Outlander Season 5, Episode 12: The Rape of Claire

The dream Claire (Caitriona Balfe) escapes into given precise focus; the reality of an aggravated assault by a gang of men blurred so Claire distanced from us into a ghost-like nightmare presence You ask me if there’ll come a time When I grow tired of you Never my love Never my love You wonder if […]

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Outlander Season 5: Episodes 6-11: Women’s realm (birthing, birth control, breast-feeding &c); again anti-war, father-son-friendship bonding

Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and Jamie (San Heughan) bidding adieu just before battle of Alamance (Episode 7, “Ballad of Roger Mac”) Friends and readers, We covered The Fiery Cross and Season 5 in the context of the books and seasons thus far as a miracle of dramatic stillness and intensity; then Episodes 1-5 as a series […]

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Outlander, Season 5: Episodes 1-5, Her-stories

Claire (Caitriona Balfe) in Boston Catholic Church, circa summer 1968 One of the many voice-over shots combining Claire’s images from different times in the series, different episodes & places, with accent on a character just choosing a new destiny How many times have I put my hopes, my fears, my secret longings into the hands […]

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Outlander, Season 5: The Fiery Cross transposed and transformed

Claire (Caitriona Balfe) in her surgery (Episode 2) Murtagh (Duncan Lacroix) listening to Jamie say they must part for a while and Murtagh join the regulators … (Episode 1) Dear readers and friends, This is the first of (I hope) four blogs intended to explain why and demonstrate how Season 5 of Outlander is a […]

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Outlander and Poldark: Late Night Musings

Jenny Fraser Murray (Laura Donnelly) unwrapping books from Paris, looking forward to reading them (Outlander 2:8, “Fox’s Lair,”adapted from Dragonfly in Amber) Francis Poldark (Kyle Soller) turning from harvest festival to see Ross and Demelza have come to join him, his family and tenants (Poldark 2:3, adapted from Jeremy Poldark) one must distrust the almost-the-same […]

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Outlander, from Season 4, Drums of Autumn: a question of rape, violated heroes; Claire marginalized (2)

Brianna (Sophie Skelton), just after she’s been raped (Season 4, Episode 10) Friends, Since writing about the first half of Season 4: from Drums of Autumn: the American colonialist past, a book of fathers & ghosts, I’ve watched the whole of Season 3 (from Voyager) night after night, and found it was much better than […]

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Outlander, Season 4, from Drums of Autumn: the Colonialist American Past, a book of fathers & ghosts (1)

Caitriona Balfe as Claire Fraser I’ve never been afraid of ghosts. I live with them daily, after all … Any library is filled with them. I can take a book from dusty shelves, and be haunted by the thoughts of one long dead, still lively as ever in their winding sheet of words … Look […]

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Outlander, the watery Season 3 out of Voyager; the Prologue to Drums of Autumn

Outlander, Season 3, Episode 8: First Wife Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe as Jamie and Claire Fraser aboard a ship to seek out Ian, captured below …. From Prologue to Voyager: When I was small, I never wanted to step in puddles. Not because of any fear of drowned worms or wet stockings; I was […]

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Outlander: from books to yearly serial drama: the 2nd and 3rd season

Claire at Culloden (Caitriona Balfe), third season –a 1950s costume seen through demure 2017 eyes Dear friends and readers, I am just now listening to Davina Porter read aloud dramatically (with nuance and appropriate tones) an unabridged text of Diana Gabaldon’s Dragonfly in Amber and engaged in rewatching Season 1 of the mini-series (every couple […]

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Outlander, the second season, a differently framed Dragonfly in Amber

Claire grieving over her stillborn child, POV Mother superior (Caitrionia Balfe, Frances de la Tour, Episode 7, Faith) Jamie (Sam Heughan), one of the last shots of the season (he has told Claire she must leave and he return to Culloden) Jamie: “I’ll have Ross and Fergus take you home to Lallybroch.” Claire: “No.” He: […]

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