Outlander - Season 4, Episode 1

Oh yeah, it's on like Donkey Kong!.... sort of.  I wasn't exactly surprised (just a tad disappointed) to see that Outlander started off slow this season.  So many shows succumb to this when starting a new season; they feel the need to go into so much exposition in order to tee everything up.  It was a bit much.  Also, the show did that thing that shows do where they try to convince you that you should care about a character just so they can kill said character.  Sorry but I don't really care about the two rando "friends" who met their maker in the end of this episode.  Honestly, Lindsay and I were bored for much of this episode and when we weren't bored, we were laughing at the truly awful green-screen riverboat action.

I think I'm down on this episode mostly because of Stephen Bonnet, which really isn't the TV show's fault.  He's just kind of a stupid villain.  Jack Randall's story made sense alongside Claire's and Jaime's. Stephen, on the other hand, felt really manufactured and silly in comparison, even in the books.  I know realism isn't exactly the most important facet for a show about a time-traveling healer but it requires a real stretch of the imagination to believe that Mr. Bonnet just keeps popping in throughout the years to commit more shitty infractions against the Fraser clan.  I was really hoping he would be downplayed in the TV show but I guess not.  Diana Gabaldon fell into a trap of thinking that we needed a specific villain (first Randall, then Gellis) to be invested in the story but there's enough going on for that.

So what did I like?  Well, Sam Heughan and Catriona Balfe were both lovely as usual.  Also, seeing the Fergus and Marsali were expecting their first child reminded me of how much I love their storyline the develops as their family grows.  But what I think this episode did really well was to convincingly show us why Jaime and Claire decided to stay in America rather than return the Scotland.  After all of the stops and starts to their relationship, this "new" land is the perfect place for them to finally settle down and build a life together without the baggage of the past.  Despite the fact that the show seems to have forgotten that Claire is supposed to be about 50 and Jaime in his early 40s, they have been apart for almost 20 years and their reunion was anything but smooth.  Their efforts to make a home for themselves in America are really a reflection of their efforts to finally build a future together.