Чужестранка The Wedding (2014– ) Online

*SPOILER* *SPOILER* *SPOILER* *SPOILER* *SPOILER* *SPOILER*

The episode was filmed in a non-linear structure, so we get the ending first, and through flashbacks we see the start and the middle. I actually loved it. It was nice to have Jamie's point of view, even though it's Jamie telling Claire of what he did to prepare for their wedding. We finally see two strangers get married and while we know and can tell that Jamie is in love with Claire, we know that she's only infatuated by him, but not really in love. She is having a hell of a time accepting the situation. Her guilt is eating her out, and watching Caitriona Balfe play that guilt is fascinating! These are very complex characters in a very complex situation and throughout the episode I focused on their faces as the story developed, and I have to say, sometimes words are not necessary at all. If you have actors of this caliber and know how to use them, the end result is brilliant! Watching Claire's struggle with her feelings for Frank and her growing attraction for Jamie, all in her face? I can't even put into words how sad it made me feel. I was heartbroken for her. The lighting throughout was soft, hazy and then it just got a bit brighter as we unwrapped the bride, which followed with more mood lighting in the church and the bridal chamber. And speaking of the bridal chamber let me say this right up front. I have never, ever seen an erotic scene filmed in such a way that it made my heart stop and flutter. It was pure magic watching two people not have sex but make love. Thanks to Anne Kenney's writing and Anna Foerster's direction, not to mention Sam and Cait's acting, we were able to see and relate to what both of these characters went through on their first night as husband and wife. What starts off as an intimate, yet awkward consummation, by the end of the night turns into a passionate love-making for both. This was so well done that every moment of awkwardness of their first time, sweetness and wonder of his, sadness of her realization that despite loving another man she still enjoyed making love to this one, came across as real. I honestly didn't expect to see a man enjoy his pleasures to the fullest. In the past, it's usually all about the woman, going on about it 'down there' while you don't even see the dude. Here, there were hardly any shots of Claire, while we only saw Jamie reach his 'happy place' and it was glorious! How often have you seen a man's first time so honestly and accurately portrayed? It was downright refreshing to see the vulnerability and honesty of their sensuality. This was by far the most realistic 'lovemaking' scenes I've ever seen. If you watch their faces you'll notice that the camera captured their expressions so beautifully, that at times I felt like a voyeur of a very intimate, private and even sacred ritual.

Claire's internal conflict is written on her face throughout the episode as she struggles to reconcile her feelings of guilt in betraying the man she loves, while being forced to marry a man for her safety and consummate the marriage. You can see all this with barely any dialogue.

As she 'deflowers' him, she feels guilty; second time, she takes the initiative; third time, as he makes her a gift of his mothers pearls, he declares that she's as precious to him as they are, they slowly make love. And we know that this woman has just fallen in love. Suddenly, this kid with no responsibilities but to himself, who's on the run, hiding in the stables, slowly becoming a man and taking the responsibility of a wife. He literally become one as he loses his virginity, and as much as it was awkward for us to watch it, it was much more for him as he's trying to figure it all out and make sure that his wife was well pleased as he was. His facial expression of wonder and joy goes away quickly as he realizes that she may have not liked it as much as he did. But all is well again as they get to trust each other and their second time his wife takes over and teaches him what true pleasure really is. For him, their third coming together was as significant as hers. Giving her the scotch pearls that are so precious to him because it's one thing he has from his mother, and telling her that she's as precious to him, probably wasn't an easy thing to do. He may as well have told her he loves her for crying out loud! Throughout this night, he's the one that is more vulnerable than she is. And he's the one keeps on giving to her all that he has, his name, clan and his family. He offers his body for protection, which is his life, if necessary. Unlike Claire, he holds nothing back. This doesn't go unnoticed by Claire, and that's what brakes her heart and her resolve to 'only do her duty'. She's touched by Jamie's recollection of every second of their wedding, comparing her to the sun coming out after the cloudy day. And here we thought women are romantic! He continually goes out of his way to make her feel safe, and she in the end accepts everything he offers and gives as good as she gets. Well, that is until the morning after she accidentally finds her 'other' wedding band and holy crap but that face just broke my heart. Besides the dress, which was stunning, kudos to Terry Dresbach; music was as sensual as was their love making, thanks to Bear McCreary; the direction, acting, lighting it is all brilliant.

The Scottish referendum to depart from the United Kingdom did not pass on Thursday, September 18, 2014. However, millions of women passed out on Saturday, September 20, while watching Outlander, Episode No. 7, The Wedding.

Fainting episodes, heart palpitations, and profuse sweating can be attributed to Jamie Alexander Malcom MacKenzie Fraser. The marriage was consummated (multiple times), and Starz made sure to give its audience what they wanted. They did warn viewers with "N=Nudity" and nudity we got.

