Episode 303 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 303 of Outlander. Please limit your comments to what happened in the episode. If you wish to explore how the episode differed from the book, please do so on the show-book deviation thread.

Episode 303 (September 24, 2017) -- "All Debts Paid" written by Matthew B. Roberts, directed by Brendan Maher

Synopsis: In prison, Jamie discovers that an old foe has become the warden - and has the power to make his life hell. Claire and Frank both put their best foot forward in marriage, but an uninvited guest shatters the illusion.

Have at it, people! Did you like the episode? Thoughts, impressions, quibbles, highlights and lowlights?

Comments

[suzy]

Yes, I had expected more with Joe. Like I said, we already knew a lot of Claires story from episode 2x13. Surely, they could show us more of the bits we didn't know? Like Joe! They managed that with Lord John, albeit still just the bare minimum. I'm guessing becuase LJG will turn up more later we needed a more proper introduction?

Still, it would have been nice to see a different side to Claire. While better at my second viewing she comes off as too bitter and not very sympathetic. She did love Frank in her own way I think and I dunno, having her confide in Joe would have been nice. To see her side of the story and not just Franks.

Yeah, maybe it's wishful thinking but Starz should always grant extra 15-20 min! I wonder if there's lot of deleted scenes and we will get them on the DVD. I liked what they did previously with 2(?) episodes and put them into the episode so we got a longer and fuller version.

Oh, about Murtagh. I've read others speculate on that subject. I don't know that other person so for me I would gladly take Murtagh over him. However... is that plausable with Murtagh's age? Would that work? How old is Murtagh anyway?

[jo]

Lord John is definitely a more important character than Joe Abernathy. He will be back in this current season, and he's a fairly regular character in the subsequent books, esp. the later ones.

But Joe pops up again too. After Claire goes back to Jamie (I don't think that's a spoiler!), he becomes sort of a surrogate father figure to Bree. There's a fair bit of him in book 4, and again at least one of the more recent books.

Matt B. Roberts, one of the executive producers and writers of the show (he wrote ep. 303), was answering questions on Twitter yesterday, and someone asked about getting longer episodes. His reply hinted that they should wait and see, so it sounds as if that might happen for one, or maybe more than one ? episode this season. Possibly the famous print shop episode maybe? And or the finale?

I discuss the Murtagh theory in the book-show deviation thread. I don't really know how old Murtagh is supposed to be, I don't think they ever discuss that in the books. In the books, both of Jamie's parents are born in 1691, so they were 29-30 when Jamie is born in 1721. Likely Murtagh would be about the same age of Jamie's parents I guess, since he had courted Ellen MacKenzie. So at Culloden, in 1746, Jamie would have been just shy of his 25th birthday, so Murtagh in his early to mid-50s?