In this week’s episode the story becomes all the more dramatic, secrets are revealed and Brianna proves she’s Jamie’s daughter in more ways than one – primarily by having a great right hook.
There are some fantastic scenes in this week’s episode including the opening one when Jamie (Sam Heughan) informs Brianna (Sophie Skelton) that he knows she’s been raped and is wonderfully understanding about it all. Mind you, in true 18th century form, Jamie assumes that the first thing he needs to do is to get his pregnant, unwed daughter married. Given the opprobrium unwed mothers and their children faced back then, this move, if jarring from a modern point of view, would have made complete sense to anyone from the 18th century.
Beating herself up that she should have fought harder against her attacker, Jamie first provokes Brianna and then grabs her round the neck. Unable to move from his grip, Jamie makes Brianna realise that it would have been impossible for her to fight him off, possibly risking death if she had done so.
I was wondering how they’d pull this scene off for TV but somehow they do so perfectly and in the process make it all rather touching, particularly when we see the look spread over Brianna’s face as Jamie’s point finally sinks in.
Brianna then brings up Jamie’s own trauma at Wentworth. It can’t be easy knowing your daughter knows your most intimate and painful backstory. However, when Jamie says, “I gave my word not to fight. For yer mother’s life. I would do the same again,” you know he means it; and, that folks, encapsulates why Jamie Fraser is the bravest romantic hero of them all!
Meanwhile, Claire takes the more practical approach about the pregnancy and discusses a possible abortion with an understandably conflicted Brianna. This being the 18th century, Brianna is faced with the option of a surgical intervention without anaesthetic. Claire’s a great doctor but that still does not sound particularly appealing. Moreover, there is also the possibility that the child might be Roger’s. Moreover, if Brianna wants to go back to Roger (Richard Rankin), who Brianna mistakenly believes has returned to the 1970s, Claire informs her she has to go back through the stones soon and, above all, before the baby is born. Faced with this particular set of choices, no wonder Brianna is at a loss as to what to do for the best.
Not surprisingly, given what she’s been through, Brianna is also plagued with nightmares. After one such nightmare, Lizzie (Caitlin O’Ryan) lets slip that the man she thinks was Brianna’s attacker came to Fraser’s Ridge. She goes on to say that she informed Jamie who beat him up and had Ian (John Bell) send him away. Brianna, aware that Lizzie never met her attacker, puts two and two together and realises that the man her father got rid of was none other than Roger, and what follows is another fantastic scene.
When Brianna confronts her father, Jamie not only becomes confused, he is hypocritical. He first assumes that Brianna was covering up sleeping with Roger and getting pregnant by him by claiming she was raped and then seems indignant that his daughter would bed someone out of lust. Given he has no problems with Claire having a healthy libido, he seems (like many a father) to have double standards when it comes to the healthy, sexual desires of his female offspring. Brianna shows she’s inherited both her mother and father’s temper and gives Jamie a right slap around the chops. Given Heughan’s reaction, I’m guessing that slap was for real.
Faced with what he has done, Jamie gives his word, as her father, to make things right. An angry Brianna puts the boot in by pointing out that her father would never have said the things that Jamie has just said to her. That’s got to hurt Jamie more than the slap. She digs the knife in even further by pointing out that Frank was a good man whereas Jamie is nothing more than a savage. To be fair, when it comes to the number of people they have killed, Jamie would beat Frank hands down.
Worse is to follow for Jamie when Claire shows Jamie her old wedding ring which can mean only one thing: Brianna’s attacker was none other than Stephen Bonnet (Ed Speleers). If Jamie was regretting his decision to hep Bonnet escape the hangman’s noose before he must be doubly regretting it now.
Then it’s Ian’s turn to get a slap in the chops when Brianna learns that Ian sold Roger to the Mohawks. For a few minutes there, Lizzie must have been wetting herself fearing she was next on Brianna’s hit list. And to be honest, I’m surprised she wasn’t.
I love the fact that when Jamie loses his temper Brianna tells him straight: “You do not get to be more angry than me.” Good for her. She might have Jamie’s temper but that’s her mother’s personality shining through. Jamie is suitably chastened. And just like her mother, amidst all her anger, Brianna’s first thoughts take a practical bent and she asks how they can get Roger back.