It was a great episode, only put together a little oddly. Rather than making it sequential, it bounced back and forth from here to there, which I found a bit unsettling. Nevertheless, it starts with Claire and Frank deciding to wed in the spur of the moment, and Claire admits that after a while you forget your life in the past. Whether she truly does is another matter, because Frank's ring only comes off her finger and stuffed down her bulging bosom just before she weds Jamie.

The wedding scene starts with the kiss after pronouncement of husband and wife, making you wonder if you were late for the wedding. It quickly moves to Claire and Jamie alone with one task looming ahead of them -- the consummation. However, instead, it turns into hours of sharing, drinking, and talking, flashing back and forth between scenes. Jamie tells Claire about his family, expounds stories, and admits he married her to keep her safe from Randall. His chivalrous confession of promising to protect her with his body as well is endearing.

Everyone downstairs is enjoying the drunken reception of booze and food, along with a cat nibbling at the table leftovers. The purpose for the crowd hanging around is to await word the bride and groom have done the deed. Rupert and Angus burst into the room at Dougal's orders at one point hoping to witness something. Nothing's up yet, so Jamie kicks them out.

Claire appears extremely nervous and out of sorts in many scenes. Their time together is awkward at first. Jamie finally kisses her and tender moments of undressing one another occur. Well, after another kiss, Jamie loses it and sort of attacks her body from behind, but she turns him around and he ends up on top of her in bed. It doesn't take long to lose his virginity, but Claire doesn't look like she's really enjoying the experience while he enjoys his first time with a woman. Afterward, he asks her if she liked it, but she doesn't say anything. He just figures, like the men told him beforehand, that women don't care for it. He admits that he thought it was always done from behind like horses do it, and Claire has a good laugh.

As the evening progresses, it's more flashbacks that include Jamie's conditions for marrying Claire, which included: (1) a church wedding by a priest; (2) a wedding band; and (3) Claire must have a wedding dress. Obtaining each of those items were lighthearted moments as to how they came about. As they recall the wedding together, Jamie and Claire tell each other how they felt. The conversation is used for viewers to finally see the wedding itself. Jamie is extremely handsome in his full Scottish regalia, and Claire is beautiful in her wedding gown.

The wedding vows are touching, but it's not without blood as Dougal slits their wrists, binds them together, and their blood mingles. Those romantic words are spoken by Jamie and Claire: 'Ye are Blood of my Blood, and Bone of my Bone. I give ye my Body, that we Two might be One. I give ye my Spirit, 'til our Life shall be Done.'" The remainder of the episode focuses on the lovemaking between Jamie and Claire. She finally relents to her situation and her shy nervousness dissolves. Her boldness with Jamie teaches him a few tricks, as she pleases him in ways he never dreamed.

The episode ends with Claire the next morning picking up her wedding dress and Frank's ring falling to the floor from the bodice where she shoved it before the wedding. It rolls across the floor, falls into a crack, and Claire picks it up and places it back on her finger on her right hand. She then looks at both of her hands and the two rings declare she belongs to two different men. It's quite the thought-provoking ending.

I dare not give this episode anything but a ten, even though it bounced back and forth in timeline.

* * * SPOILERS AHEAD * * *

'Wedding Day' is the penultimate episode of Outlander's first half-season, and heads (and loins) are surely exploding across the Outlander-landscape, as Jamie (Sam Heughan) and Claire (Caitriona Balfe) get their first crack at marital relations after a hasty wedding ceremony. This is, in fact, as fine an hour of rich storytelling as we've had all season. Director Anne Kenney suffuses much of the hour with a heavy sense of melancholy, as Claire gamely tries to reconcile her old life with her new one. Even as she sits in a wedding shift not of her choosing, with a new husband who is a stranger, she knows the details of her old life are beginning to slip away.

Truth be told, tonight's wedding seems quite leisurely compared with Claire's wedding to Frank — that one being the definition of impromptu, with the couple ducking into the wedding registrar's office on their way to dinner after just a minute's discussion. Claire and Jamie's wedding narrative is wisely told out of sequence, beginning abruptly with the kiss at the end of an unseen ceremony. It's startling, but very effective, and the lead-up to that kiss is told over the next hour in flashback while the hours tick by. It also teases out two big reveals: the wedding dress, which is spectacular, and the *ahem* good times that eventually get underway. Hang onto your kilts, more about that later.

