Claire Gets Pensive, Jamie Kills Again while Brianna and Roger Get Closer.
Clare (Caitriona Balfe) is in philosophical mood this week; cue a lot of voice over about the meaning of time. Being a Brit whose national philosophy can be summed up in just two words ‘fuck it’ (it’s the only way I can possibly explain how an idiot such as Boris Johnson got elected to power) I obviously switch off at this point. However, all this reflection does cue a few flashbacks to Claire and Brianna (Sophie Skelton) à la 1960s. A not so subtle reminder, if a reminder was needed, that most of Outlander’s protagonists are time travellers from the future. I mean let’s face it: Claire is busy using her home-grown penicillin whilst performing a tonsillectomy on the Beardsley twins (Paul Gorman x 2) in the Carolina backwaters in 1770s America so surely that should be a big enough hint that something is awry.
These flashbacks (flash-forwards?) to Boston in the 1960s enable us to understand the catalyst for Claire’s fateful decision to travel to the UK with her daughter in tow. While treating Graham Menzies (Stephen McCole), a plain-speaking Scot (is there any other kind?), she is reminded of Jamie and despite her best intentions becomes attached to her patient. His sudden death from anaphylaxis knocks her for six, and it is then she decides to take time off and take Brianna to the UK. A decision that finally leads Claire to go back through the stones and to Jamie.
As for fellow time travellers, Brianna and Roger (Richard Rankin), they are first all loved up. That is until Roger finds the jewel that Stephen Bonnet (Ed Speleers) gave Brianna. Unfortunately, Roger recognises the jewel from a dodgy card game he once played with Bonnet. Needless to say, he’s not happy to discover that Brianna has accepted an expensive jewel from a man she says has raped her. Suspicion and anger understandably take hold of him. Brianna explains that she kept the jewel for Jemmy’s sake so that at some point in the future he might be able to travel through the stones, but she is forced to admit that she went to see Bonnet in jail. Worse is to follow when she confesses to Roger that she told Bonnet that Bonnet was Jemmy’s father. She tries to justify her actions by saying she only did this to give comfort to a man she believed was about to die. As she’s never given a similar assurance to Roger, it’s not that surprising he’s angry, suspecting that Brianna really does believe the child to be Bonnet’s. A suspicion which Brianna seems to silently acknowledge.
Fortunately for our young lovebirds, Roger has a heart to heart with Claire and soon returns to Brianna with his tail between his legs. This set-to seems to have brought them closer together somehow and Brianna apprises Roger of the unfortunate circumstance of Bonnet not only being alive and well but in the area. She admits that she is haunted by him (a fact Roger is already aware of) and tells him of the unknown Irishman who gifted Jemmy a coin in Woolam’s Creek. This is the final push that Roger needs to decide that as soon as they know that Jemmy can travel through the stones, then he and his family are heading back to the future.
As for Jamie, he has arrived in town and caught up with his old mucker Lieutenant Knox (Michael D. Xavier). The latter is narked at news that Governor Tryon (Tim Downie) intends to issue pardons to the Regulator leaders. On hearing this, Jamie is secretly relieved but, this being Outlander, he’s not relieved for long. In a rather clever move, Knox informs Jamie he has asked for the prison rolls from Ardsmuir to be sent to him so as to find out if any of Murtagh Fitzgibbons former prison mates are in the area, thus pinpointing who may be offering him assistance, little suspecting that Jamie is not only Murtagh’s former prison mate but also his godson.
Later that evening, Jamie and Knox play chess; Knox waxing lyrical about his friendship with Jamie. All that is about to change when the Ardsmuir prison rolls arrive. Realising his name will be on the list (though it’s the rolls after Culloden so surely it wouldn’t be, as at that particular point of time Jamie was still in Dunbonnet mode and hiding in a cave but I digress), Jamie admits to Knox his name is on the list. The final piece of the puzzle comes together when Knox ascertains from the prison roll that Fitzgibbons is Murtagh’s middle name and that he is in fact a Fraser. Horrified that Jamie has been playing him, Jamie twists the knife in even further by admitting to Knox that Murtagh is also his godfather and he justifies his actions by stating that he could not stand by and watch his kin hunted like a dog.
Knox, apparently unaware of what a dangerous man Jamie can be, calls him a traitor and tells him the Governor will hang him. It was at this point in the proceedings that I knew Knox had very little time left to live. Jamie may be charming, he may be funny, he may be romantic but he’s also a killing machine and will do anything (and we know from Season 1 that is ANYTHING) to ensure the safety and well-being of his family. True enough as soon as Knox heads off to have Jamie arrested, Jamie strangles him, covering up the murder by setting fire to the room. Jamie makes his escape by climbing out the window. Luckily, there is no one hanging outside a tavern late at night(!) apart from a rather cute kitten which Jamie decides to take home to Claire as a present. I can only suppose that’s the type of thing you do after you’ve committed cold blooded murder for the umpteenth time.
All in all, the Roger and Brianna storyline and the Jamie storyline plodded along nicely. I’m not convinced that we needed all the flashbacks to the 1960s. Given that Claire returned to the 18th century in Season 3 it seems a bit late in the day to focus on what induced her to make that fateful trip back to Blighty, and you do wonder if these scenes are just filling up time, as opposed to moving the story forward. This seems to be a feature of this season – a lot of fill, and not having read the book I’m not in a position to say whether that’s down to the source material or a result of active choices from the screenwriters. Nevertheless Adso the cat is a cute addition to the cast and one suspects it won’t be long before Jamie is back on a war footing, Roger starts to pack and Stephen Bonnet makes an unwelcome return.
