I really enjoyed watching “Lallybroch” even though the events evolved a little bit slower compared to other episodes. First, I like the incorporation of book lines into the episode. I also loved how characters were portrayed. Of course, some book readers do not like how Jamie was written in this episode. I classify myself in the category of readers that liked how Jamie was portrayed though. In a former post, I mentioned that I love characters with flaws. Jamie so far is a great warrior. He has experience doing that. However, he is inexperienced when it comes to being a laird. Of course, his father, Black Brian, most likely trained him how to run the property and how to treat his tenants. When it comes to putting knowledge into practice, things usually do not work as expected. I guess this change in the character makes Jamie more realistic, and it shows the main characteristic of the Frasers, stubbornness. Furthermore, this deviation makes the interaction between Jamie and Jenny more interesting. Is this “character assassination”? No. If interested in reading about “real” character assassination, read the highlights that I have written about Littlefinger for the last episode of Game of Thrones.
Jenny Fraser is portrayed as a strong woman of her time. First, she has been running the property since her father’s death. At that time she was not even married. She was left in a tough situation. She is also portrayed as being hostile to Claire. The reason for this could be to make it easier to adapt future encounters with Claire (like the one in Voyager). Here are some of the comments made by Jenny against Claire.
- “Trollop” (this is a comment made in their first encounter)
- “I never thought you’d be so trusting of the English” (when she was told that Jamie was expecting a pardon from the Duke of Sandringham)
However, I tend to believe that her hostility towards Claire is more related to being angry with her brother. For four years she did not know much about Jamie, his well-being and whereabouts. He just simply disappeared. This is something very similar to the relationship between Frank and Claire during World War II. The interesting thing is that she is able to work together with Claire to protect his brother from the Redcoats at the millpond scene. It is actually at this scene at the millpond in which she sees her brother’s heavily scarred back, and she blames herself for it. She thinks that Black Jack took it against her brother after mocking him when he was attempting to rape her.
In regards to Jamie, memories of the first flogging starts popping up as he reaches Lallybroch. These flashbacks foreshadow that things will not go smoothly. First, his lack of knowledge of what really happened with his sister led him to have an argument with her causing the reception of Claire to be unfriendly. Furthermore, it leads to Jenny to retell her experience with Black Jack. Jamie also does not take advice or take any information from Jenny or his brother-in-law, Ian, in regards to managing the property. Every conversation with his sister ends in an argument. He is lenient when collecting the rent, and he does not handle the issue concerning Rabbie MacNabb properly since he was drunk. He is taking his role of laird to what he believes to be the proper way to do it even though he has not any experience doing that.
Who is to be blamed for the “dysfunctional” relationship emerging between the siblings? Jenny blames Jamie for their father’s death. Jamie also blames himself for it as demonstrated in the dialogue with Claire in which he recounts the events prior to his second flogging, in which he saw his father for the last time. He thinks that accepting Black Jack’s sexual proposal would have prevented his father from dying. The truth is what Jamie tells his sister at their father’s grave – Black Jack is the one to blame. Jamie also tells her sister that it was not her fault that he was taken prisoner and got flogged twice. This scene at their father’s grave was very emotional and well acted.
Here are other scenes or comments worth mentioning:
- Love the opening scene in which both Claire and Jamie are heading to Lallybroch. The scenery was beautiful and I loved listening to the bagpipe playing Skye Boat.
- Wee Jamie is very cute.
- The scene between Black Jack and Jenny is very disturbing, especially when he gropes her and puts a finger inside her mouth. Then Black Jack starts rubbing himself and the viewer catches a glimpse of his flaccid member. The view of it causes Jenny to laugh nonstop to the point that Black Jack loses sexual interest in her and hits her unconsciously. What did Jenny’s laugh trigger in Black Jack’s mind? Did it trigger a memory of something that happened when he was a child? Did somebody mock him when he was younger? These are questions that have remained unanswered for the longest time. He seems to be estranged from his family, and he only has contact with his brother, Alexander. I wonder whether the show would give more information about his background.
- Drunk Jamie was not overdone; he was a “nice” inebriated person. I liked the little roll he did on Claire.
- The Viking blade is an interesting addition. The Viking background in Jamie came from his mother’s family, the MacKenzies. It makes me wonder how Black Brian got hold of a blade of that sort. Did somebody from Clan MacKenzie give it to him?
- I found the comment made by the English redcoat mentioning that mills get stuck with a shirt only in Scotland hilarious.
- Claire gets her first vase as a gift from the tenants. I did not catch that one at all but my husband did.
All images are from Outlander-Online.com