The production design tonight is terrific, both for what is there and what isn't. The brief 1940s sequence, which opens the episode, is almost colorless. Even Claire's suit and hat are a pale dove gray, adding to a general feeling that this time is not where her future lies. The 18th century scenes are shot mostly by candlelight; every scene aglow with warm colors that reflect the Scottish landscape. Combined with Bear McCreary's wistful violin score, the effect is deeply beautiful.

But the look on Claire's face as she pulls away from Jamie after their kiss tells a different story. Despite the gallant gesture Jamie has made to protect her, and the beauty at hand, this is a hell of a weird thing that's happening. It turns out that she hit the whiskey pretty hard the night before, and had to be pulled together rather unwillingly by a small army of clan members. She doesn't even know this "lad," and she blurts out despairingly, "I can't marry you, I don't even know your real name!" when they stand before the priest. For his part, Jamie needs a fair bit of convincing himself. He agrees to the wedding, of course, and several clansmen are dispatched to meet his wedding demands: Ned (Bill Paterson) is sent to a brothel to find a dress — which is hilarious — and Angus (Stephen Walters) and Rupert (Grant O'Rourke) head to the local blacksmith to have Claire's wedding ring made from a key. Murtagh (Duncan Lacroix) is sent out to track down a Fraser plaid for Jamie, and almost gets sentimental for a moment in the stable, allowing that Claire's smile is as sweet as Jamie's mother's once was.

Back in the post-ceremony wedding suite, Claire and Jamie are awkward with each other, and the pressure to consummate the marriage hangs heavily in the room. When they finally get to it … well, it's quick and clothed and not terribly satisfying. "That's it?!" scream the Outlander masses across the land. Ned's contract is technically fulfilled, true. But there's more whiskey to be had, and more conversation into the wee hours. Heughan and Balfe have genuine chemistry, and are inhabiting their characters fully here, as they begin to laugh and let down their guard. The true (emotional) consummation of the marriage is sexy, poignant and very intimate. It will replay on many a DVR in the weeks to come, I have no doubt.

Beyond the sex, there's something interesting going on here. Instead of indulging a romance- novel trope of the gallant man sweeping his new bride off her feet, we see a modern woman taking the sexual reigns on her wedding night, showing the ropes to her virgin groom. This subtext of a strong female character taking charge, even when circumstances have her at a disadvantage, is consistently well played in Outlander. It's one of the reasons why so many women have loved the Outlander books since the first one debuted in 1991, and why the show continues to gain ratings traction.

Captain Randall (Tobias Menzies) may be placated for the time being, but Dougal (Graham McTavish) slinks around at the last minute, menacing Claire with his unwanted attentions. Claire may have gained a handsome young husband with excellent bone structure, but danger is never far away in this strange land. In the early light of the next morning, her first wedding ring shakes loose from her wedding dress, where she had tucked it away before her wedding to Jamie. The final shot of 'Wedding Day' is of Claire's outstretched hands -- each wearing a ring from two different husbands --  her face shattered. As with previous episodes, there is much to watch and rewatch here (aside from the obvious) -- nuanced performances, and exquisite attention to period detail. This is great television, ye ken?

Also published at www.geeksunleashed.me

I've watched the whole series now, and I can honestly say I love the wedding episode the best. It's not without flaws but overall they did a wonderful job with the wedding and the wedding night sex scenes between Jamie and Claire. Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe are just perfect for their roles, both are gorgeous to look at and they act just as I would expect Claire and Jamie to act. Sam with his perfectly muscular body, those wonderful expressive eyes and mouth is my male image of a perfectly gorgeous man. Caitriona, besides being exceptionally beautiful, her smile is contagious, and when she looks at Sam, there is this chemistry between them that is electrifying.

The wedding night was some of the most seductive sexually romantic scenes I've seen on TV in a long time. This part was I'm sure very hard to act in front of a camera crew and stage hands, but they both did it like no one was in the room but them. This is a real tribute to their extraordinary acting skills and should keep all those fans very happy rerunning it for the 6 month hiatus the show will be on.

The actual wedding was shown to us in a mired of flashbacks. Perhaps too many flashbacks as others have noted. I would tend to agree here. The actual wedding with Jamie coming out of the church viewing his potential bride who was incrementally lit with sunlight as he describes his feelings seeing her for the first time. Then there is Jamie dressed to the hilt looking the most gorgeous specimen of Scottish manhood. Who could resist, even Claire with her before wedding doubts succumbs to his charm with a big kiss at the end of the ceremony. The speech in Gaelic "Blood of my Blood.. " right from Diana Gabaldon is such a wonderful part of the wedding ceremony.

As good as this segment was it was missing some of the important lines from the book that gave meaning to some of the scenes and might have explained the shortness of the first sexual encounter. When Jamie is talking about what the lads had told him the night before the wedding they left out the most important line – "that they had told him to finish quickly as women generally do not like it" and Claire's response to that "the slower the better for most women". Also there was less of Claire showing Jamie how to please her as the night progresses. In the TV version he seems to learn all this by osmosis.

