VARIETY – This post contains spoilers for “Outlander” Season 2, Episode 2, titled “Not in Scotland Anymore.” To refresh your memory on the Season 2 premiere and Claire and Jamie’s run-in with Le Comte St. Germain, check out last week’s recap.
After Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and Jamie’s (Sam Heughan) eventful arrival in France last week, episode 202 throws the Frasers headfirst into the political machinations of the royal court, bringing a number of memorable new characters into their orbit, while further exploring the emotional and physical distance that has grown between the couple since the events of the Season 1 finale.
Sep 18, 2017 Outlander star Tobias Menzies talks about the fate of Black Jack, as well as the quiet desperation of Frank Randall; plus, what he'd like to do next. Apr 07, 2016 Prone to violence as well as physical and psychological torture, Randall solidified his villainous status at the end of Season 1 when he brutally raped Jamie. Apr 18, 2016 The slimy noble ends up revealing two vital pieces of information to Claire: firstly, that Black Jack Randall has a brother, Alex, a sickly but well-meaning young man who is serving as Sandringham. In the books, they become much more than just friends And discover Black Jack’s fate What became of the dastardly Black Jack Randall (Tobias Menzies)? We last saw him beating the body of his dead.
The episode opens with Jamie and Claire in a moment of intimacy, but quickly takes a darker turn when Claire morphs into Black Jack Randall (Tobias Menzies) in the middle of the act, prompting Jamie to viciously stab him until both are covered in blood. Since this is a nightmare, Jack’s eyes snap chillingly back open, and Jamie awakes in a cold sweat, leaving a concerned Claire in bed while he decides to try and get some work done, in what has obviously become a nighttime ritual for them.
“He’s still troubled by what happened to him and like every guy is not really dealing with the issue,” Heughan tells Variety. “He puts it to one side and throws himself into this mission to change history. It puts a strain on their relationship because they’re not really connecting, not really dealing with [what happened to him].”
This week, Jamie has his first meeting with Bonny Prince Charlie (in a brothel, no less), in order to try and forestall the Jacobite uprising that Claire knows will lead Charles’ followers to a crushing defeat at the Battle of Culloden. Arrogant and entitled despite his exile, Charles Stuart is used to getting his way. (Take a shot of whisky every time he says “mark me” this season, if your liver is strong enough.)
“You now realize why this true historical figure was so inspiring to men but also so dangerous and such a fool,” Heughan notes. “He’s this young man who’s been brought up in exile abroad and been fed all this propaganda by his father and the people around him. He believes when he arrives in Scotland, he’ll be greeted by crowds of adoring people and he probably arrived on a cold bleak day in Scotland and there were only a few thousand people there. So he’s a great character, and it’s interesting to see Jamie — who is not a Jacobite supporter and is in fact the opposite — have to play along with that.”
Despite the fact that “Jamie’s forced into this friendship because he’s trying to manipulate” Charles, Heughan says that the two men “do form this bond, and at some point, Jamie becomes his only ally … That’s what this season’s about — friends are also enemies, it’s really uneven ground. In a weird way, I think Jamie actually feels sorry for him; he’s also an outsider, he shouldn’t be in control of men and he shouldn’t be in the position he’s in.”
Claire, meanwhile, has become acquainted with the demure Mary Hawkins and Parisian socialite Louise de Rohan — who facilitates her entree into the court of Louis XV at Versailles (and the joys of bikini waxing) — but our heroine is finding herself suffocated by the expectations placed on women of the period.
“It’s a whole new set of constraints, in a way,” Caitriona Balfe points out. “Weirdly, Claire as an outsider in Scotland had almost more freedom, because she was different and because she was regarded as a crazy Sassenach and they would roll their eyes at her, but now in Paris … especially because they’re doing something dubious and underhanded, they feel they have to keep up appearances and conform. Her frustration is epic, and I could feel it building in her because she wasn’t given anything to do. Jamie is sent out and she gives him this mission to keep his mind active and away from thinking about the events of last season, but she’s not a woman who’s content sitting at home and going to visit ladies and drinking tea and gossiping.”
