Outlander

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Useful Occupations and Deceptions:
Season 2, Episode 3.
Amazing when Claire remembered where she heard Mary Hawkins' name from.
Guest stars Frances de la Tour plays Mother Hildgarde and incidentally Hildegard (spelt this way) is the name of an old teacher of mine by name of Hildegard Boening.
An interesting development when Jamie employed a boy thief to do his bidding.
Oh dear it looks like Jamie is one step closer in finding out that Randall is still alive.

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La Dame Blanche:
Season 2, Episode 4.
Series directorial debut by Douglas Mackinnon.
Claire finally tells Jamie that Randall is still alive and surprisingly he only reacted with delight as he would love to get his satisfactory revenge on him.
Claire and Mary got ambushed and the latter was attacked but thankfully got stopped due to Claire getting the reputation as the La Dame Blanche.
That dinner could have been a ho-hum affair if it weren't for the aftereffects of Mary going through the ordeal of that attack an excitement that no one could have seen coming.

Meanwhile in an interview with the Sydney Sunday Telegraph tv guide of April 10-16, Sam Heughan said that he is thankful that he was not successful in getting a part in Game of Thrones in seven auditions otherwise he would not have become Jamie in Outlander.

Incidentally Tobias Menzies who plays Jamie's enemy Black Jack Randall has been in Game of Thrones

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Untimely Resurrection:
Season 2, Episode 5.
Tobias Menzies appears as Randall in this episode directed by Douglas Mackinnon and Mackinnon had directed Menzies before in Doctor Who: Cold War.
Sad that Claire had to sabotage Mary and Alex's relationship in order to preserve Frank's lineage.
Considering what happened before quite remarkable how civil the reunion between Jamie and Randall here.
Quite tense conversation at the end of the episode between Claire and Jamie about Randall.

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Best Laid Schemes...:
Season 2, Episode 6.
Despite getting a promise to Claire that he would not face Randall in a duel, Jamie soon breaks this promise marking the climax of this episode as the pregnant Claire collapses upon seeing this duel.
Quite harrowing way to end this episode.

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Faith:
Season 2, Episode 7.
Sad that Claire and Jamie’s child was stillborn in contrast on seeing Claire with her daughter at the beginning of the episode in 1954.
Horrifying on finding out for the real reason for the duel.

Didn’t expect to see the end of St Germain here.
I don’t like the price Claire paid to secure Jamie’s freedom. Saddening the episode ends with Claire and Jamie visiting the grave of their daughter Faith.

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The Fox's Lair:
Season 2, Episode 8.
First appearance this season of Gary Lewis as Colum MacKenzie. Lewis narrowly missed Stanley Weber who made his last appearance as Comte St Germain and both Lewis and Weber were in Not Another Happy Ending. In Lewis' case he had played Karen Gillan's father in that movie.
Jamie sure had a tense reunion with his grandfather Lord Lovat.
Quite like how Claire described Lovat getting two of his wives by nefarious means.
Claire also got a reunion from someone that she is not fond of.
After what happened with their time in France, this episode is basically a breather for Jamie and Claire. Even the said reunions can be easily be brushed off as non-events but no doubt the storm will be returning in what remains of this season.

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Je Suis Prest:
Season 2, Episode 9.
Whilst Jamie is training militia men for the upcoming Battle of Culloden, Claire is remembering her life in the 20th century and quite powerful a lot of these memories including when she was on a battlefield.
Shocking when Jamie threatened his own wife Claire to get information out of a English spy!

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Prestonpans:
Season 2, Episode 10.
Impressive depiction of the Jacobite rebellion at Prestonpans.
Thrilling and bloody at the same time.
However don't care much for the song for the dead.

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Vengeance Is Mine:
Antepenultimate episode of season 2.
Claire gets another encounter with the Duke of Sandringham when he surprisingly when along with her cover story.
It would turned out to be her last encounter as Sandringham shockingly came to his demise when he gets killed by Murtagh in a gruesome manner.
Somewhat saddening that a long standing adversary came to his end as I would not have minded to see more of him in future episodes.

Meanwhile Outlander has been renewed for a third and fourth season.

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The Hail Mary:
Penultimate episode of season 2.
Quite tense dilemmas between two sets of brothers and the decisions that has made in the respective situations.
We finally learn the date Black Jack's death but the question will he truly meet his fate on that date since there are efforts to stop the Battle of Culloden.

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Dragonfly in Amber:
Season 2 finale.
Most of this episode took place in 1968 and I was surprised that 1968 began with kids at the reverend's wake watching The Avengers season 4 opener A Town Of No Return in which Steed meets Emma Peel for the first time.
I soon thought why weren't they watching a Doctor Who episode featuring Jamie McCrimmon instead since Jamie McCrimmon was the inspiration behind Outlander including Jamie Fraser. This plus the fact that like Doctor Who, Outlander involves time travel.
As this episode took place in 1968 the Doctor Who episode featuring Jamie that could have been played for this setting could have come from surviving episodes of Enemy of the World, The Web of Fear & The Wheel of Space.
With Dragonfly In Amber we do go back to the 18th century at the Battle of Culloden but it is enthralling seeing the 1968 scenes with the much older Claire.
We get to see Claire and Jamie's daughter Brianna as a redhead young woman and she is played by Sophie Skelton. Incidentally fellow redhead Karen Gillan was a popular choice online to play this character.
We also get to see Jillian Edgars in 1968 just before she goes back in time. Jillian meets Brianna and Roger but misses out on meeting Claire even though she will later meet her in the 18th century.
Heartwarming when it was discovered that Jamie had surivived Culloden and the season and episode ends with an indication that Claire will soon go back to the 18th century to be with him.

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Outlander season 3 make its world debut in the US on September 10 2017.

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Outlander season 3 is fasttracked to Showcase on September 11 2017.

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The Battle Joined:
Season 3 opener.
Pretty good beginning to the third season.
Intriguing as we see how Jamie survived the Battle of Culloden when it seems certain that death was going to take him.
We also see Claire adjusting to the life in the States in 1948.
There was certainly quite a political discussion involving Claire, Frank along with Dean Jackson and as it takes place in 1948 and they were discussing the upcoming presidential election that year and Dean Jackson is convinced Democratic incumbent Harry S Truman was going to lose to Republican challenger New York Governor Tom Dewey.
It is not shown here but Truman defied predictions and won that election over Dewey not to mention the infamous Dewey Defeats Truman headline.
Dean Jackson was played by Colin Stinton and he himself had played the US President or President-elect (due to Russell T Davies not understanding the distinction between President and President-elect) in Arthur Coleman Winters in Doctor Who: The Sound of Drums.
The Battle Joined ends with Claire giving birth to Brianna and couldn’t help but be a little amused when the nurse asked why Brianna has red hair.

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Surrender:

Season 3, Episode 2.

The Redcoats are after Jamie and horrifying when one of them chop off the boy’s hands.

Meanwhile in 1949 marital relations between Claire and Frank with the two of them ending up sleeping in separate beds.

Quite a momentous when Claire attended her first class made up of mostly white men.

That was quite a bold plan in which Jamie deliberately get himself captured by the Redcoats.