Jamie

Pop CultureJuly 11, 2016

‘How can she leave when Jamie’s finally sorted his hair out?’ – thoughts from Outlander S02E13

Staff writer
Jamie

Our resident Outlander fanatic Tara Ward shares her thoughts from the much-anticipated return of time-travel romance series. Contains spoilers. And smoulders. 

Sons and daughters, love and laughter, tears of sadness and happiness. You might recognize that as the theme tune from the timeless Australian soap Sons and Daughters, but to me, it sums up my Outlander season two journey like no Australian ever could.

Welcome to episode 13, the dessert wine of the Outlander degustation feast. We’ve sat through several dicey courses: the undercooked Bastille beard, the limp Bon Jovi wig, pretty much all of Paris. Now we’re filled to the brim, we can put on our elasticated pants and drink in the ginger goodness of the season finale until we are bloated and unconscious.

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We begin ahead of where we started, because that’s how Claire Fraser rolls. Claire is in 1968 Scotland, a strange land where everything is tweed coloured. How many shades of brown are there? The answer: a shitload.

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1968 bought us the next generation of ginger love machines, Brianna (Jamie’s daughter) and Roger (not Jamie’s daughter). Old mate Geillis Duncan incited political revolution without a single hashtag (#missedopportunity), and a rat ran over Brianna’s foot. Alas, there was no ginger beer, ginger crunch, or gingivitis. Maybe season three?

While Future Claire got sozzled on the Rev’s Drambuie, Past Claire was living a life of hell in 1746, a time of more mud and wet tents than the last day at Glastonbury. Claire and Jamie had run out of everything: time, tricks and worst of all, soap. It was a depressing realization. If ‘Preventing the Jacobite Rebellion’ was a National Standard, Jamie and Claire would get a ‘did not achieve’.

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The finale was ninety glorious minutes of Outlander. I’m ready to lay down someone else’s sporran and say it was the Best Episode Yet. With more tension than a tartan bungy cord, Claire’s journey was both heartbreaking and hopeful. You kept us waiting, Outlander, but you did us proud.

In other news, my heat pump makes the same buzzing sound as the stones do for Claire. Don’t be alarmed if I disappear into a vortex of time and space once it hits 21C. The buzzing’s getting louder. It’s time to go in.

1) We’ve fallen into a Big Roger-sized hole of 100% sustainable materials and it feels terrific

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Check out these miserable lummoxes, trapped in a tan-toned tomb of leather and wood. Who died? Oh, the Reverend. Big Roger’s loss is our gain, because underneath his roll neck jersey is a heart of gold brown that serenades rats and encourages Claire to drink whisky in her pyjamas. What’s not to love?

2) I want to be Claire Randall when I grow up and travel through time

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I’ve seen the future, and it is spectacular. 1968 Claire is a giddy mix of Burberry trench coats, Jackie O hair and Deidre Barlow glasses. If that backcombed bouffant wasn’t news enough, Claire is now a surgeon who regales her patients with tales of “that time in Scotland when I amputated a leg using only a pair of nail clippers and my husband’s cheekbones”.

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3) First stop on our fun trip down memory lane: the Good Ship Lallybroch

Claire’s return to Lallybroch bought back golden memories. Life with the Fraser in-laws was a non-stop funfest – Jenny calling her a ‘trollop’, Jamie being captured by the Redcoats, Mrs Crook making too-hot bannocks. Good times.

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Did someone mention hot bannocks? Oh Lallybroch, how we’ve missed you.

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4) I’ll climb on that horse myself if Claire doesn’t hurry up

All aboard the Fraser express, next stop: PARADISE.

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5) It’s knees out at Culloden

Next stop on the Tour of Tragedy was Culloden Moor, where Claire made a final goodbye to Jamie. It was atmospheric and somber, and Claire showed her respect by wearing her shiniest gumboots.

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Jamie had 220 years to catch up on, so Claire started with Brianna’s birth and finished up four seconds later with “well, that’s everything”. She covered the important stuff, like how she lied about loving Jamie’s facial hair and how science will one day realize ginger is the dominant gene. That’s my kind of history lecture – take note, freshly-dead Frank.

