Outlander 3.02: Surrender

outlander season 3 with claire and jamie on either sides of a stonePreviously: Jamie survived Culloden, and got sent home to Lallybroch. Claire had their daughter and is trying to make a home in Boston.

The title splash is a redcoat posting a wanted poster for an outlaw called the “Dunbonnet.”

At Lallybroch in 1752, three boys, in the manner of troublemaking boys, find a hidden pistol in the dovecote. They are Rabbie, Wee Jamie, and Fergus (HEY FERGUS). Their bragging is interrupted by a bunch of soldiers who are looking for the Dunbonnet, who might also be Jamie. Jenny, who is very pregnant again, tells them (as they arrest Ian), that they haven’t seen Jamie since the filthy traitor went to the rebellion. The soldiers remind them that anyone harboring a traitor will be hanged, and they tell him the same thing they told five other commanders – there’s no Red Jamie there. They arrest Ian anyway, and Fergus spits at the Redcoat who is a Corporal MacGregor.

Of course, Jamie is there, in ragged clothes, long hair, and generally looking not at all like himself. He successfully hunts a stag (with a bow and arrow) and brings it to the house after dark. When he walks in, he has a vision of Claire working in the garden, but it’s really Jenny. He’s haunted and hunted and isn’t used to talking.

Jamie carries a stag to Lollybroch. He thinks he sees Claire, but when the woman turns, it's Jenny.

Inside, they butcher the deer, Jenny and Fergus keeping the conversation going while Jamie is silent. Jenny also asks Jamie if he can help with the books, since Ian is away for a bit. Jenny also tells him that her conscious is clear when it comes to lying, because she’s not: “James Fraser hasn’t been here for a long, long time.”

Claire, in her bed, pants as she remembers Jamie in happier times (by which I mean sex and fun bed times). We get a nice shot of Sam’s butt in her memory. But it’s Frank sleeping by her side, and she’s alone.

It’s 1949, and Claire puts Bree in her bed (with her Bunny), and in the Globe, there’s an article about Irish Independence. Bree fusses a bit, and Claire tells her that she’ll want to hear this: “This is history in the making.” Bree makes her own history by rolling front to back the first time. (Claire’s dressing gown is very 1940s, but also reminiscent of one of her Paris dressing gowns, which is a nice touch). Frank comes down in just a towel and they marvel over their clever daughter who rolls over a month ahead of schedule. Claire puts on a hand on his naked chest. It’s a moment, and neither is too sure what to do with it.

Frank holds baby Bree. Claire touches his chest.

Jamie paces through the woods to his little cave covered by bushes. He hears someone outside, but it’s just Fergus, who SAYS he was very careful and doubled back on his trail. He’s brought the pistol and wants to learn how to shoot so he can be ready for the next rebellion. Jamie tells him there won’t be another one, and Fergus snaps ,”Just because you’re a coward now doesn’t mean I am!” Jamie just tells him that weapons are outlawed, so PUT IT BACK.

In the house, Jamie comes to help with the books, and finds that Jenny is in labor.  Mary tells him not to worry. The boys are doing their chores, and see a raven. Rabbie tells them that his Granny said ravens are messengers of death, and they shouldn’t be near a birth… so they decide that the best thing to do is get the pistol and shoot the raven.

Of course, there are soldiers near enough to hear the shot. Jamie is about to throttle one or all three of them, when Mary tells him that the baby has been born- a boy- and takes the gun.

Inside, Jenny is quite pleased with herself, and is going to name the new baby Ian. He is a wee chicken. Jenny tells him that Jamie looks good with a baby, and then asks how long it’s been since he had sex. Jamie tells her to not go there, and she’s like it’s been 6 years and Mary McNab is young enough. Jamie takes the baby out to meet the others, when he hears the soldiers looking for the gun. Jenny settles herself in bed, and calmly tells them that there’s no weapons. They threaten to search the house. Baby Ian starts making noises and Jamie shoves a fingers in his mouth, and Jenny’s like look, we always cooperate, there’s no weapon!

