“Not In Scotland Anymore” – Recap and Review

What’s up, y’all?  For those of you that don’t know, I’m a HUGE fan of the “Outlander” TV series.  My mom became addicted to the show first, and I decided to give it a chance when I logged onto to my VUDU account one faithful night and saw that they were giving away the first episode of the first season for free.  I’ve been hooked ever since.  Very briefly, for the folks that have never heard of the show, it tells the adventures of a woman named Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser (that’s a mouthful, isn’t it?), who travels back in time to the 1740’s and ends up meeting Jamie Fraser, a super hot Scotsman.  Claire eventually marries and falls helplessly in love with Jamie (in that order).  The only thing is, back in the 1940’s (her original time period), she’s already married to a sweet, yet slightly dull British professor named Frank Randall.  Intrigued?  That’s just the tip of the iceberg!  I highly suggest y’all go back and watch the first season.  Good stuff.

For my readers that are fans of the show, let’s get into this recap!  By the way, I’m sorry I never posted anything about the season premiere.  Life got in the way, as it sometimes does, and before I knew it, it was time for the next episode to air.  I promise to be more diligent with my recaps and reviews for the rest of the season.  Scout’s honor.  Anyway, this past episode starts off a few weeks after Claire and Jamie arrived in France and began making new enemies.  We learned that they were in Paris to stop the Jacobite Rebellion, which would in turn would prevent the Battle of Culloden…but they failed.  Now that we know what happened, we have to find out why and how it happened.  We finally get some clues in this episode.

At the beginning of the show, something happens that nearly everyone’s been beggin’ to see…sex!  Well, sort of.  Jamie has a dream that he and Claire are making love, and Claire is soon replaced by none other than Black Jack Randall.  For those that don’t know, Jonathan “Black Jack” Randall is Frank’s ancestor and the two of them look exactly alike, which causes a dilemma for Claire at times.  Black Jack is also Jamie’s captor/torturer/rapist.  Once again, you have to see season one.  It’s intense.  Anyway, Jamie naturally goes straight HAM and starts stabbing Black Jack with his dagger, only to see Jack’s evil behind survive the attack.  Poor Jamie wakes up in a cold sweat and refuses to go back to sleep.  Claire tries to reassure Jamie that Randall’s dead, but it doesn’t do much to ease his mind.

In the days that follow, Claire and Jamie try to acclimate themselves in a new country.  Claire makes some new friends:  the hilarious Louise de la Tour, who reveals that waxing was around in the 1700’s (including bikini waxing…ouch!), the timid Mary Hawkins, a guest at Louise’s house who will be a very important part of the series, and a charming apothecary, whose name I can’t remember.  I’m glad to see she’s not pissing off everyone she comes in contact with.  Last week, she got on the bad side of a nefarious man known as Le Comte de Saint Germain, or as I like to call him, That French Fucker.  Murtagh, on the other hand, can’t wait to leave France, and had some interesting observations about Paris and the people there.  When he said the city smelled like a toilet, I lost my shit (no pun intended).

Jamie’s cousin soon hooks him up with an invitation to meet Prince Charles Stuart aka The Bonny Prince, who is the leader of the Jacobite Rebellion.  Jamie and Murtagh take the opportunity to try to talk the prince out of rebelling, but the prince is, for lack of a better word, dumb.  He claims to listen to no one but God—never mind the fact that God pretty much sent two messengers to talk some sense into his dumb ass—and wants to go ahead with the rebellion.  However, he needs funds to do it, and wants the French Minister of Finance to do help him.  He asks Jamie to be the liaison between the two men.  By the way, “bonny” means “pretty” in Scottish, right?  The prince is pretty strange looking, in my opinion.  Also, I learned something else in this scene…dildos were around in the 1700’s, too.  Mind blown.

