Has there ever been a love as true, wild and actually epic as that of “Outlander’s” Claire Beauchamp (Caitríona Balfe) and Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan)?
Made doable by a circle of standing stones (and the creativeness of Diana Gabaldon, who wrote the novels on which the sequence is predicated), the all-but-instant ardour of a British time-traveling former WWII nurse and a younger Scottish Highlander has survived battle, torture, rape, shipwreck and innumerable different perils encountered individually and collectively on 4 continents.
So it’s not stunning that, as “Outlander” approaches its eighth and ultimate season, there could be curiosity within the forces that formed such a love. (Particularly when it includes increasing what has been Starz’s signature present for greater than a decade.)
That is simply what “Outlander: Blood of My Blood” goals to do by chronicling the courtship and marriages of Jamie’s mother and father — Brian Fraser (Jamie Roy) and Ellen MacKenzie (Harriet Slater) — and Claire’s — Julia (Hermione Corfield) and Henry Beauchamp (Jeremy Irvine).
Casting administrators Simone Pereira Hind and Suzanne Smith deserve reward for locating Roy and Corfield, positive actors who additionally bear an uncanny resemblance to their fictional kids.
There’s a lot to like about “Blood of My Blood,” particularly a return to the 18th century Highlands, with tartans, castles and craggy tors aplenty. There’s the beloved Fort Leoch, full with a younger Mrs. Fitz (Sally Messham) and Ned Gowan (Conor MacNeill), casting calm on troubled waters after the dying of Jamie’s grandfather, “Red Jacob” MacKenzie (Peter Mullan), has left a management vacuum.
The intense and spirited Ellen was his favored little one, however as a girl, she can’t be a laird. That leaves her brothers, Colum (Seamus McLean Ross) and Dougal (Sam Retford), to struggle one another, and any seemingly comer, whereas plotting an advantageous marriage for Ellen. Alas for them, Ellen locks eyes with Brian Fraser, bastard son of sworn enemy Simon Fraser (Tony Curran), on the clan gathering and the remainder is, or might be, historical past.
Claire’s mother and father, although by no means divided by warring clans, have simply as romantic a backstory. As a shell-shocked WWI soldier, Henry wrote from the trenches a letter decrying the battle’s brutality; working within the censor’s workplace, Julia learn it and responded. A gathering of minds led to like, marriage and Claire (conveniently visiting her archaeologist uncle when the couple was touring to the Highlands). So one other story of unlikely want strengthened by hardship (together with Henry’s PTSD) and peril (together with dramatic separation).
These darn standing stones are at it once more, claiming first Julia Moriston Beauchamp (Hermione Corfield) after which Henry Beauchamp (Jeremy Irvine) in “Outlander: Blood of My Blood.”
(Sanne Gault / Starz)
Spoiler alert: Claire’s mother and father didn’t die in a automotive crash as she, and we, have been led to imagine in “Outlander.” On a visit by the Highlands that echoes the one Claire took with then-husband Frank (Tobias Menzies), Julia and Henry do have an accident, however they survive unhurt. Trying to find a method again to their inn, they uncover, you guessed it, ye olde Craigh na Dun.
And people darn stones are at it once more, claiming first Julia after which Henry.
It’s an apparent and laughable twist, however what’s the purpose of being within the “Outlander” universe with out a little time journey. And the notion that Claire and Jamie’s immediate enduring connection might need its roots in one thing extra mysterious than hormones is intriguing.
By the sixth and seventh season of “Outlander,” so many individuals had handed, and repassed, by these stones (and their worldwide counterparts) that Craigh na Dun had begun to really feel much less like a mystical portal and extra like a metro station. Subsequent cease: 1714.
As a result of they don’t move collectively, Julia and Henry wind up in the identical yr however in very completely different circumstances. Julia is shortly kidnapped by a tenant household who offers her to Simon in fee of a debt with completely no objection from anybody, together with Brian Fraser and his mom, Davina (Sara Vickers). (Julia’s posh British accent and really unusual clothes, by no means thoughts her insistence that she’s already married, likewise increase no questions.)
Henry, in the meantime, winds up by chance impressing clan chief Isaac Grant (Brian McCardie) sufficient to turn out to be his bladier (authorized counsel); his duties will come to incorporate arranging the wedding of Grant’s son Malcolm (Jhon Lumsden) to Ellen.
So you possibly can see the place that is going — as Henry and Julia battle to seek out one another, every play a component in bringing Jamie’s mother and father collectively.
Those that have watched “Outlander” will know the result and basic outlines of Ellen and Brian’s forbidden love, simply as they know who will emerge as head of the clan. Luckily, Slater’s Ellen is a extremely participating heroine; Roy makes Brian a sympathetic swain; and assembly earlier variations of well-known characters, together with Murtagh (Rory Alexander) and Ellen’s sister Jocasta (Sadhbh Malin), is nice enjoyable.
One can solely hope that Ellen will ultimately see in Julia a mirror of her personal scenario — each girls are trapped by male domination — and assist a lady out. However this can be a sequence, not a movie, so we must wait and see.
Juggling two most important love tales and a number of time durations (Crimson Jacob makes a number of appearances in flashbacks) is wildly bold. Nonetheless it’s a bit unusual that within the six episodes made obtainable to critics, the Beauchamps, whose story is way extra mysterious (“Blood of My Blood” just isn’t primarily based on any of Gabaldon’s novels), wind up with the quick finish of the dramatic stick. With Ellen positioned because the spiky, cussed, lively lead, Julia is condemned to a softer, extra submissive position — in letters that one can solely hope Claire will by some means discover within the ultimate season of “Outlander,” she chronicles her anguish and confusion, which isn’t as efficient as exhibiting them. As Henry, Irvine delivers a nuanced efficiency as a person deeply affected by battle, however he’s not terribly inventive, or efficient, in his seek for Julia.
Extra vital, neither she nor Henry are capable of make a lot use of the very fact they’re time vacationers. Neither makes an attempt to be taught extra concerning the standing stones or work out how they will get again to their very own time — Julia has no method of realizing that Henry just isn’t nonetheless within the twentieth century — by no means thoughts attempting to situate themselves in historical past in a method which may profit their plight. (Trace: a serious Jacobite rise up is just a few months away.)
And that’s the present’s greatest failing.
As a prequel to “Outlander,” “Blood of My Blood” has two robust love tales and lots of footnote-like points of interest, however it lacks, by no fault of its forged, the multilevel tensions of its predecessor.
“Outlander” is a romance to make sure — the destiny of Claire and Jamie, collectively and individually, propels the emotional connection. However it is usually concerning the realities, and potential obligations, of shifting by time. In early episodes, Claire’s struggles to just accept and management her scenario allowed viewers to think about what it would really really feel like to seek out oneself 200 years prior to now. Pressured to confront the darker sides of her nation’s historical past, personified by the sadistic psychopath Captain Jack Randall (Menzies), she tries, for the primary two seasons, to stop a British victory within the fields of Culloden.
Maybe in response to the “rape glut” criticism that dogged “Outlander,” even the villains are much less threatening. Simon Fraser is lecherous and mean-spirited, however he’s no Black Jack Randall. The Jacobites are talked about, however many of the political machinations contain interclan jockeying. As an alternative we’re left with Henry making an attempt to put in a kinder, gentler method of taxing the peasantry; Julia scheming to maintain her being pregnant protected; and Ellen and Brian making ready to threat all of it for love.
Mercifully, we’re no less than again in Scotland, a giant rise up is on its method and if “Outlander” is any gauge, one other time traveler needs to be exhibiting up someday very quickly.