He asks her if she’s given birth, and she tells him that baby came early and was dead. (MacGregor says that’s good, it’s one less Scot to deal with.) They ask where the body is, and then the Captain gives and order to find the midwife. At the point, Mary comes in with the pistol. She tells them that it belonged to her husband, and she kept it because it gave her comfort, and she fired it at a raven to protect that baby. MacGregor scoffs at the “stupid Highland superstitions” and offers to take her into custody. The captain says nah, they have the weapon, but warns Jenny that if anything happens again, they will not be so lenient.

A solider snatches the gun from Mary.

The soldiers leaves, and Jenny muses that she’s seen the look in that captain’s eyes before… he’ll not give up. She tells Jamie to dig a fresh grave in the cemetery, just in case.

In Boston, Claire wakes Frank up and says she “misses her husband” and initiates sex (with her on top). This is the first time they’ve been together since she came back.

In Scotland, Ian is brought back, and MacGregor tells him that the garrison is searching to north and south, and they’ll be back. Fergus eyes them darkly.  Ian thanks them for the “lovely visit.”

Fergus sneaks out, where there is a soldier hidden, waiting to see who leaves the house. In the woods, Fergus knows he’s being followed, and leads the pair of soldiers, including MacGregor, on what he intends as a merry chase. He taunts them Frenchishly, runs, gestures, and taunts them a second time. Jamie hears the yelling and sneaks to see Fergus spending more energy on taunting and less on running. Fergus gets cornered by another pair on horseback, and MacGregor uses his saber to cut off Fergus’s right hand. The soldiers leave, and Jamie tumbles down the slope and puts on a tourniquet and brings him back to the house.

Jamie picks up a wounded Fergus.

Inside, Jamie paces by the fire, and Jenny tells him that Fergus is alive because of Jamie. Jamie says he should have stopped them, and Jenny sensibly points out that if he had, then they would all be dead. Jamie falls to his knees, sobbing, and Jenny holds him.

After he’s collected himself, Jamie finds Fergus, who says that Jenny has been quite generous with the whiskey (Though he prefers the taste of French wine). And that he’s sorry. Jamie says that Fergus reminds him that he does have something to fight for, and Fergus smiles: “There you are, Milord.” Fergus also reminds Jamie of the agreement they made in Paris: if Fergus lost an ear or a hand in his service, that Jamie would support Fergus for the rest of his life: “In one stroke, I have become a man of leisure, no?”

A pale Fergus, lying in bed. I have always trusted you, milord.

Claire and Frank are having Millie (the neighbor Claire met) and her husband over for dinner. They are having Eton Mess for dessert, and Millie laughs that she doesn’t do baking – if it’s not in the freezer section, too bad. Jerry says she that her “talents lie elsewhere.” They are affectionate, and easy with each other, in the way Claire and Jamie were and Frank wishes they were.

After Millie and Jerry leave, Frank pours Claire a nightcap, and after some banter, she takes his glass, removes her panties, and guides his hand between her legs. Her eyes are closed as he lays her down in front of the fire, and he asks that she look at him. She refuses, and he stops. He doesn’t want to be used as substitute: “When I’m with you, I’m with you. But you’re with him.”

Claire and Frank, face to face. Claire is untying his tie, mid seduction.

The him in question gets a drink from Ian, and Ian talks about the phantom pains he gets in his leg: “Feeling a pain in a part of you that’s lost…Claire was your heart.” I dunno, that’s laying it on bit thick, show. Upstairs, Jamie sees a tapestry with the family arms on it that’s been slashed – the British did that. Jamie muses that they won’t stop until he’s found.

Jamie’s plan is to have Jenny turn him in: that way they get the reward money, they prove their loyalty to the Crown, so the soldiers will stop harassing them. Jenny hates the idea, like REALLY hates it. She’ll hide her brother forever if that’s what he needs, because Ohana Means Family. Jamie’s plan is that Jenny will tell the British that she’s heard from Jamie, and she knows when he’ll show up, so that’ll be that. Jenny says that he’ll be “hangit” but Jamie doesn’t care all that much, and besides, it’s been seven years. They’re not hanging people that much. It’ll just be prison. Jenny asks Jamie if he’s not seen enough prisons, and he shrugs. “Little difference to the prison I live in now.”