Luckily, her travels also bring her into contact with the spirited Master Raymond, whom Balfe compares to Claire’s time-traveling friend Geillis Duncan from Season 1. “For whatever reason, they are like-minded souls and they recognize that instantly in each other,” she says of the enigmatic apothecary, who shares Claire’s disdain for Le Comte St. Germain. “She’s finding her people; I’ve moved cities so many times and it’s such a lonely experience until you find your people, so it’s really nice that you see Claire find that.”
During their debut at court, Claire and Jamie also encounter an old flame of Jamie’s, Annalise de Marillac, who is unabashedly possessive of him (is she this season’s Laoghaire?); the lecherous but ultimately useful Minister of Finance, Joseph Duvernay (“he’s also someone who comes across as a bit of a fool, but he’s not,” hints Heughan); King Louis himself — who gets one of the most memorable introductions in TV history, on the toilet and bearing down with gurning, teeth-gnashing intensity, surrounded by courtiers — and at least one familiar, if not altogether welcome, face in the form of the Duke of Sandringham.
The slimy noble ends up revealing two vital pieces of information to Claire: firstly, that Black Jack Randall has a brother, Alex, a sickly but well-meaning young man who is serving as Sandringham’s secretary, and more importantly — despite Claire and Jamie’s assumptions to the contrary — that Black Jack Randall is still alive, having survived his encounter with a herd of cattle last season. Luckily, Jamie is otherwise engaged when Claire makes this discovery, but she’s immediately concerned about the effect this news might have on her already vulnerable husband.
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“It’s such a strange thing, because [Alex] is so unlike Jack, and Claire’s good at reading people, so she can see right away that this is a nice guy and Mary Hawkins is interested,” Balfe previews. “When Claire finds out that Randall is still alive, it’s a twofold thing — all of a sudden, she realizes what that means in terms of Frank, but also her concern for Jamie. She’s watching this man slowly begin to heal and he’s still not fully there and he’s still experiencing this, and she feels that this information might be the thing that sends him over the edge.”
Will Jamie discover the news in next week’s epiode — and will King Louis take Jamie’s advice about the porridge? We’ll find out on April 23.
“Outlander” airs Saturdays at 9 p.m. on Starz.
JAMIE AND THE RULE OF THREE
Copyright 2010 Diana Gabaldon
I had a male reader (Justin Brady (@RandomAngst), who runs the Random Angst book review/rating site at www.randomangst.com) on Twitter just today who said he’d just finished reading OUTLANDER and enjoyed it a lot “until the prison chapters.” I tweeted back that I’d be kind of worried about him if he’d _enjoyed_ the Wentworth part {g}, to which he said, “but why put our hero through such pain and suffering? :)”, adding in the next, “I know I’m late to the #Outlander party & you’ve probably already addressed this; but that was intense emotional, physical pain.”
I was on my way out to dinner, so said I’d reply to him later (haven’t done that yet), but have been thinking at brief moments just _how_ to reply to that. The simple answer is just that that’s what I saw happening, but that’s not enough for the reader. There always _is_ a reason why things happen or are necessary, whether I know what that is when I write it or not. So what is it here?
In part, it’s because it’s a High Stakes story. Almost everybody understands that you have to have _something_ at stake for a story to be good. And way too many thrillers and sf/f novels assume that nothing less than the Fate of the Known Universe will do {g}, these authors mistaking scale for intensity. No matter what the background may be, a story that focuses on the impact of events on one or two individual _lives_ will be–generally speaking–much more engaging and emotionally intense than one where everyone is just rushing around trying to save a planet or get their hands on the fortunium bomb that could Destroy Everything!!
So OUTLANDER is a high stakes story–on an individual level–throughout. It’s a love story, sure, and it’s all about what people will _do_ for the sake of love. Claire, for instance, chooses to abandon the life she knew (and was about to reclaim post-War), the safety of the 20th century (and she of all people would value that safety, having come through such a war), and the husband she’d loved. She chooses hardship, danger, and emotional pain, in order to be with Jamie.
