This week’s episode pulls no punches both literally, after all it is Jamie doing the hitting, and emotionally, when Jamie finally meets his daughter. Contains SPOILERS.
At its heart Outlander is all about love. It’s one of the main reasons why the books and TV series are so compelling. There is romantic love as depicted in the relationship between Jamie (Sam Heughan) and Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and that of Brianna (Sophie Skelton) and Roger (Richard Rankin); between friends such as the bromance between Jamie and Murtagh (Duncan Lacroix) but there’s also the all-encompassing love parents have for their children as exemplified in this week’s episode.
The Birds and The Bees packs one hell of an emotional punch. In other words, during this week’s episode I shed a tear or two on more than one occasion. The storytelling this week was all the more effective thanks to the understated way the story unfolded, helped in no small measure by good writing and wonderful acting.
It’s now the morning after the night before and Roger calls on Brianna, presumably to make amends. Unfortunately for our star-crossed lovers, Brianna is still asleep upstairs and the very person Roger bumps into is the very person Roger was hoping to avoid – Stephen Bonnet (Ed Speleers).
Bonnet soon disabuses Roger of his plan to stay in Wilmington, informing him that if he doesn’t get back on board, he will soon lose a limb. Given those are his only two options, Roger goes along with Bonnet and his crew but you do notice a change in Roger. He’s not the man who went through the stones, having become a lot rougher and tougher round the edges.
By the time Brianna is out and about, she is desperate for two things. Firstly, to meet up with Roger who she soon finds out has left on The Gloriana. Hearing the news, she assumes that he has left her to go back to Scotland and through the stones. She also desperately wants to find her mother: given what she’s been through, you appreciate why her search has become all the more urgent. And it’s no surprise, given the circumstances, it’s her mother she mentions rather than Jamie.
But for once Brianna’s luck has changed (at least for a while) and thanks to some gossiping by Lizzie (Caitlin O’Ryan) with a fellow Scot, Brianna finds out that her parents are in Wilmington and goes to find her father and THAT meeting between Jamie and his daughter is set in motion.
It’s not the most auspicious of beginnings: Brianna comes upon her father having a piss in the backyard of a tavern and Jamie assumes she’s a prostitute, touting for business. When Brianna calls out his name, Jamie’s suspicions are aroused, not that she might be his daughter but that it’s some kind of trap. When Jamie realises it is his daughter standing in front of him, our Highland warrior wears his heart on his sleeve for once, as tears come to his eyes. He also starts speaking in Gaelic, the language Jamie always reverts to in times of strong emotion.
Claire is likewise shocked to see Brianna and all three actors, Skelton, Balfe and Heughan pitch their reactions just right. In the wrong hands this scene could have been some terrible schmaltz fest but the underplaying of it by both the writers and actors works like a dream. It’s all in the detail – such as Jamie’s face beaming with pride as he watches his wife and daughter embrace in front of him for the first time.
Brianna soon informs her parents about the reason for her coming to find them – their impending death in a fire, though to be fair to Jamie and Claire, both seem to take the news with amazing equanimity, considering they live in a log cabin in the middle of a forest.
While travelling to Fraser’s Ridge, Lizzie falls for Young Ian’s charms, Ian assumes she’s enchanted by his dog (!); Brianna tells her mother about Roger and Ian tells Brianna about Stephen Bonnet and Jamie’s role in helping Bonnet to escape justice in the first place and the guilt he feels over the consequences of his actions. With this in mind, when Brianna realises it’s the very same man who raped her, she feels she can’t tell her parents about the rape, and thereby adding to Jamie’s guilt. It’s a noble decision (she is her father’s daughter after all) but one that will prove to have serious ramifications for her, Roger and ultimately her relationship with Jamie.
Of course, no Fraser family reunion would be complete without Murtagh Fitzgibbons who does what all old family friends should do when introduced to their friends’ offspring – embarrass their friends by relating stories from their past. An obligation which Murtagh dutifully complies with.
