When I chose to recap Outlander for the venerable website which you now read, it was despite the facts that a) I had never read the books, b) it had received only a middling review from a certain viewer whose tastes tend to jibe with my own, and c) I was male—indeed, I still am—and therefore patently not the target demographic. Happily, I...
The inimitable Kate Beaton of the webcomic Hark! A Vagrant penned a series of cartoons about a pirate whose obsession with his British naval officer nemesis manifests in ways comically reminiscent of a tween girl with a crush. I thought of these cartoons more than once over the course of this week’s episode of Outlander, “Wentworth...
This week’s episode of Outlander, much like life in the 18th century, was neatly divided between men’s work and women’s work. On the one hand we had Claire assisting Jenny in the birth of her baby, and on the other hand we had Ian and Jamie first taking on and then joining the Watch. In fact, in both stories the in-law suggested...
Phallic symbols abound in this week’s episode of Outlander, titled “Lallybroch”: Jamie’s father’s sword (sheathed, unsubtly, under Jamie and Claire’s new marital bed), Ian’s lost leg—even the name of the episode’s titular setting means “lazy tower”, though by the episode’s end said tower had been restored...
Colin Dweir is recapping and reviewing Outlander for us each week. Follow him on Twitter @colindweir! If last night’s episode of Law & Order: Scottish Victims Unit wasn’t quite as eventful as most, that didn’t keep it from being just as compelling. Indeed, I found the slow burn of the witch trial subplot more compelling than the...
Something’s been bothering me about the Outlander universe—the Outerverse? The Landerverse? Are we calling it anything yet?—and it’s this: How much magic are we supposed to believe in exactly? Clearly some exists, as the central premise of the show is time travel by fairy henge, but Claire’s contemptuous dismissal of all things...
Our Outlander recap comes from our new writer Colin Dweir! Follow him on Twitter @ColinDweir! Last night’s midseason premiere might as well have been titled Fifty Shades of Plaid for all the exploration of the themes of sexual dominance, submission, and discipline in which its dual protagonists engaged. Hell, the episode even ended with a...