Since Jamie is tasked with asking the Minister of Finance for funds, he and Claire decide to meet him at the French Court in Versailles to actually talk him out of it.  Thanks to Louise, they had the necessary invitation to go up there.  This leads up to the scene we’ve all been waiting for…Claire in the red dress (I’ll save my commentary on the dress for later).  The final scene at the French Court was hands down the best one of the episode.  So much went down in those final 15-20 minutes.  Jamie bumped into his ex-girlfriend, and he got to witness King Louis XV attempting to take a crap.  Jamie even gave him some tips to ease his constipation (I swear I’m not making this up.  Murtagh had some hilarious commentary on that as well.  Murtagh is my boy!  I liked him in season one, but I’m lovin’ him this season!).  Monsieur Duvernay, the Minister of Finance, eventually met up with Claire, but not before he tried to hit on her and Jamie promptly pushed him into a nearby lake.  Thankfully for them, Monsieur Duvernay admitted his behavior was out of line and he apologized, opting to meet Jamie later for a game of chess.  Then, the king (still constipated and walking funny to boot) made an appearance at the gala with his mistress…who was wearing a dress with her breasts completely exposed, save some swans glued near the nipples (once again, I’m not making this up).  Murtagh’s reaction to the king’s mistress was priceless.  He actually liked seeing that.

Last, but definitely not least, the Frasers learned that the Duke of Sandringham was in town, still causing trouble.  Last season, the Duke promised to help Jamie clear his name by denouncing Black Jack’s false accusations and bringing his deplorable treatment of the Scottish people to light.  Instead, the Duke betrayed Jamie by runnin’ his mouth to Black Jack about the document he was supposed to send to the British officials and even going so far as to give him the damn paper.  Jack destroyed it, of course.  Claire and Murtagh made it clear they had no use for the Duke—hell, Murtagh wanted to kill him right there in the palace—but Jamie was willing to let bygones be bygones.  I’m guessing that Jamie sees that the Duke is too powerful of a man to have as an enemy.  Despite the fact that he and Jamie seemed to be on decent terms, the fool took great pleasure in introducing Claire to Alexander Randall, his new cleric.  What’s so special about that, you ask?  Alexander Randall is no other than Black Jack Randall’s baby bro.  Not only that, baby bro revealed that Black Jack is actually alive and well.  DUN-DUN-DUUNNNNNN!  Then to add insult to injury, the Duke had the nerve to smirk in Claire’s face after that revelation.  Punk ass.  Now Claire is debating whether or not she should even tell Jamie the news (he wasn’t in the room when this little tidbit of information came out).  DUN-DUN-DUUNNNNNN!

In my opinion, this episode was better than last week’s, but there still wasn’t enough excitement to keep me on the edge of my seat.  Political matters in the Scottish highlands had me glued to the TV last season.  Political matters in France  aren’t really tickling my fancy this go around.  As a matter of fact, they’re a bit ho-hum.  I was hoping That French Fucker (or TFF, for short) would make an appearance again, seeing as he was the saving grace in last week’s episode, but alas, he was a no-show.  The Duke coming back was a welcome sight, though.  I’m beggin’ for either Claire or Jamie to give him a much deserved ass whuppin’.  I’m ready for this season to pick up.  After the brilliance of the first season, season two has some big shoes to fill.  However, we’re only two episodes in, so I’m still holding out hope.  I will say this though, folks really need to be more patient about the sex scenes.  In nearly every article I’ve read, all I’ve seen is, “Where’s the sex?” or “There were no love scenes in the episode!”  Yes, the love scenes were one of the many things that had us all hooked on the show, but you have to remember that Jamie is still recovering from being brutally raped and tortured.  It’s gonna take a while for him to recover, and one of the things I liked about this episode is that it showed that Jamie has a long way to go in the healing process.  Hell, I’m surprised he’s doing as well as he is.  By the way, it was cute to see Jamie’s reaction to Claire getting her bikini line waxed, “Yer honeypot…it’s bare!”

Finally…my thoughts on Claire’s dress.  I liked it, but there were two things that bothered me about it.  One, the bottom front was too high.  I read that some French women wore their skirts high so their ankles could be revealed.  It was considered “scandalous” back in the 1700’s.  Be that as it may, on an elegant 18th century dress, it just looks wrong.  Also, I’ve noticed that the French couture styles all have extra padding in the hips, and Claire’s dress was no exception.  Yeah…that didn’t look right.  Other than those two things, the dress was fire.  The plunging neckline, the color, the shoes (I REALLY loved the shoes!)…hot to death.  If the skirt was lower and the hips weren’t padded wide enough to rival a school bus, that dress would’ve been flawless.

Can’t wait for next week’s episode!

—Written by Nadiya

So what did y’all think about “Not In Scotland Anymore”?  Is the season picking up or is it dull as dishwater?  Once again, I wanna hear your thoughts!