Ensconced among her new family, Brianna can’t fail to notice how much Jamie and Claire love each other, understand each other and complement each other. This is in stark contrast with Claire’s relationship with Frank. Not only does it make Brianna appreciate even more why Claire felt the need to go back to Jamie but it must bring home to her how much Frank sacrificed in order to bring her up: his willingness to stay in a loveless marriage for her sake. Meanwhile, Claire is painfully aware that there is something wrong with Brianna that she’s not telling her about.
All this is in addition to the mix of feelings that Brianna must be experiencing now that she is with her biological father and her feelings of guilt towards the man she regards as her real father, Frank. When she refers to Frank as her father, you can see Jamie start. After all, he feels conflicted by all this too: grateful to Frank for loving and bringing up his daughter while painfully jealous of all the time Frank had with her that he didn’t. It is the very fact Jamie was willing to sacrifice any possibility of bringing up his daughter to ensure she had a safer future which is such a fine example of the unselfish nature of true parental love.
In an attempt for Jamie and Brianna to bond, Jamie takes Brianna bee hunting. It’s a lovely little scene. Jamie and Brianna voice their concerns, the latter telling Jamie she feels disloyal to Frank simply by being there with him. Jamie earns extra fantasy male points by being so understanding about Brianna’s point of view, informing her he doesn’t wish to replace Frank and admitting what a good man he was, in bringing up a child whose real father he had no cause to love.
Jamie then pulls out the emotional big guns when he informs Brianna that although he had to give her to Frank, he’s not sorry she came back to him. “Ye’re my flesh and blood…. Ye’re my heart and soul as well,” he goes on to tell her, and if that doesn’t bring a tear to your eye (how cynical are you?) then surely the closing lines must when Jamie tells her to call him ‘da’ and she asks if that’s Gaelic and Jamie replies no, it’s just simple.
Later on, Jamie is faced with a similar dilemma as he was just before Culloden when he admits to Claire that he doesn’t want to lose Brianna again; but as parents they know that Brianna should return to her own time where it’s safer and where she would have more opportunities. What a decision to be faced with! Once more, Jamie scores some more fantasy male points when he describes Brianna as a gift from him to Claire and from Claire to him (yes, I did shed the odd tear here too), followed by the proud look on his face when he tells Claire that Brianna has finally called him ‘Da’.
Emotional heartstrings are pulled all the more when Claire lets Brianna know she suspects that she is with child. Brianna is at first relieved that she can finally tell someone but then she has to admit to a horrified Claire that she was raped, and that the child might not be Roger’s while blaming herself for not fighting her attacker hard enough. Claire then has the difficult task of telling Jamie that his daughter was not only raped but is now pregnant.
Later on, Claire finds the ring Bonnet gave Brianna after he raped her and which he originally stole from Claire. Recognising it, Claire confronts her daughter who confirms what Claire had already suspected – Bonnet was the man who raped her. Brianna also admits she didn’t say anything because she realised her mother would feel awful if she knew it was her ring which had proved the catalyst to her being attacked, and that Jamie would blame himself for having helped Bonnet escape. Brianna’s noble actions serving as proof that selfless love between parents and child can work both ways. Worried what will happen to Jamie if he finds out, Brianna makes Claire promise to keep the identity of her rapist a secret from Jamie.
As luck would have it, who should finally make an appearance but Roger, recognised by Lizzie who mistakenly thinks Roger is Brianna’s attacker; whereupon both her and Ian inform Jamie of Roger’s presence. Convinced that Roger is the man who attacked his daughter, Jamie beats Roger into a pulp, only stopped from beating him to death when some neighbours pass by. Jamie then tells Ian to get rid of Roger, obviously not that bothered as to how he goes about it, only telling Ian not to kill him, less for Roger’s sake and more for Ian’s soul. Big shout out to the make up department who brilliantly show the damage that an incandescent Jamie has wrought on Roger’s face.
Thus, this episode sets us up for a possible clash between Jamie and Brianna when the latter discovers what Jamie has done to her beloved.
Season 4 is shaping up to be a great piece of TV. It’s a kind of reverse of Season 3 where I loved the first 6 episodes – they were some of the best in the whole series – and then was disappointed by some of the later ones. The first few episodes this season seemed a bit all over the place but now the story has really hit its stride, anchored as it is in the relationships and dynamics between the Fraser clan. I suspect this season may pull a few more punches before it’s out.
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