Outlander struggles to reconnect with a key storyline

For the second time in as many weeks, Starz’s Outlander has treated audiences to an unorthodox wedding. This time, however, it’s the sweet union between Ian (John Bell) and Rachel (Izzy Meikle-Small). While it wasn’t even a contest, this ceremony is considerably cheerier than the traumatic one we endured between a grieving Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and Lord John (David Berry) a few episodes back after the supposed death of Jamie (Sam Heughan). 

Unlike that dour affair, this touchingly personal ceremony features no one being forced to marry a gay man to save themselves from the noose. So the tears are all happy and the vows are not painfully delivered as if at gunpoint. But first, the betrothed and their guests must honor the Quaker custom to sit in a moment of silence as a group for as long as it takes for “the spirit” to move one of them to voice their blessings. Jamie mercifully jumps in with a dotingly paternal speech for Ian, while the bride’s brother Denzell (Joey Phillips) goes for the unintentionally offensive speech that we traditionally save for the reception when everyone is plied with alcohol. Nevertheless, the moment also gives our happy couple a chance to exchange some artfully rendered vows. However, their tender words are quickly overshadowed a few scenes later when they shed her conservative traditions for the wedding night, each playfully parroting the same line back to one another as the clothes come off: “I like it when thee moans.” 

And don’t pretend like you didn’t shout “Quaker girl!” at your TV screen, because I sure did as they inspected the curvatures of each other’s backsides and she figured out just how hard he likes his nipples bitten. It turns out even Quakers study up on such things.

Until told otherwise, I will also assume it was the same aforementioned Holy Spirit that has kept the series pretty quiet on that other storyline you may have forgotten about in 1739 Scotland, where Roger (Robert Rankin) is looking for his kidnapped son, Jemmy. In fact, at the top of this episode, titled “Hello, Goodbye,” the show is so worried that audiences may have blanked on the specifics here that it opens on a scene with Roger in the Scottish Highlands and the words: “Scotland, 1739.” Admittedly, last week’s soapy installment was preoccupied with a delicious array of punches, promotions, and various iterations of the word “bugger,” so airtime was limited. But even so, Roger’s quest to retrieve Jemmy has not exactly been a priority. The same goes for Brianna (Sophie Skelton), who is also searching for Jemmy in the 1980s. An extended refresher for those who needed more than just “Scotland, 1739” to jog their memory: Roger and his ancestor Buck MacKenzie (Diarmaid Murtaugh) went back in time to save Jemmy after he was kidnapped by Rob Cameron (Chris Fulton), Brianna’s coworker at the power plant and dam, who thinks the boy knows the location of Spanish gold hidden in America. Rob left breadcrumbs to the stones, making Roger believe he had taken Jemmy through to find the gold when it was hidden in the 1700s. However, he stayed behind in the 1980s to get Roger out of the way and force Brianna to make Jemmy tell him what he wants to know.

But that plan fell apart quickly because Roger overshot his time travel and landed earlier than he was supposed to and Brianna didn’t exactly cooperate with Rob’s demands. She clocked him over the head a few episodes back, and now he’s chained up in her cupboard while she uses her daughter Mandy’s magical connection to Jemmy like a hot-and-cold compass to find where he is being held. He’s in the tunnels under the dam, by the way, and he uses Brianna’s stories of her escape from the first part of season seven as his map to find his way out. Soon, mother and son’s paths cross, and they reunite. But back home, Rob has escaped to once again terrorize the Highlands.

Roger, meanwhile, has become distracted in his search for Jemmy because he found credible evidence his father, Jeremiah, who disappeared during WWII, might actually have landed in 1739. After tracking down his belongings through people like Dougal MacKenzie (Graham MacTavish), he at last finds his dad hiding out in the woods after he has robbed pretty much everyone in town. But Roger is careful not to reveal too much to the shell-shocked traveler, still reeling from stumbling 200 years into the past while spying on the Germans. Roger hides that he is Jeremiah’s son before sending him back through a new circle of stones that he and Buck found.

But unfortunately, that storyline is rather hastily closed by the end of the episode. While no episode of Outlander can ever be accused of doing too little, “Hello, Goodbye” marks a low point for this (half of the) season. It isn’t outright bad by any means. Perhaps this installment’s greatest sin is that it’s just boring compared to last week’s melodramatic offering. Ian and Rachel’s wedding gives it heart, but the messy Roger and Brianna stuff just feel like treading water to keep them active in a story that doesn’t have time for them right now. Maybe the Holy Spirit will compel me to say something better about them in the future.

Stray observations

• • Lord John is briefly seen encountering the Continental Army, who question why he’s alone, sleeping outside, in handcuffs, and sporting a suspicious eye patch. He covers his tracks by saying he’s a traveling Patriot looking to join the army and definitely not a wayward British officer recovering from a beating by his best friend. But in creating his story, couldn’t he have chosen a better fake name Bertram Armstrong? I realize it is part of his unnecessarily long aristocratic name, but you could be anyone you want to be, John. How about you let your hair down and go a little crazy with it and not use something that is on your birth certificate!
• • I understand that there was the pressing matter of angry Scottish townsfolk chasing them with guns, but it is wild that Roger has spent this season searching for his dad and the show gets rid of him (for now) minutes later. They couldn’t have held off the mob a little longer for some quality father-son time?
• • Buck’s bad ticker is going to come roaring back any day now, isn’t it?
• • In the pantheon of names this show has given us (Bertram included!), I had to rewind a few times to properly catch the name of Lord John’s new commander: Rev. Peleg Woodsworth of the 16th Pennsylvania. Say that three times fast!