Scenes I just loved: Jamie and Claire undressing each other, Claire on her toes kissing him, Jamie picking Claire up and carrying her to the bed, Jamie giving Claire his mother's pearls, the sunlight on Claire's wedding dress

Scenes I liked: Murtagh's talk with Jamie, Dougal making a pass at Claire on her wedding night

Scenes I didn't like: the whole priest thing, Claire and Frank in front of the registry office, Angus and Rupert crashing into the wedding chamber, Ned in the brothel.

Overall, however different it was from the book, because of the Jamie and Claire scenes in this episode I thought it was the best of the episodes we've received from the TV series to date. I hope they continue with this romance in future episodes.

So how was it? I guess that depends on whether or not you've read the book version or not. As one of the 25 million who have, I'd say this was a great episode one of the best in the series so far; however it was also one of the best parts of the 1st book so a high bar has been set. Honestly, it was great seeing the wedding night on screen. I thought the acting by Sam and Caitriona was fabulously sensitive, seductive and very well acted. As a book reader however, I thought the script lacked many things I thought was important to the story. I don't know why the screen writers think that they can write lines better than Diana Gabaldon (they can't). They missed important lines and nuances that the book had in it and seemed to make scene changes for no good reason.

The changes the screen-writers made to the original story turned the wedding night scene into a series of flashbacks. I have to ask why this approach? I guess to break up the sex scenes into 3 separate scenes instead of one long one. But does that format work? I have to say not as well as the book's version. In the book they make love 3 times in one night; each time it builds increasing on the passion they feel as Jamie (a virgin) learns more and more about love making from Claire. It all happens in one scene, where they are becoming more intimate with each other as the scene progresses. The flashback version breaks this up and loses that aspect of the wedding night. So although I did love the sex scenes in the show honestly listening to the audio book was better.

The flashbacks broke up the entire wedding and they missed quite a lot of things the book had that makes a difference to the way the viewer understands the story. Below are some examples of the scenes from the book that were either changed or omitted.

1. Walking to the church, Claire realized it was the same church she had married Frank in 200 years later; Instead of this church scene they have a flashback scene of Claire and Frank in front of a registry office (why a registry office and not the church?).

2. When Jamie and Claire are talking on the wedding night and she asks him why he married her. In the book Jamie said "Before I tell you Claire there is one thing I ask of you … honesty and I'll promise you that as well, We have nothing now between us save respect perhaps and I think that respect has room for secretes but not for lies. Do you agree? And she agrees". This is very important speech in the book that was totally omitted from the screen version. That speech sets up the basis for Jamie and Claire's relationship in their marriage and has implications further on in the book

3. When they are making love Jamie asks her "Did you like it?" She says "yes". Then he says "Murtagh had told me that women generally do not care for it so I should finish as soon as I could" and Claire says "What would Murtagh know about it, for most women the slower the better". Or when Jamie thinks he's hurting Claire. The script-writers left out the part where Claire explains that women have orgasms too and that's why she's groaning, not in pain but in ecstasy. These are really important lines showing how Claire helps Jamie on that night to becoming a better lover and it also helps to explain why the 1st time was such a quickie. Breaking that whole night up into a mired of flashbacks in my opinion was a mistake.

4. In this episode they have Rupert and Angus going out to buy a ring for Claire. In the book Rupert forgets to get a wedding ring and Jamie takes his father's "ruby ring" off his hand and gives it to Claire to use as her wedding ring. He then promises to get her one as soon as possible. Why is this important? Well, further down the road there is a big scene in the book when Jamie goes out to get that special wedding ring for Claire. So what do they plan on doing down the road cut another great scenes from the book.

5. Then we have Rupert and Angus charging into the honeymoon room to see if the marriage had been consummated making some ridiculous gestures to Jamie about it. The book has a rather tender scene where Jamie tells Claire that the wedding would not be legally binding until they consummated the marriage. So instead of seeing a touching scene with Jamie and Claire we get this clown scene with Rupert and Angus.

Don't tell me they did this because of time, I don't buy that. They added new scenes that would take way longer. Did we really need seeing Ned buy the wedding dress in a whore house? Sure we get a few more flashes of bare breasted women but totally unnecessary to the wedding preparations. There were many more instances I couldn't fit in this review but the bottom line is yes, I loved the wedding episode but I also feel if they had followed the book's version it could have been better.

Best show out there for sure, nothing else compares to it! I can't wait for season 5, until then I'll start watching it from the beginning. I can't get enough of the characters Claire and Jamie.