About now, I’m sure Mary Hawkins is wishing she never met the Frasers. Sure, she’d be married to Vicomte Warty, but that seems, in retrospect, like a pretty good tradeoff. Death, destruction and disaster seem to follow Jamie and Claire wherever they go! Of course, that’s part of what makes the books and the show so interesting. And this week, we had the queen of death and destruction – and beautiful words – write our episode!
And what did this get us? For her first ever tv script (of course, she wasn’t working all by herself, she had the Ron Moore team behind her), we got a quite solid and entertaining episode. With the events that had to be included in order to get us to the end of the season, there wasn’t going to be anything as huge as what’s happened previously this season – nothing as heartbreaking as Faith, as romantic as The Wedding, or as heart-pounding as Prestonpans. And with the realities of tv – timing, changes in the storyline so far – even Diana can’t give us the scenes exactly as she had written them originally. But we did get some true Gabaldon humor and wit, and some very nice twists and turns! (If you haven’t already read it, here’s Diana’s discussion about the process of writing this episode.)
Stuck in between unexpected success and a massed British Army, Prince Charles’ advisors want him to quit while he’s ahead – what do they think they accomplish this way? But Jamie, still hoping to avert the disaster that he and Claire expect to be coming, urges the Prince to continue on to try to take London. The farther they are from Culloden, the less chance of the expected outcome. “London lies within our grasp,” Prince Charles says (wearing only half of his bright red tartan ensemble), “all we have to do is reach out and take it.” But with Jamie the only man on his side, the decision is made to turn back for the winter and resume the quest after – but then, what meaning do all the losses have? If the fight for the throne ends, even if it’s supposed to be temporary, have Kincaid and Angus died in vain? Will the British say, “oh gosh, go ahead, resume where you left off?” Will the Scots be able to hold the gains they’ve made? WHAT ARE THEY THINKING???
One of my favorite things about Jamie is his innate romantic side, his complete willingness to live with his heart on display where Claire is concerned. He’s a much more demonstrative person than she is, and Diana showed this to us in the most beautiful way. Jamie asks God to watch over Claire and keep her from violence, to keep her safe, as she sleeps. And when she awakes, he tells her, “There’s no much I can say waking that would not seem daft and foolish, Sassenach. I can things while ye sleep and in dreams ye ken the truth of them.” Who wouldn’t love and forgive a man any hardship with that declaration?
But I do have a complaint here. For a show that traded on its sexiness, its willingness to push the boundaries of intimacy on tv, we’ve had nothing this season. And if anyone can write a sex scene, it’s Diana Gabaldon – where is it? OK, I’m not really a voyeur, but this is one of the hallmarks of this book series. By showing us the physical love between Jamie and Claire, we see the complete bond between the two. We understand why the upcoming events will be so traumatic. Why the events of first episode of this season affected Claire – and every fan – so deeply. Yes, I get why the first half of this season went the way it did, since events and timeline were changed so that it would fit the story Ron Moore wanted to tell – but it feels like one of the biggest reasons we love this series, the spiritual, emotional and physical relationship, has been declared unimportant. At this point, with two episodes left, any physical expression between Jamie and Claire will be tragic, not joyous.
The Prince has left, and with a bit of royal hubris, takes Jamie’s horse, assuming that Jamie would be quite pleased to have the royal butt sitting on it. Dougal sees this as exile, to remove Jamie’s influence over the Prince. The trek, with fighting men, wives and camp followers in tow, was beautifully filmed to show the Scottish landscape and how small the army is now, compared to the journey they’ve made.
But as they’re starting to relax, and think that maybe they’ve escaped the worst of it, they’re set upon by Redcoats, who just don’t care. Sure, it suits the story to have our little band separate from the larger group, but would Jamie really have done that – abandoned the men under his leadership and care? He couldn’t have counted on all of the Redcoats leaving to chase the leader, but he, Claire, Murtagh, Fergus, Rupert and Dougal try to outrun the attackers. Rupert is shot – OMG, through the EYE – and Dougal makes a great leap to the other horse. (Can you hear Claire, “HELP! He’s going over!”)
