Paul Levinson's Infinite Regress

reviewing 3 Body Problem; Black Doves; Bosch; Citadel; Criminal Minds; Dark Matter; Dexter: Original Sin; Dune: Prophecy; For All Mankind; Foundation; Hijack; House of the Dragon; Luther; Outlander; Presumed Innocent; Reacher; Severance; Silo; Slow Horses; Star Trek: Strange New Worlds; Surface; The: Ark, Day of the Jackal, Diplomat, Last of Us, Way Home; You +books, films, music, podcasts, politics

George Santayana had irrational faith in reason - I have irrational faith in TV.

Sunday, April 12, 2020

Outlander 5.8: Breaking Out of the Silence

Outlander was back with episode 5.8 tonight, a fine, painful, tender episode, done up right with a recurring silent movie clip which Roger, having been hung but not killed in the previous episode, must break out of.

I predicted in my review of 5.7 that Roger had not been killed, but I didn't know this was the way he survived death. By inserting a hand he got free, between the rope and his neck. His windpipe was damaged, but Claire was able to bring him back to good health, if not speech. That was something Roger was unable to do, until he worked through the trauma that still thundered silently in his head.

Fortunately for Roger and our story, young Ian returns with a mohawk haircut and a profound trauma of his own. We don't know what that is, until Roger and Ian go surveying, and Roger stops Ian from taking his life and finds his voice. We get the signal that he'll be speaking again when we see the old black-and-white silent clip in color and sound.

So all in all, a good narrative with a good cinematic rendition. I also enjoyed the very ending, under the credits, in which Brianna and Roger do a reprise of "My Darling Clementine". That snippet in itself would have a made for a great ending of the season. But I'm glad it didn't.

There's a revolution coming - the American Revolution - and we still don't know what happened with Bonnet. A lot more story to tell. A lot more than can be reprised in a song. But that's what television series are for.