Outlander Season 8 Episode 2 Review: Prophecies

Outlander Season 8 Episode 2, “Prophecies,” teases an unlikely antagonist during this melancholy outing.

Despite a series of tragedies stringing this episode together, it is quiet and strategic in nature. One can practically visualize Outlander moving individual chess pieces across the board as characters enter the scene.

The result is a patchwork of needle-moving plot points that manage to fill an hour of our time without feeling entirely like remedial plotting.

Outlander loves a life-and-death parallel.

So when poor Amy is mauled to death by a bear, it opens the door for an important pregnancy plotline to come to fruition.

Amy’s death does a masterful job of eating through half the episode’s run time without providing any major moves in the rest of the story. Her goodbye is emotional and exposing, with everyone jolted out of the fairytale that the season premiere initially spun.

The death particularly shakes Brianna, as she remembers just how unforgiving this time period will be to her family and friends. This emotional manipulation primes us for the sappy nature of Rachel’s birthing scene as she and Ian welcome their baby.

However, Amy’s death ultimately serves to further Captain Charles Cunningham’s political agenda.

Even though Amy’s death is from the books and Charles’ antagonistic undertones have to arrive eventually, using a woman’s death to further a male character’s development is a weak choice, regardless of how well you dress it up.

Cunningham is rightfully setting off Jamie’s spidey senses as the loyalist Captain uses Amy’s death to tote his own deadly prophecy.

However, the internal war Jamie is waging with the long-dead Frank Randall is far more fascinating, and Outlander teases that Tobias Menzies’ time as a series villain is not over yet.

The season is cleverly keeping us in the dark on what Frank’s intentions were when he wrote a book about the man he supposedly despised.

As Frank claims Jamie will team up with a dangerous militia of mountain men, the Scotman questions why he would align himself with such brutality. Something is unsettling about the information Frank is choosing to share, and we can feel ourselves experiencing the same weary wafting off Jamie.

His ability to haunt Jamie and Claire’s relationship from beyond the grave is a chilling reminder of what havoc this antagonist can wreak.

William’s side quest to find out what happened to Benjamin Grey is a welcome relief from the ridge’s calculated agenda.

An intriguing mystery of a missing body lends itself to this storyline’s success as Outlander establishes an intriguing twist to a rather straightforward loss.

That final shot of the unknown face in Ben’s grave as William whoops in delight suggests that, despite being on a separate path from the rest of the ensemble, William has found his purpose this season.

The mysterious plot is cushioned by a beautiful moment as we witness the union between Henry Grey and Mercy Woodcock. After such a delightful romance between them last season, it’s rewarding to see the couple get a happy ending with the support they deserve.

As terrifying as bear hunts and a large group of men congregating in one place can be, Outlander’s time embracing life on the ridge will need to come to an end soon.

For a show about the lives of time-travellers, the last thing we want to see is the season run out of time to tell their story.

Episodes can afford to focus their run time on characters like Amy and her upsetting death for the time being, but it only delays the inevitable. We might as well dive headfirst into the pending war before it comes knocking down the Frasers’ front door.

For all the quiet triumphs this outing has, we also have to acknowledge how hilariously bad that bear CGI looks.

It’s not the most elegant of deaths for Amy, but what’s a girl going to do?

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Outlander airs Fridays at 8/7c on STARZ.

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