Portside

The moral of the story is “don’t tell stories about these big topics if you can’t do it well.” And by “well,” I don’t mean create a post-racial utopia. I mean have the ability to give that story its own weight and importance beyond what it does for your two white leads. I mean the very least you can do is not make Jamie and Claire white saviors. At the very least. But that isn’t possible because they are the people this story is about.

Part of what made the episode so bracing was this combination of serious material — the way holidays announce whose history is important — and biting jokes that would have no place in your ordinary Let's Learn A Leson episode of TV.