The time of Adoration

By Valérie Gay-Corajoud 
 

Unlike a film, which generates feelings with precise contours and a reflection that finds a beginning and an end, a television series offers a variety of sensations that are always moving and that, over the course of the episodes, infiltrate more deep within us, nourishing our lives, our evolution, our understanding. A common path is formed, more or less visible, more or less legible ... and, whether we are aware of it or not, the way we approach the episodes changes significantly.

That's what made me feel like the fifth episode of season five: Perpetual Adoration.
It is like a backfire, a fleeting thought, a fleeting impression, a small illumination ... and, in any case, a moment of thanks. Pure poetry, until the waiting, until the doubt, until the murder.
Claire returns to her central role and, again, her wonderful voice guides us in the ways of her subtle and upright mind.
She talks about time.

Of this time which is not reduced to a single straight one-way road, but which is a whole in which we evolve. The time which sometimes brings together two acts, two thoughts, two decisions. The time with which she herself knows the roundabouts, the jolts, and the accelerations.
The time that it sometimes countered, reshaped, but that it suffered just as much.
The time in which all the parts which compose it lived entirely, in acts and in thoughts.

This time in which Brianna and Roger must agree… To make coexist their present love and the acts of the past of which they were actors or spectators, of which they were aware or unconscious. Steven Bonnet of the past, Fear of the present, projection into the future… a diamond in hand and everything comes together. How not to go crazy? Only their child holds the timeline as coherent and it is on him that they can lean to get back in motion.

This time in which Jamie must act, even in spite of his will, despite his values ​​...
The past in Ardsmuir prison, which reveals his kinship with Murtagh FitzGibbons.
Lt. Knox who puts the future in danger, which forces Jamie to silence him absolutely, despite his attachment to him. The time of the murder, not a quick and effective bullet, but a long, painful choking that forces Jamie to take the time to do the act and to want to bring it to an end.

And then time brings him back to the present, to the woman he loves. The anchor point, its center, its essential reason. With her, in a sense, time stands still.

But mostly this time, it is for Claire, who challenges science by reinventing penicillin to bring medicine to come into its present. His past present, his future present ... Where everything takes meaning through his dynamic thinking ...
People and thoughts related to them.
The past with the wonderful Graham Menzies, who, despite himself, takes the first step that will bring her back to Jamie.
Joe Abernathy who talks to him about the value of his heart.

Brianna with which she decides to go to Anglettere, like a precious path which she refuses to take without her.
Now, the Twins who remind him that risk should not prevent action.
The future and learning of Marsali who will be the legacy of his knowledge in the years to come ...

But beyond, before and after, Jamie who comes back to her, different and identical, charged with her past actions, but entirely devoted.
So, for her too, time stops, calms, changes. As if it were a light veil that surrounds and protects them.
Love out of time ... who has no use for the boundaries of yesterday and tomorrow.

The time that immobilizes us in front of our screen, the beating heart, the wet eyes, the joined hands ... Because we are told about the very essence of being, its function, its choices, what matters and of what costs. Time that leads us to what we can be, far beyond what we need to be.
Perpetual adoration, a soul that constantly watches over the world to never be devoid of humanity. And Claire, however agnostic, who gives her tumultuous thoughts to a soothing God, but who concludes that on the question of time, of course, she certainly knows more than he does.