To save themselves, Claire once again pulls out her thespian skills – although, honestly, with her glass face, she has to be careful with this one. Fergus tells her not to look so guilty; they finally convince her to pretend to faint, as Dougal says, “from terror!” so she won’t be questioned. Prince Charles’ “Mark me!” doesn’t bother me anywhere near as much as Claire’s now 4-episode long streak of ACTING! But it saves the day – our little band is given safe passage, sans weapons and horses, in return for handing over their “hostage.” Claire knows Jamie will rescue her (accompanied by Murtagh, who refuses to leave Jamie’s side), but the change in the Redcoats’ traveling plans sets her up to meet with two old friends, and a couple of enemies.
There were a lot of great Diana lines in this episode! Murtagh, also, realizes that Claire must carry a genetic predisposition to mayhem. “So now we’re traitors, murderers AND horse thieves,” he says to Jamie. “Does it ever occur to you that taking Claire to wife might not be the wisest thing you ever did?”
Hugh Munro is in the right place at the right time, isn’t he! And Claire is able to give him the information that she’ll be at the Duke of Sandringham’s estate, Belmont, instead of the garrison, where he expects her to be. Simon Callow as the Duke is so delightfully smarmy, so pleased with his own machinations! “I was afraid you would just blurt out my name,” Claire says, wondering why the Duke didn’t reveal her identity. “The last thing I would do is blurt,” he highhandedly tells her. Of course, he thinks she is sent to fulfill his need to escape his captors and rescue him from the servant-less life he’s been forced into. He’s amazingly self-centered, isn’t he! The biggest surprise, though, is that Mary Hawkins is also in the house – as the Duke’s god-daughter, he is now responsible for marrying her off after his Paris plan to gain Le Comte’s revenge on Claire went spectacularly awry.
Remember the attacker with the birthmark on his hand? Here he is, in the Duke’s employ at Belmont, and Claire puts two and two together. Of course, like all screen villains, the Duke explains the entire plot to Claire, bragging about how he saved her from being killed! You don’t know jack, dude, if you think Jamie is going to help you get out of there once Claire tells him about the Duke’s role in the attack! Danton is more than a little scary, too, telling Claire she still could easily be dead.
And Mary is again set to marry someone she can’t stomach (I understand why she didn’t want to marry Vicomte Warty, but we’re not told what the obstacle is this time), and she begs Claire to help her. Another self-centered person insisting on Claire’s help! What does she think Claire, a prisoner in the Duke’s home, is going to do for her? Her initial reluctance to do as Claire tells her to do to help Jamie rescue them – “Me, go out into the night, to meet a filthy beggar? I couldn’t possibly!” is surprising. This is a girl who voluntarily served the great unwashed at L’Hopital and survived a brutal attack – but she finds a bit of courage after all, and opens the door, where Hugh waits for word, and fights off Danton dragging her back in.
You knew Jamie and Murtagh would find Claire, didn’t you? With Hugh’s help (and thank you, Diana, for not killing him off… if you’ve read the books, you understand) our rescuers find their way in, through the trap that the Duke thought he had so cleverly set up. And when Claire reveals to Jamie, and to Mary, that the Duke was behind the Paris attack, and that Danton conducted the attack, their fate was sealed. That’s it, lights out – except that it’s Mary who finds the courage to take a bit of her own revenge! And Murtagh finishes the job for her, taking the smirk right off the Duke’s face. The episode’s opening scene, with the powdered wig tumbling off the table, makes sense now, doesn’t it! Was Mary shell-shocked? She seemed to have more presence of mind then the rest of them, which was also a surprise for her, when she tells them, “I think we’d better go.”
Two episodes left! Thanks for Diana for writing a fast-paced, fun episode – well, fun is a relative term. She’s said she won’t be likely to write another for Season 3, due to the pressures of getting the 9th book in the series ready to publish, and I’m happy she has that as a priority, but maybe in Season 4?
Love all the beautiful Outlander sets? Read my interview with production designer Jon Gary Steele
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