On Screen: “Outlander: Blood of My Blood”
Outlander: Blood of My Blood
If you’ve relished seven seasons of “Outlander” over the past 10 years, you’ll want to see its prequel — “Blood of My Blood” — revealing the steamy love stories of Claire and Jamie’s parents.
The new, 10-episode series opens in 1714 Scotland in Castle Leoch with hands bathing the body of recently deceased Red Jacob MacKenzie (Peter Mullan), Laird (leader) of Clan MacKenzie. Problem is: He never named a successor.
His shrewd oldest daughter Ellen (Helen Slater) is the most capable but, being female, she cannot inherit his title, land and livestock, so his two sons — calculating Colum (Seamus McLean Ross) and hot-tempered Dougal (Sam Retford) — both covet the position, but neither is qualified.
So Red promised feisty noblewoman Ellen that she could marry the man she chose — but that gets complicated when she falls in love with Brian Fraser (Jamie Roy), bastard son of notorious Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat (Tony Curran), of a rival clan.
That’s the introduction to the backstory of Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan).
If you recall on “Outlander,” Claire Randall (Caitronia Balfe) said she lost her parents in an automobile accident. Well, not exactly.
Suffering from PTSD after World War I, her British father, Henry Beauchamp (Jeremy Irvine), and suffragette mother, Julia Moriston (Hermione Corfield), were on a driving holiday in Scotland when the crash occurred.
Rather than dying, however, they inadvertently wandered onto that time-bending supernatural stone circle and found themselves — separated — back in the early 18th century.
Based on Diana Gabaldon’s bestselling historical romance novels and adapted by showrunner Matthew B. Roberts, the plot cleverly captures the formidable dilemmas faced by women trapped in patriarchal societies.
And on a deeper psychological level, it feeds into a natural curiosity about one’s parents — like, who were they before we were born? How did they meet? What obstacles did they face?
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Outlander: Blood of My Blood” is an intriguing, enchanting 8 — with new episodes streaming on STARZ every Friday.
Susan Granger is a product of Hollywood. Her natural father, S. Sylvan Simon, was a director and producer at M.G.M. and Columbia Pictures. Her adoptive father, Armand Deutsch, produced movies at M.G.M.
As a child, Susan appeared in movies with Abbott & Costello, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Margaret O’Brien, and Lassie. She attended Mills College in California, studying journalism with Pierre Salinger, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism.