BOMB Episode 104: "A Soldier's Heart" (SPOILERS!)

Julia in BLOOD OF MY BLOOD Episode 104

Here are my reactions to Episode 104 of OUTLANDER: BLOOD OF MY BLOOD, titled "A Soldier's Heart".

*** SPOILER WARNING!! ***

There are SPOILERS below! If you don't want to know yet, stop reading now.

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I liked this episode much more than the last one. Though some parts seemed really contrived, it held my attention throughout, and I found myself at the end wondering what's going to happen next. Here are my initial impressions, in no particular order.

Things I liked:

The use of the St. Anthony medal was a clever way to show the connection between Henry and Julia even when they're separated. I liked the way they did that throughout this episode. Henry clings to it like a talisman.

Brian sees right through Julia's fake illness. His decision to take her to Castle Leoch surprised me, but in a good way! He's more intelligent than we've been shown up to now.

Jeremy Irvine, who plays Henry, is a terrific actor. I really enjoyed all of his scenes, especially the ones dealing with Henry's PTSD.

And speaking of the PTSD: I also liked the way Julia reacts to those episodes. She's understandably frightened and upset by his behavior, but she accepts him the way he is, in spite of the PTSD and occasional nightmares. Henry may be "broken", but as Julia says, she fell in love with him when he was already in that state. That's another parallel between Julia and Claire, in that Claire never knew Jamie before his flogging at Ft. William. She's never seen his unscarred back. He was traumatized by the flogging, and his father's death, before she ever met him.

I enjoyed Ellen and Colum's "walk and talk" tour of Castle Leoch, a la THE WEST WING. Last week I thought they spent way too much time with the characters standing in one place, just talking. Here, because they never stopped moving until they reached Colum's study, I found it easier to pay attention to what the characters were saying.

Brian McCardie was terrific as Isaac Grant, and I was glad to see, in the credits at the end, that this episode was dedicated to him. it's really a shame that he passed away so suddenly in 2024, during the filming of this season. He was only 59 years old.

I liked the way Julia convinced Ellen to let her into her room by saying, "I'm the bridge," a reference to Brian and Ellen's encounter by the bridge in Episode 101 ("Providence"), where they agreed to treat the bridge as their "chaperone".

Brian and Ellen didn't get much time together, but I liked what I saw.

"Let me and this baby be your guiding light" as the inspiration for Claire's name -- what a sweet moment! The line itself is rather clunky, IMHO, but I liked the fact that it gave them the idea.

I smiled at Julia quoting "Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of little children", which is a line from William Makepeace Thackeray's VANITY FAIR, published 1847-48. I always love it when the time-travelers refer to literature or pop culture that doesn't yet exist in the 18th century.

There was some really good dialogue in this episode:

Colum: "[Da] left this earth with the coffers empty, and his family and clan on the precipice of destitution." (To me, that sounds like a line Diana Gabaldon might have written.)

Dougal: "If I were you I'd show some respect to your war chieftain."
Ellen: "I would, if we were at war!"

Henry: "A little girl would make me the happiest father alive."

Things I didn't like:

The whole business with the lottery as a way to raise cash for the rents made no sense to me. This seems like presentism on the part of the writers, IMHO, assuming that everyone in this rural part of the Highlands circa 1715 has access to spare cash with which to buy lottery tickets. It was well established in OUTLANDER (books and show) that it was very common in the 18th century for tenants in the Highlands to pay their rent with goods and livestock in lieu of cash, as indeed we saw some of them doing in this episode.
"A weighty mass of copper and silver is still easier of transport than the bulk of his lairdship’s income.”

[Ned] turned to direct a piercing look over his shoulder at the two large mule-drawn wagons that accompanied the party.

“Bags of grain and bunches of turnips have at least the benefit of lack of motion. Fowl, if suitably trussed and caged, I have nae argument with. Nor with goats, though they prove some inconvenience in terms of their omnivorous habits; one ate a handkerchief of mine last year, though I admit the fault was mine in allowin’ the fabric to protrude injudiciously from my coat-pocket.” The thin lips set in a determined line. “I have given explicit directions this year, though. We shall not accept live pigs.”

(From OUTLANDER by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 11, "Conversations With a Lawyer". Copyright © 1991 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)
Not only that, but in this situation, these poor tenant farmers are being enticed (by Henry) to invest money they can ill afford in this lottery scheme, in order to make a very wealthy clan chieftain even richer. Henry says they collected far more from the lottery than the amount they would ordinarily have received, even with the increased rents. How is that ethical? If the tenants spend more than they can afford on lottery tickets, they run the very real risk of being unable to afford food or other necessities. And there is no safety net, no social services to speak of in the early 18th century.

Moving on.... I didn't like the subplot with the whore in the brothel at all. She seemed included only a) so they could get a half-naked woman into the show, and b) so Henry would have someone to talk to about Ellen. Very contrived, IMHO.

LLL ("Lord Lovat on the Loo"), again! Two episodes in a row, and I'm tired of it already.

Julia's line, "In the darkest moments, we must seize hope wherever we can find it." Enough already! I wish she'd stop spewing quotes about hope. It makes her sound like a motivational poster or something.

I was surprised by the way Lord Lovat reacted at the end, seemingly delighted to hear that Julia's carrying his child, especially if it's a son. Um, why? That didn't make sense to me. Another bastard for him to raise, when he seems to have little use for Brian?

Finally, I was startled by Ellen telling Julia about the faeries and the legends about people who disappear for "100 years". Two problems with this:

a) It would have been so much more convincing, and consistent with OUTLANDER (both books and show), if she'd said 200 years instead of 100!
“It was a time, two hundred years ago…”

It’s always two hundred years in Highland stories, said the Reverend Wakefield’s voice in memory. The same thing as “Once upon a time,” you know.

And women trapped in the rocks of fairy duns, traveling far and arriving exhausted, who knew not where they had been, nor how they had come there.

I could feel the hair rising on my forearms, as though with cold, and rubbed them uneasily. Two hundred years. From 1945 to 1743; yes, near enough.

(From OUTLANDER by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 8, "An Evening's Entertainment". Copyright © 1991 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)
This seems like something that should have been caught in editing and corrected. A missed opportunity, if you ask me!

b) Why is Ellen telling Julia all this? Because the writers needed someone to put the idea into Julia's head before the Beltane festival. It seemed to me like a total non-sequitur when Ellen started talking about it.

It was startling (refreshing, even!) to hear one of the tenants say "Sassenach!", very angrily, right before he punched Henry. We're so used to Jamie saying "Sassenach" with affection that we tend to forget that it was very much a derogatory term for English people in those days.

Miscellaneous thoughts:

When Lord Lovat crumples the letter from the Grants and tosses it aside, I was surprised to see Brian pick it up. I didn't see what he did with it, so I thought he carried that letter in Henry's handwriting the entire time he was on the road with Julia. I kept hoping he'd pull it out and show it to her, and she would recognize the writing.

The secret exit from the castle -- is that the same as the hidden entrance that we heard about in OUTLANDER Episode 104, "The Gathering", when Jamie was taking Claire back to the castle just before the oath-taking?

I really am looking forward to seeing where they take this story next week. This is the first episode all season that made me feel that way.

Look here for my reactions to the other BLOOD OF MY BLOOD episodes, and please come back next week for more!

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