Outlander (2014) s01e04 – The Gathering

I’m profoundly disappointed this episode, The Gathering, did not involve all the dudes chopping each other’s heads off a la Highlander. I can only imagine the Quickening episode of “Outlander” will someday similarly disappoint.

“Outlander” ’s Gathering is where all the clan guys gather at the castle, pledge fealty to Gary Lewis, get drunk, and try to rape random women. Of course, if they aren’t lucky enough to rape anyone, they’ll take consensual sex, but it’s not the preference. Time traveler Caitriona Balfe is hoping to use the confusion to escape to get back to the time travel rocks so she can go back to the future. But she’ll find even after an indeterminate amount of time spent planning, getting away is more challenging than coming up with 1.21 gigawatts of electrical energy.

First, she’s got to distract guards Grant O’Rourke and Stephen Walters by siccing them on ladies. Though, to be fair, Walters is a whole lot less rapey this episode. He’s a more genial sexual predator. It’s unclear if it’s character development or just some of the episode’s weird character shifts. Matthew B. Roberts gets the writing credit, and in some ways, it’s the best-written episode. The narration’s terrible, the dialogue’s tepid, the continuity’s off, but it’s still a lot less manipulative than usual.

It also feels way too self-contained, with none of the previous episode’s character work actually mattering. For example, Lotte Verbeek is still snooping around Balfe, trying to discover her secrets, but it’s independent of their relationship arc. Ditto Sam Heughan, who’s barely in the episode—because he’s in danger of losing his head, though not for the Prize—when he and Balfe have scenes together, they’ve got less familiarity than Balfe has with any of the other characters. The episode doesn’t dial back their chemistry; it forgets they have any.

Once again, Graham McTavish is easily the best actor in the show, even if he’s not good at acting blackout drunk.

Brian Kelly directs and turns out to be incapable of action or suspense scenes, which is a bummer. Though someone on the crew has seen Evil Dead 1 and 2 thank goodness. But the slowed down and sped-up rugby match is a silly fail. Kind of like using pop music from the forties as background music for Balfe, though at least the music makes sense, bad or not. Trying to make the rugby look cool is nonsensical.

Though at least there’s not a bunch of weird nudity. Still the terrible narration, of course. They really don’t know how to make this show. Just fundamentally, they can’t figure it out.

Outlander (2014) s01e03 – The Way Out

With a new writer credited (Anne Kearney) and a different director (Brian Kelly), is “Outlander” all of a sudden much better?

No, but it’s less rapey. Even if the “Previously On…” reminds us lead Caitriona Balfe is constantly under threat of assault if she’s not with highlander hunk Sam Heughan. Heughan doesn’t live at the castle with her, however, so theoretically, she’s always in danger when he’s not there. So most of the time. Only even the regularly rapey guy (Stephen Walters) isn’t very rapey. He’s a dipshit, but not a dangerous one.

And the show is a little better. A little. At least it’s not as bad as it could be. Even though there are now daydreams, which look just like reality, the show’s got another device to deceive and manipulate the viewer instead of just telling a story. Though there’s a lot less narration this episode. There’s barely any in the first half of the episode, which has its own plot. Balfe hears about a village boy being possessed, and because she’s from 1945 and everyone in 1945 was an atheist, she knows he’s not really possessed. He must be sick. Will her hunky highlander and her knowledge of European herbs somehow save the day? Or will the backward villagers go with God, with very evil, very vicious priest Tim McInnerny?

There’s also some more with Lotte Verbeek as Balfe’s only friend, who stops being a friend in this episode to spy on her and try to discover her secrets. Balfe’s been considering taking someone into her confidence, but she’s convinced she’ll end up burned at the stake. Or at least nailed to a pillory.

We also find out Heughan’s extremely well-educated, which is why he talks with a vocabulary and cadence of a twentieth-century man, while everyone else is obviously Balfe’s inferior. Though Balfe does exhibit some cruel indifference and a pronounced drinking problem, living in a time without potable water can’t help. Everything’s booze.

The soft cliffhanger is exasperatingly apparent and silly. Ample narration doesn’t help things.

“Outlander”’s a strange show. It’s far from incompetent, but it confuses clutter with clever, and Balfe’s a flailing protagonist. It’s not her fault, it’s the concept, but they’re three episodes in, and they’re shakier than they ought to be. Maybe if there were better breakout performances, no one impresses yet. McInnerny’s cameo is fine—there’s also one from John Sessions—but inventive cameo casting when your narrating lead actor can’t hold the show is a flawed formula.

It’s a show with dire prospects.

Outlander (2014) s01e02 – Castle Leoch

This episode features a scene where highlander heartthrob Sam Heughan fails to rescue a woman from being raped. It’s a flashback. Time-traveling World War II nurse Caitriona Balfe is just making intrusive conversation. The rapist is Tobias Menzies, who plays Balfe’s future husband and his present-day, eighteenth-century ancestor. Balfe mooning over memories of Menzies while his other visual representation is as a vicious rapist is another of the show’s wild swings but whatever. Let’s concentrate on the show making a point to objectify the victim.

When I thought “Outlander” was throwing the nudity into the home video releases, it kind of made sense. Dudes buy blu-rays, and dudes like pointless nudity. But “Outlander” is a show targeted at women. From a book series targeted at women. So Heughan is all heroic and fantastic for the women viewers, then there’re numerous shots of the victim’s boobs to appeal to the women’s male partners? Then there’s another pointless nude scene for Balfe.

I guess Heughan’s got very shiny pecs in a warm light scene but the show’s otherwise anti-beefcake. Just vulnerable women naked, both times without their consent. It feels very off and very odd.

The episode story pairs with the last one, with Balfe getting acclimated in the past while poorly narrating the experience. She’s overly confident in her knowledge of history, and it gets her in trouble. The show doesn’t think about the connotations of her being unreliable in her self-confidence, not even bringing in the narration being past tense so she’d be aware of her failings. There are some renaissance fair-ready costumes, an ally for Balfe in Annette Badland, and a pal in Lotte Verbeek. Balfe needs all the friends she can get because Graham McTavish is having her followed everywhere by a couple of his goons, and at least one of them definitely wants to rape Balfe. He wanted to rape her last episode; he’s ominously eying her this one; the other goon tells her to watch out because he’s rapey. So even though she’s seemingly safe, she’s not. Correspondingly, of course, no women are, and yet we’re supposed to like the dudes.

“Outlander” is very much a “the patriarchy isn’t real” type of show.

Balfe also meets the local lord, played by Gary Lewis. He’s McTavish’s brother and has a degenerative disease, so there’s a weird relationship between the two. Both give fine performances, even with the tepid writing.

Besides being boring and the narration being bad—not to mention the “but it’s realistic, so it’s okay” nudity—“Outlander”’s biggest problem is the thoughtless plotting. Also, in addition to the flashbacks, there are flash-forwards to inform Balfe’s character development. So "Outlander"'s also got the problem of being very cheaply told.

Though Heughan would make a good live-action He-Man, I guess.