this season. I don’t think we need more J/C time; I think we need better J/C time.

I wish the show would stop beating us over the head with Jamie and Claire’s epic love; we know their love is deep and everlasting, that’s why we keep coming back! (That, and the kilts.) But we need to move on from soap-operatic speeches and tender love-making; those were more interesting in the early days of their marriage, when their love was a new, fragile thing. Show me instead the easy comfort of a long-married couple: the teasing, the laughter, the bone-deep happiness. Balfe and Heughan have such great chemistry when it comes to that kind of thing, but we’ve only gotten snippets of it this season! Rather than another over-the-top, tear-jerking scene where Jamie and Claire reassure each other and reaffirm their love (again), give me Claire cuddling up to Jamie under a snowbank after his back gives out and telling him stories. Or exchanging amused looks with him when Young Ian does/says something silly. Or Jamie teasing Claire about that time she hit him in the head with a fish while he was trying to fight off a bear (true story). Or Claire teasing Jamie with her new breeches (I’m not going to say no to sex scenes entirely). Get rid of the excessive drama (this couple already has more drama than they know what to do with); bring on the fluff!

Speaking of moving on, the show needs to let Frank Randall go. By this point in the series, he’s been dead for a few years, and quite frankly, good riddance (pardon the pun). His character was cast in a sympathetic light for narrative purposes; the producers wanted to make him the antithesis of his ancestor, Black Jack Randall, so they carefully omitted the fact that he was at times a racist ass with a string of mistresses (my apologies to any Frank fans; as you can see, he’s not one of my favorite characters). The problem is that they took it too far, painting Frank as a martyr and putting first Claire, then Jamie, at a big disadvantage. Despite this mistake, I’m fine with using Frank to flesh out Brianna’s character (his only redeeming quality is his aptitude for fatherhood), but that should have happened very early on in the season, before Bree makes the journey through the stones. That journey is a pivotal point for Bree; she is driven not only by a need to save her mother, but also by a deep curiosity and longing for this birth father that she’s never met. In the book, she even goes so far as to abandon the name “Randall” and adopt “Fraser” for the journey. But that sentiment was lost entirely by the decision to have Frank accompany her on the voyage, narratively speaking. We no longer get the feeling that she’s eager to meet/bond with Jamie; even worse, the writers had her casually dropping Frank’s name into every conversation! No matter how great Tobias Menzies is, we have neither the time nor the will to keep devoting so much energy to a deceased character (who isn’t that critical to the future story, btw). Heading into Season 5, we need to make our final, belated goodbyes to Frank Randall.

One 20th century man we should have seen more of instead was Roger Mackenzie. As we dove into Season 4, I was so excited to see his developing relationship with Brianna; remember when they were super cute together, a million years ago in Season 3? But too much focus on exposition meant that we didn’t see them until three episodes in, and instead of the slow burn I had anticipated, we got a lot of unnecessary drama. Why on Earth is Roger a misogynist all of a sudden? What happened to the sweet proposal where they both decide they’re not yet ready for marriage? The lack of screen time meant that Bree and Roger’s entire relationship development was crammed into one episode; coupled with poor writing choices, the result was a shaky romance that was hard to root for. I was lucky enough to have the books as a safety net; I know exactly how deeply they love and respect each other, despite the mayhem onscreen. But the fans who hadn’t read the series (and even some who had) didn’t understand why these two were an endgame couple, and I don’t blame them. That last reunion scene helped cement their relationship a little, but not enough; unfortunately, Season 5 is going to have to waste some of its precious time rectifying this misstep.

Which brings me to my last point: the pacing. With so many new characters and so little time, it is more important than ever that the show learn to juggle all the storylines more smoothly. The pacing of this season was so uneven, it gave me whiplash. Gone are the days when Claire and Jamie were the only focus; from now on, their ever-growing family is going to continue complicating matters. Outlander needs to evolve to meet this need if it wants to keep up. (Also, could we revert back to a 16-episode format, like in Season 1? Please and thank you.)

The Ugly:

I will readily admit that I am new to this fandom. I got hooked on the show during summer 2018 and devoured the books shortly thereafter. When I joined Tumblr in the fall, it was because I wanted to celebrate this story with likeminded people and geek out over the upcoming season.

The actual experience was a bit more jarring (suffice it to say, I didn’t know hate-watching was a real thing that people did). I don’t want to chastise or implore certain fans to adopt a more positive outlook; I’ve seen a lot of posts about that already, and I’m not inclined to add to them. Instead, I’d like to share some of the guidelines I impose on myself when I contribute to any fandom (I’m not saying these will or should work for everyone, but they have worked for me):

Love, not hate. To me, a fandom is a community that comes together out of love. Knowing this, I try my best not to express any feelings of hate within that community; I don’t think it’s an appropriate place to share those feelings, and I don’t want to diminish the fandom experience for anyone else. If I find that I no longer love or even like the show/book/movie that the fandom is centered on, I disengage from the community entirely, because I no longer consider myself a fan. And that’s perfectly fine; there is no rule that says that once you’re in a fandom, you’re in it for life.

If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. Despite the fact that I love the subject matter, it is not an absolute, unconditional sort of love. I often find myself disliking certain aspects or getting frustrated by opposing views (this is doubly true when it comes to adaptations). I let myself express these dislikes and frustrations only if I can see the silver lining; in other words, I allow myself to say a few negative things about a character/scene only if I can supplement them with a good dose of positivity as well. Too much uninterrupted negativity borders on hate.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T. I’m a very anxious person with self-confidence issues, so I have a hard time expressing my opinion online, even anonymously. That’s why I’m never going to tear anyone else down for doing so. I may disagree with you, or dislike the way you expressed yourself, but I’m going to be respectful even if it kills me, because that’s how I would want other people to interact with me. Even with the Internet as a buffer, I think it’s important to remember that we are all human, and all equally capable of hurting others and being hurt ourselves.

Again, these guidelines work for me, but it’s completely subjective. And even though my experience in the OL fandom hasn’t been a bed of roses so far, I’ve still met some amazing people with incredible things to say. My favorite fandom moments of the season? @futurelounging‘s beautiful thoughts on episode 12 and @breefraser‘s hilarious criticism of Roger’s sartorial choices.

I’d love to hear from other fans! What worked for you this season? What would you have changed? Favorite fandom moments? If you choose to reply, please be kind and respectful.

#just a few thousand thoughts #i'm rambling a bit over here #feel free to stop me #or come ramble with me #Outlander #outlander season 4 #drums of autumn

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