But love for these two is always reciprocal. It’s not about one partner making a sacrifice for the other’s sake. Throughout the story, they keep rescuing each other. And the stakes are high. Jamie marries Claire originally in order to save her from Black Jack Randall. Would that be a striking thing to do, if Jack Randall was not, in fact, a serious threat? He _is_ a serious threat; we learn that from Jamie’s backstory. The man’s a genuine sadistic psychopath, who has essentially destroyed Jamie’s family and seriously injured him, both physically and emotionally. And here’s Jamie swearing to give Claire everything he has; the protection of his name and his clan–and the protection of his body–in order to save _her_ from this man.
He then does save her, physically and immediately, from Randall, when Randall captures her and assaults her at Fort William–even though by doing so, he puts not only himself, but everyone with him, in serious danger, _and_ does so at some emotional as well as physical cost. “I was tied to that post, tied like an animal, and whipped ’til my blood ran…Had I not been lucky as the devil this afternoon, that’s the least that would have happened to me. ….[But] when ye screamed, I went to you, wi’ nothing but an empty gun and my two hands.” The stakes are higher; the threat to Jamie (and Claire) from Captain Randall is increased.
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One, two, three. The Rule of Three. It’s one of the important underlying patterns of story-telling; one event can be striking. The next (related) event creates resonance. But the third brings it home—WHAM. (That is, btw, why classic fairy tales always involve three brothers, three sisters, three fairies, etc.—and why the most classic form of joke always starts, “A priest, a minister and a rabbi…” The climax of the story, the punchline of the joke, always comes on the third iteration.) The third encounter with Black Jack Randall is the climax, the point where the stakes are highest. Jamie’s been captured and seriously hurt, Claire’s come to save him, but Randall turns up and takes her captive, threatening her life.
Fate Of Black Jack Randall British Soldier
OK. This -has- to be a credible threat. Ergo, we have to have seen (and heard about) the real damage Randall has done to Jamie thus far; we have to be in no doubt whatever that he’d do real damage to Claire. We can’t just _say_, “Oh, he’s _such_ a nasty person, you wouldn’t believe…” We _have_ to believe, and therefore appreciate _just_ what Jamie is doing when he trades what’s left of his life for Claire’s. (Show, don’t tell, you know?)
And because we do believe that, we share both Jamie’s despair and Claire’s desperation.
So, OK. Throughout the book, we’ve seen that love has a real cost. Jamie and Claire have built a relationship through honest struggle, a relationship that’s _worth_ what it’s cost them. This is the final challenge, and Jamie’s willing to pay what will apparently be the ultimate cost.
Why would I throw that away? To have him escape rape and torture (he–and we–_know_ what’s coming) by the skin of his teeth would be to undercut his sacrifice, to make it of little moment. (It would be like someone turning up in Gethsemane and telling Christ, “Hey, buddy, you don’t _really_ have to do this. Come with me, I got a secret way outta here…”)
So love _has_ a cost, and it’s a real one. But they do rescue each other, and Claire saves not only his life, _but his soul_. (Yes, it is redemption and resurrection, and yes, there’s Christ imagery all through the story–it was my first book, OK?) His soul wouldn’t have been in danger, had he not been really and truly nearly destroyed by his sacrifice.
I.e., had Claire shown up with reinforcements in the nick of time and saved him before he’d been put through such pain and suffering….well, then it would have been a nice, heart-warming story in which Hero and Heroine conquer evil and ride off into the sunset together. But it wouldn’t have half the power of a story in which Jamie and Claire _truly_ conquer _real_ evil, and thus show what real love is. Real love has real costs–and they’re worth it.
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I’ve always said all my books have a shape, and OUTLANDER’s internal geometry consists of three slightly overlapping triangles. The apex of each triangle is one of the three emotional climaxes of the book: 1) when Claire makes her wrenching choice at the stones, 2) when she saves Jamie from Wentworth, and 3) when she saves his soul at the Abbey. It would still be a _good_ story, if I’d had only 1 and 2–but (see above), the Rule of Three. A story that goes one, two, _three_ has a lot more impact than just a one-two punch.