Episode 305 General Discussion ***SPOILERS***

[jo]

***WARNING: This post and discussion may contain spoilers for anyone who is not current with the Starz series Outlander (including seasons 1 and 2) or who has not read the first three books in the series.***

This thread is for discussing episode 305 of Outlander. Please limit your comments to what happened in the episode. There were some major deviations from the book, but none of them really affect the plot or story going forward, so there's no need for a second thread.

Episode 305 (October 08, 2017) -- "Freedom & Whisky" written by Toni Graphia, directed by Brendan Maher

Synopsis: Brianna grapples with life-changing revelations and Claire must help her come to terms with the fact that she is her father's daughter. Roger brings news that forces Claire and Brianna to face an impossible choice.

Comments

[jo]

Oh wow! I am running out of superlatives to apply to this season.

If last week's episode was mostly about Jamie, this one was mostly about Claire. There were some notable deviations from the book, but really only in terms of locations rather than plot, so they weren't the sort of changes that made me sit there wondering WHY????

It was so good to finally see Sophie Skelton with some actual material to work with. I love her as Brianna, and the accent is becoming less annoying/distracting to me. She and Richard Rankin as Roger work so well together. I am so glad that we know there's a season 4 -- both of them will have huge roles and I am so looking forward to that!

Interestingly, while the titles of all of the preceding episodes have been really relevant and appropriate, I wasn't sure about this one. Is it just because "Freedom and whisky" is the line that lets them find Jamie working as printer and writer of seditious materials? The other titles worked on many levels, but if this one has multiple meanings, they escaped me.

This episode really did a nice job of wrapping up Claire's life with Frank. Her choice to stay with Frank, as has been hinted at (sometimes loudly) in other episodes, impacted everyone around her, not necessarily in a good way, and that was really driven home. The confrontation with Sandy, Bree's doubts about both Frank's and Claire's love for her -- we see the costs of Claire's choice to stay. And then we see the cost of her choice to leave -- Brianna will be, for all intents and purposes, orphaned.

There were a couple of things in this episodes that book readers were sure to immediately jump on, and which non-book readers likely missed or wondered what the point was. The first was the skeleton Joe asks Claire to examine with him. I won't say more about that because this will be important later in the show so SPOILERS! *Big Smile* The second was during the surgery, where I think they were trying to hint at Claire's almost "magical" or "mystical" skills when it comes to healing -- something that was oft-repeated in the book, but the only way they could have done the same in the show would be to have her voice-over explaining how she is able to literally "see" what needs fixing before even cutting open a body.

Near the end, when Claire's in the taxi enroute to the airport, and her voice-over is talking about her childhood fear of stepping into a puddle... and then the show transitions and she's getting out of a carriage, back in 1766 -- did anyone else flashback to the end of episode 201, when Claire's stepping down out of the place, Frank reaches out his hand to her and the shot transitions back to 1744? No? I did!

And that nasty little tease of an ending!! And now we have to wait TWO WEEKS!!!

[suzy]

Not knowing anything about the skeleton I assumed it is going to come up once they get to the Carribean. There was also Claire's "sense" that it was murder. I am again assuming it is someone she knows. She has a connection to that person. I am intrigued.

I loved to finally see Claire and Bree together. They tore at my heart. I have never had the problems with Bree so many seems to have BUT I also never got a feel for her until now because well, we hadn't really seen much of her before, simple as that. And also Roger. He's adorable! How did I not notice that before? And finally seeing the Joe friendship for real. That was so so nice.

Claire was really handy with that sewing machine. Clever to make it rain proofed and lots of pockets!

Dang but that faint. I was crying and laughing at the same time. Claire being so nervous, happy and just shining up there. And Jamie so utterly shocked. I swear he paled. What a great scene.

[jo]

Yes, it was so nice to see Joe with more than one line of dialogue!

Terry Dresbach, the costumer designer for the show (and Ron D. Moore's wife) was tweeting a fair bit about Claire's dress -- how hard it was to make it look handsewn. Here are some of her tweets:

https://twitter.com/OutlanderCostum/status/917238247880761344
https://twitter.com/OutlanderCostum/status/917239284054106112
https://twitter.com/OutlanderCostum/status/917205239408713728

[anoyo]

I agree with almost all of this! The only thing I would say differently is that while none of the plot really changed, switching the last Claire/Bree dialogue was weird. Bree said what Claire said in the book, and while that was useful, it was also less impactful. It gave Claire more of an out than she got in the book, I feel. :/ I'M NOT SURE. Hmm.