Review of 'Outlander' 4.1

Outlander's return with episode 4.1 was all too relevant and excellent, at turns splendid and brutal, which is the way Outlander has always told its stories.

The lynch pin is Claire's soliloquy to Jamie about what America will become. Looking west from Virginia in 1767, she tells him about how America will expand and become a vibrant home of opportunity for people around the world. Even then, Jamie counters with a question of what will become of the native inhabitants. She truthfully tells him, from her knowledge of mid-20th-America, that the native inhabitants will be killed and forced to live on reservations. A dream for one can be a nightmare for another, he sagely replies.

But even Claire can have no knowledge that in 2018, America will have a President determined to build a wall to stop immigrants and refugees and the American dream. The situation in the 4th season of Outlander, in America just before the American Revolution, couldn't have come at a better and more instructive time for us in 2018.

The new villain Stephen Bonnet is suitably charming and despicable, again combining the opposites than animate Outlander. His attack on Jamie and Claire and their kin and friends on the placid boat on the river at the end was unexpected but in retrospect thoroughly consistent with the struggles of our heroes in this story. Nothing comes easy for them and their love and the people they love.

As a devotee of time travel, I always enjoy the little and big ways that Claire uses her knowledge of the future to guide Jamie. In 4.1, she warns him that if he accepts the Crown's officer of land in 1767, he will be on the losing side of the American Revolution that will begin nine years later. Nice touch.

And, I always like the easy wisdom of Outlander. This time, it was Jamie's musing about different parts of the body and their different consciences that caught my ear.

And I'll be back here soon with a review of the next episode.