6) This POV shot has me pretending I’m holding hands with Jamie Fraser and we’re walking together discussing war tactics and how fine his hair is and stuff

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7) Yes, but which one of you is Bonnie Prince Charlie?

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Geillis rallied the most apathetic bunch of students I’ve ever seen to revolt in the name of Scotland and Bonnie Prince Charlie. It was like Oprah giving away cars – she’s Bonnie Prince Charlie, you’re Bonnie Prince Charlie, we’re all Bonnie Prince f*cking Charlie!

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Then she made like a 1968 Boris Johnson and said, “soz loves, I’m out of here, but you carry on with the cause”. Later, haters.

8) Pretty sure he’s Bonnie Prince Charlie

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9) Dougal dies in a filthy torrent of vitriolic abuse and it is spectacular

“You ungrateful son of a bastard,” Dougal spewed, after overhearing Claire’s plan to poison Charles Stuart. “You filthy, whoring witch. You’re nothing but a lying slut who would lead a man by his cock to his doom, with your claws stuck deep into his bollocks.”

Dougal, tell us how you really feel. Quickly, because that dagger is about to pierce your… too late.

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10) Is everyone ugly-crying, or is it just me?

What Claire was really thinking: how can I leave Jamie when he’s finally sorted his hair out?

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No wonder Claire was upset. Frank’s hair is nothing in comparison, NOTHING I TELL YOU. A sneaky bit of afternoon delight amid the standing stones couldn’t stop the bawling, both hers and mine. Even Jamie permitted a solitary tear to slide down his sunken cheekbones. Was he thinking about Frank’s hair, too?

11) Of course it’s a ridiculous story, Brianna

But so is the one about Charles Stuart escaping Scotland by rowboat, dressed as a lady’s maid. People do weird stuff under pressure, so STFU.

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12) Praise everything smouldering and curly – JAMIE DIDN’T DIE AT CULLODEN

Ginger kisses for everyone! See you in 2017 or 1768, whichever happens first.

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    MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – NOVEMBER 15: Ronda Rousey of the United States receives medical treatment after being defeated by Holly Holm of the United States in their UFC women’s bantamweight championship bout during the UFC 193 event at Etihad Stadium on November 15, 2015 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
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    Pop CultureJuly 10, 2016

    It’s time! Predicting UFC 200 with UFC 2

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    MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – NOVEMBER 15: Ronda Rousey of the United States receives medical treatment after being defeated by Holly Holm of the United States in their UFC women’s bantamweight championship bout during the UFC 193 event at Etihad Stadium on November 15, 2015 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
    MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – NOVEMBER 15: Ronda Rousey of the United States receives medical treatment after being defeated by Holly Holm of the United States in their UFC women’s bantamweight championship bout during the UFC 193 event at Etihad Stadium on November 15, 2015 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

    After months of anticipation, the biggest mixed martial arts event ever is finally upon us. Don Rowe attempts to prophesise the event on EA Sports UFC 2 for the Playstation 4, but finds his efforts hindered by the notoriously chaotic landscape of the UFC. 

    Like a truck in the side mirror, UFC 200 is all of a sudden upon us. And boy is it…different than it was supposed to be.

    The long months of promotion, the millions of dollars in advertising, all screwed up by the inability of one Jonathan ‘Bones’ Jones to, as opponent Daniel Cormier put it, get his shit together.

    Generally acknowledged as the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world, Jones came to power in a terrifying blitzkrieg of the sports first generation of superstars, beating down Shogun Rua, assaulting Rampage Jackson (of The A Team fame), and even strangling karate master Lyoto Machida all before his 25th birthday.

    Then he crashed his car with two women inside who definitely weren’t his fiancee. Then he popped for cocaine in an out-of-competition drug test. Then he crashed his car into a pregnant woman while drunk, stoned and possibly high on cocaine and was stripped of his belt.

    Then, three days out from the biggest fight on the biggest card ever put together, Jones pinged for steroids and left both UFC 200 and my simulated preview in tatters.