It seems that having learnt what Jamie did to Roger has focused Brianna’s thoughts. She decides to keep the baby, given that it might be Roger’s and is determined to love it whatever its parentage. She also insists that her mother go with Ian and Jamie on their search for Roger, not trusting Ian and Jamie to their own devices (understandable), and suspecting that even if they should find Roger, as soon as Roger takes one look at them he won’t believe they’ve come to rescue him and will run. (Fair point).
It’s a brave thing for Brianna to tell her mother to go in the knowledge that Claire might not be there for the birth of her child. Given the mortality rate of mothers in the 18th century and standard medical practice at the time, Brianna must be aware that she is sending away the one person best qualified to deliver her safely of her child. Brianna’s willingness to send Claire off for Roger’s sake underlies one of the major themes of Outlander – the extent all the major protagonists are willing to go for the sake of their loved ones.
Unable to leave Brianna alone at Fraser Ridge while they are away looking for Roger, Brianna is packed off to Aunt Jocasta’s (Maria Doyle Kennedy). Murtagh (Duncan Lacroix) volunteers to take her and Jamie, who doesn’t seem to have learnt much from all this, tells Murtagh to then head to Wilmington, find Bonnet and bring him back to him in secret so he can kill him.
What’s worrying me about this particular plotline is the possibility that Bonnet may end up killing Murtagh. As a dramatic device it would be a good one; it gives Jamie more of a reason to soul search while intensifying the enmity between Bonnet and Jamie but I’ll be really annoyed if I’m proven right. There is no doubt that as Murtagh no longer features in the novels the scriptwriters are possibly finding it problematic to fit him into the overall arc of the story. What real dramatic purpose does Murtagh now serve? The crux of the matter is that he’s such a great character, so wonderfully portrayed by Duncan Lacroix, I for one would still be really sorry to see him go.
While all that has just happened has brought Brianna and Claire closer together, Jamie and Brianna’s relationship has fractured. This is all the more poignant as the earlier scenes were at pains to show how close Jamie and Brianna had become. There is no doubt that Brianna’s anger towards Jamie has chastened Jamie to the core. The most important thing to Jamie is his family, and the last thing he wants is to be estranged from his daughter, let alone have her furious with him. When Brianna apologies to her mother for making her leave her, you get the feeling she’s not talking about the present but rather for making her go back and find Jamie in the first place.
If Brianna’s temper and her right hook haven’t convinced you that the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree then her plain speaking at Aunt Jocasta’s surely is proof positive. Brianna makes no bones about why she is there and the condition she finds herself in. Despite the possible social stigma that might result from her stay, Aunt Jocasta welcomes Brianna to River Run, proving that there is nothing more important than family for this particular set of Highlanders.
As for poor Roger, surely his luck must change at some point Not only dressed in one of the worst historical outfits ever to grace our TV screens, and somehow managing to survive being beaten to a pulp by Jamie Fraser, he’s now been sold into slavery by Ian to a passing group of surly Mohawks. He must be wondering why he didn’t just stay in Oxford.
It turns out he isn’t though. In fact, his only thought is to get back to Brianna, and with this in mind our wily Scot is keeping track of how long and how far they are travelling and making a note of all the landmarks on the way. Given the condition and situation he is in, it’s another sign of how devoted our Roger is to Brianna even if he does have a habit of mucking things up when he’s with her.
Then for once his luck does change and Roger manages to escape the Mohawks. While on the run, he comes across another set of standing stones, the buzzing letting us know he could go through the stones to travel back in time. Given all that he’s been through, no one could blame him if he wasn’t tempted as the final shot is of his hand reaching towards the stone. Will he go through? It’s supposed to be a cliffhanger but it isn’t because we know he won’t.
After all, the main conceit of Outlander is that somehow Claire and Brianna fall for men who would do anything for them. It’s impressive considering it’s nay impossible to find men like that in the 21st century so well done to both of them finding men like that in the 18th century and the turn of the 1970s.
So though the cliffhanger isn’t really a cliffhanger, The Deep Heart’s Core is nevertheless a fantastic episode. It does what Outlander does best – portraying the intricacies of family drama. People hurting their loved ones not out of spite but out of love, trying to do their best but ultimately coming unstuck. It’s all so very human and all so very relatable, and perhaps rather reassuring that even a fantasy male like Jamie Fraser can get it wrong, so very wrong, at times.
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