"Paul Levinson's It's Real Life is a page-turning exploration into that multiverse known as rock and roll. But it is much more than a marvelous adventure narrated by a master storyteller...it is also an exquisite meditation on the very nature of alternate history." -- Jack Dann, The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History

Sunday, December 23, 2018

Outlander 4.8: Ecstasy and Agony



Another outstanding episode - 4.8 - of Outlander tonight, featuring Brianna and Roger together at last, the return of Bonnet, and even George Washington (in 1768 still a colonel) thrown in.  Unfortunately, only George Washington's thread has a happy ending.  The British governor is going to eye to keep an eye on him, but we know that won't get in the way of our future first President.

Brianna's story swings from beautiful and heartwarming to heartbreaking and terrible.  Roger's traveling back 200 years in time to find her is more than enough to convince her to marry him, and they have great sex together, in the way that only Outlander can show it.  But Outlander also always carries with it the nearby prospect of tragedy, which begins for Brianna when she gets furious at Roger for not telling her right away about what happened to her mother in the past, which results in Roger leaving,  (He always leaves a little too quickly, if you ask me).   This in turn leads to Brianna being raped in a bar by Bonnet, who is one of these villains who gets more despicable every time we see him.   What this means for Brianna, in addition to the horror in the bar, is that she won't know who is the father - Roger or Bonnet - if she gets pregnant as a result of this evening.

Also worth noting is the discussion of time travel - explicitly by that name - between Roger and Brianna before he leaves. His point that we can't go back in time and change history by saving the ones we love touches on one of the central ethical paradoxes of time travel - we should never risk changing history, because we can't know what that unraveling might lead it to.  I was glad to hear Roger raise this issue, but you won't be surprised to find I side with Brianna.

And tonight's episode also has another good scene of Claire and her 20th-century medical abilities saving someone 200 years in the past.  In this case, her surgery is far superior as a treatment to "tobacco smoke up through the rear" recommended by the in-situ physician.   That also would clearly be the best line in the episode.

See you here next week.

See also Outlander 4.1: The American Dream ... Outlander 4.2: Slavery ...Outlander 4.3: The Silver Filling ... Outlander 4.4: Bears and Worse and the Remedy ... Outlander 4.5: Chickens Coming Home to Roost ... Outlander 4.6: Jamie's Son ... Outlander 4.7: Brianna's Journey and Daddy

And see also Outlander Season 3 Debut: A Tale of Two Times and Places ...Outlander 3.2: Whole Lot of Loving, But ... Outlander 3.3: Free and Sad ... Outlander 3.4: Love Me Tender and Dylan ... Outlander 3.5: The 1960s and the Past ... Outlander 3.6: Reunion ... Outlander 3.7: The Other Wife ... Outlander 3.8: Pirates! ... Outlander 3.9: The Seas ...Outlander 3.10: Typhoid Story ... Outlander 3.11: Claire Crusoe ...Outlander 3.12: Geillis and Benjamin Button ... Outlander 3.13: Triple Ending

And see also Outlander 2.1: Split Hour ... Outlander 2.2: The King and the Forest ... Outlander 2.3: Mother and Dr. Dog ... Outlander 2.5: The Unappreciated Paradox ... Outlander 2.6: The Duel and the Offspring ...Outlander 2.7: Further into the Future ... Outlander 2.8: The Conversation ... Outlander 2.9: Flashbacks of the Future ... Outlander 2.10: One True Prediction and Counting ... Outlander 2.11: London Not Falling ... Outlander 2.12: Stubborn Fate and Scotland On and Off Screen ... Outlander Season 2 Finale: Decades

And see also Outlander 1.1-3: The Hope of Time Travel ... Outlander 1.6:  Outstanding ... Outlander 1.7: Tender Intertemporal Polygamy ...Outlander 1.8: The Other Side ... Outlander 1.9: Spanking Good ... Outlander 1.10: A Glimmer of Paradox ... Outlander 1.11: Vaccination and Time Travel ... Outlander 1.12: Black Jack's Progeny ...Outlander 1.13: Mother's Day ... Outlander 1.14: All That Jazz ... Outlander Season 1 Finale: Let's Change History

 

It all started in the hot summer of 1960, when Marilyn Monroe walked off the set of The Misfits and began to hear a haunting song in her head, "Goodbye Norma Jean" ...

No comments:

InfiniteRegress.tv