    The card is now headlined by one Miesha Tate, who sacrificed her arm twice so that Ronda Rousey could ascend to worldwide fame. That all came crashing down with Ronda’s body when she got headkicked by Holly Holm, a badass former world champion kickboxer and the first woman to look borderline competitive with the blonde judoka. It was a blessing in disguise for Tate, however, as she secured a title shot and proceeded to choke out Holm in the final round of their bout in March this year.

    RONDA ROUSEY: DEFINITELY NOT FIGHTING TODAY

    From McGregor vs Diaz II, to Jones vs Cormier II, to Tate vs some Brazilian girl who nobody is even pretending to be excited about, it’s been a stressful few weeks for the UFC brass, particularly considering a potential $4b sale of the UFC is rumored to hinge on a successful event on Sunday. It’s been a stressful week for me, too, watching digital approximations of MMA’s finest scrap it out for hours and hours and hours for naught. But the show must go on, and with that, here are your UFC 200 picks, as generated by the latest UFC video game.

    True to form, I made breakfast while the prelims were on and proceeded to miss most of a fifteen minute scrap between ‘Alpha’ Cat Zingano and ‘The Venezuelan Vixen’ Juliana Pena. Judging from the pre-recorded shrieking of commentator Mike Goldberg, however, it sounded like an absolute slobberknocker – one which is likely to be repeated in person this afternoon. Digi-Cat had too much in the tank and took a unanimous points decision.

    Jim Miller arm-barred Takanori Gomi before I could finish my eggs.

    Raphael Assuncao has been sidelined since October, 2014, and in that time I completely forgot he likes to walk to the cage to some weird porn-jazz track. Former bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw kept it more traditional with Can’t Stop by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The disparity in music taste was not reflected in martial arts skill, however, as both fighters slugged it out to a point that would leave real athletes permanently brain damaged and eating through a straw.

    At the end of the first round, Dillashaw got a hair up his ass over something and the ref was forced to step in and separate the fighters. I’m not sure what he was worried about,  particularly considering the blonde hair textures look much better than the black hair, which looks like tar. Dillashaw eventually lost the fight, but remains undefeated when it comes to his beautiful golden locks.

    Speaking of textures, it appears the ring girls (which are redundant anyway) have had theirs recycled. There’s a metaphor in here about plasticity and objectification, but suffice to say digital ring girls are even more ridiculous than real ones. They need to head the same direction as nu-metal and Tapout tshirts.

    Concussion is fine though. Johnny Hendricks, a 300kg man competing at welterweight, was beaten senseless by Kelvin Gastelum, baptising the Monster Energy logo in blood and potentially forecasting the actual fight quite accurately. I fell asleep as the decision was announced, and woke up to find Gegard Mousasi wiping the floor with…Gegard Mousasi. Something went wrong with the matchmaking there, but at least Mousasi won.

    Cain Velasquez, digitised and injury free, quickly dispatched of Travis Browne and showed some of what makes him so scary in real life. Unfortunately, knees are a thing, and when you’ve abused yours like Velasquez has, real world performance is always going to lag behind what could have been. Still, if karma has any basis in reality, Browne will get what’s coming.

    Somehow Frankie Edgar armbarred Jose Aldo in the first round, a sad state of affairs for the guy most recently slept by Conor McGregor, and then Miesha Tate did the same thing to Amanda Nunes. Is that statistically the most likely outcome, or had the machine grown as bored as I had, and decided to throw both title fights to the wind, rolling the algorhythmic dice and coming up with a ‘try again later’? Either way, a first round armbar is highly unlikely in either fight. But UFC 200 isn’t really about Aldo, or Tate, or Edgar.

    It’s about Brock Lesnar.

    Much like the real UFC up until a few weeks ago, UFC 2 doesn’t feature Brock Lesnar. And if it did, I doubt even general Artificial Intelligence would struggle to predict what happens when an unstoppable, steroid-enhanced force meets an immovable Samoan object. In that case, I’ve made my own prediction. It goes like this: Mark Hunt. Knockout. Round One.

    Let the games begin.

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