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.

Monday, January 6, 2025

Outlander 7.15: Penicillin and Again Television Logic

Another powerfully wrenching episode -- 7.15 -- of Outlander on Starz, to say the very least. But I'm an optimist, and I'll you why.

[After I alert you to spoilers ahead ... ]

So, if you've seen the episode, you know what I'm talking about. And you haven't, that's why I cautioned you about spoilers.

Claire is shot in the abdomen -- she says, in her very critical condition, maybe in her liver. But the med she trained gets back in time to attend to her, along with a gift from Lafayette, some Roquefort cheese! And turns out the Frenchman's not crazy. Claire knows the cheese comes with the kind of mold that we today -- since the 1940s -- call penicillin. This can help treat her life-threatening wound,

So why, then, in the coming attractions, is Jamie seen crossing himself, and, more importantly says to Claire, who's unconscious, "we didn't have much time". I don't know, but I don't think it's because Claire is gone, certainly not for the remainder of the series. As I've said many times -- including earlier this season when Jamie was thought to be drowned -- unless you see a character blown to bits, with a head chopped off, television series usually just don't work that way.

And since Outlander is after all a time-travel tale, Jamie or someone could go back in time and prevent Claire being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I haven't read the books, so I don't know what happened at this juncture on those pages, and how much the TV series is adhering to the novels, or branching out its own, especially at this very crucial juncture. But I'm predicting we'll see Claire alive and well, again, if not next week, then when the series resumes with its final season. And not just in flashbacks, as ubiquitous as they've become.

But I'll admit to being a little worried, anyway. I'm not a time traveller. I can't see the future. I'll see you next week.

See also Outlander 7.9: Powerful Separations ... Outlander 7:10: The Nature of Deaths on TV Series ... Outlander 7.11: The Rough Night ... Outlander 7.12: The General ... Outlander 7.13: Good Scenes, Ad Hoc Metaphysics ... Outlander 7.14: Prostitute Economics

And see also Outlander 7.1-2: The Return of the Split ... Outlander 7.3: Time Travel, The Old-Fashioned Way ... Outlander 7.7: A Good Argument for the Insanity of War ... Outlander 7.8: Benedict Arnold and Time Travel

And see also Outlander 6.1: Ether That Won't Put You to Sleep

And see also Outlander 5.1: Father of the Bride ... Outlander 5.2: Antibiotics and Time Travel ... Outlander 5.3: Misery ... Outlander 5.4: Accidental Information and the Future ... Outlander 5.5: Lessons in Penicillin and Locusts ... Outlander 5.6: Locusts, Jocasta, and Bonnet ... Outlander 5.7: The Paradoxical Spark ... Outlander 5.8: Breaking Out of the Silence ... Outlander 5.9: Buffalo, Snake, Tooth ... Outlander 5.10: Finally! ... Outlander 5.11: The Ballpoint Pen ... Outlander Season 5 Finale: The Cost of Stolen Time