Culloden and all its horror has finally arrived, despite Jamie and Claire Frasers‘ desperate plans and plots to change history and stop the historic battle. And even though Jamie knows that only a blood bath of a massacre awaits him, he leads his compatriots into battle, fully prepared to give up his life now that Claire is safely through the stones. Outlander opens its third season with the battle’s aftermath, as Jamie lies among the thousands of Scottish dead. We see through a flashback the ultimate face off with his enemy and rapist, Jack Randall. And just as Claire had predicted, it is Jack’s day to die. Ironically and erotically, it is at Jamie’s hands. Strangely, an injured Jack almost seems relieved as gives up his life and falls almost tenderly into Jamie and they both tumble to the ground.
Now, talk about ironic. It’s only because Jack Randall lands on top of Jamie, when he dies, that Jamie is protected from British soldiers roaming the field and stabbing the half dead Scots lying on the ground. Jamie isn’t the least bit appreciative, but his enemy has saved his life. Meanwhile, Claire is also just half alive emotionally, in post-war Boston, where she has moved with Frank, who has an impressive new post at Harvard. Claire has a beautiful new apartment, Frank is trying to make her happy, her belly is growing but she just can’t get it together, and her gas stove that won’t light, is the least of it. Clearly, she can’t forget Jamie and after having dealt with the misogyny of the 18th century, where she was almost burnt alive as a witch, she’s now confronting it on all sides in the 20th century. You can see her practically seethe when Jack’s professor boss puts her down when she offers her opinion on American politics. “I’m sure you are happy to resume more fitting and domestic concerns at the end of the war,” he intones after he hears that Claire has been a combat nurse during the war. But, good for Claire. She points out that women have entered Harvard Medical school. “A result of Eleanor Roosevelt and her coterie of agitators,” the sexist prof announces.
This is the moment that Claire decides that she WILL go to medical school, confirmed star Caitriona Balfe, during an interview on LIVE with Kelly and Ryan.”I’m going to prove you’re wrong, she was thinking.”
Despite trying to make a new life in Boston, Claire is NOT happy… and neither is Jamie.. to be alive. Saved from dying by some of his Scottish companions on the battlefield and dragged to a stable, there is no safety for Scottish ‘traitors’. The British barge in and the command officer, Lord Melton, gives the Jacobite soldiers but an hour before the executions for all — including the teen boys — will begin. Injured Jamie is forced to lie and listen while all the men he cares for are executed by firing squad, one by one. How ironic, once again, that a British soldier saves his life. Lord Melton’s younger brother, John, owed his own life to Jamie, who saved HIM from death a few years before. Damn, those Brits and their honor. Lord Melton refuses to execute Jamie, all because young John owed him a debt of honor. Lord Melton has to now honor that debt, or he will discredit his brothers’ sworn word. Poor Jamie.
He’s forced to live and is returned by cart to sister Jenny and Lallybroch. Claire… he’s alive! Claire, meanwhile, is being spectacularly awful to Frank. She can’t bare his touch. He begs her — “You’re using this pregnancy to keep me at a distance. You have retreated further and further into your shell. I want to know when you’re going to come back from the fucking past.” Frank is right. He pleads her to talk to him. They made a bargain to raise this child together. Things get ugly. Claire accuses Frank of just being angry because they aren’t having sex. Frank throws it right back at her: “I’m not the one who’s been fucking other people!” Well, he has a point and considering that it is still the 1940s, Frank is being pretty modern about accepting the fact that she is pregnant by another man- from the 18th century or not.
“I didn’t force you to come to Boston and I’m not forcing you to stay. Now go or stay but do it because it’s what you really want to do,” he lays it on the line to Claire. But, here’s something really interesting. Frank, no slouch when it comes to history, starts to do some investigating into James Fraser, an 18th century highlander who fought in the battle of Culloden. It seems like he might not be a total skeptic about Claire’s time traveling tale, after all.
Still, there’s nothing like childbirth to bring a warring couple together. Claire goes into labor, faces a sexist doctor in the delivery room — def giving her even more impetus to eventually enroll in medical school — and Brianna is born. Frank and Claire are so happy and relieved with the birth of their daughter — remember Claire already gave birth to a stillborn daughter — they make a heartfelt commitment to each other. “I’ve been so horrid to you,” Claire admits, because she has been. Kisses, a new beginning and I love yous all around. But, then here it is — a nurse points out: “Where did she get the red hair?” Frank is more than a little freaked. Jamie Fraser is alive… in two different centuries!
HollywoodLifers, what did you think of tonight’s episode of Outlander?