Jenny says "Have you not seen the inside of enough prisons for one lifetime?" Jamie replies "Little difference to the prison I live in now."

In his cave, Jamie sees Mary bringing him food and offers him company. She shaves him, and cuts his hair, and he thanks her for her bravery for turning over the pistol to the British. He leaves to go bathe, and tells her to bring back the books to the house, and toss the rest. She doesn’t though: she offered him company, and he comes back to find her in her shift.

What she’s offering is a moment of humanity. She’s not trying to compete with Claire. “Something we both need. Something to keep us whole as we move forward in this life.” He wrestles with himself, and admits that he hasn’t done this for a while. She hasn’t either, but they figure it out.

In Boston, Claire walks with Bree in her pram, and Bree is a super cute baby. Claire voiceovers that she did her best to resign herself to her new role as wife and mother, while looking at a headline announcing that Truman appointed a woman as Treasurer. She’s been a part of something larger, and eventually… she picks up a knife, and holds it like scalpel, and the picture fades into her actually holding a scalpel. “I would need to do something more.”

A SMILING BABBY BREE. IN A HAT. BECAUSE BABIES COME WITH HATS

She’s in the Anatomy classroom at Harvard Medical. She’s a first year, and her professor muses that Harvard is being super modern this year, with a woman and a Black man in the class. Claire takes her seat amid the hostile glares of her classmates, until the Black man walks in. He asks if he can sit next to Claire, and she smiles.  His name is Joe Abernathy. They shake hands, while the white dudes shake their heads in disgust.

The professor starts class: “Alright, gentlemen. Let’s begin.”

Claire and Joe, looking at each other and smiling in a sea of white dude faces in their anatomy class.

At the house, Claire comes into bed. She and Frank now are sleeping in twin beds.

Frank, turning out his light next to his twin bed. Claire is asleep in the twin bed next to him.

Jenny feeds the chickens in the yard, and Jamie – shorn and shaven and looking like himself, comes to the gate. He swallows hard before saying that he’s come home (and takes off the brown hat). She says nothing, and the soldiers come out of hiding and seize him. He, acting, says, “No, Jenny!”

She, not acting, says that he brought this on himself and she’ll never forgive him for making her do this. The captain arrests Jamie and gives Jenny a large pouch of coins, and she looks away and ashamed. But she takes it. He’s loaded into the cart, and she runs into the house, crying. Jamie sits in the cart, staring at the irons on his wrists.

Jenny, yelling after her brother, "You gave me no choice, brother, and I'll never forgive you. NEVER."

Claire walks across a bridge where a man playing Scotland the Brave on bagpipes is. She pauses to put money in his case, and walks on.

RHG: JOE ABERNATHY you are my favorite new character to come out of Voyager. HELLO.

I had a lot of thoughts while watching this episode- among other things, I’m not as enamored with Voyager as I am with the first two books, so my knee jerk “grouchy when things are changed” is considerably less that it was the first two seasons.

The second was articulated beautifully by this piece on (Bustle? I think it was Bustle) about how this episode made the point that the emotional part of sex exists for men, too. Frank wants the connection, he doesn’t want to be a sex toy. Mary understands that Jamie also wants the connection, and she can and will give him what she has to give.

Fergus, oh Fergus.  Fergus, Fergus, Fergus.

Elyse: See, this is why I stopped reading after Outlander. I want my hero and heroine to overcome their pain and live happily ever after together. Instead Jamie is living in a sadness cave and Claire is sleeping in a Dick VanDyke bed next to a guy she doesn’t love anymore. Also I’m not chill about a kid getting his hand cut off.

So as a non-Voyager reader I just kinda let my head hit the back of the couch and went, “but whhhhhyyyyyy aren’t they together? Whhhhhyyy angst?”

I like that Jenny and Mary are holding everything together though. Jamie and Ian aren’t really present (by no fault of their own) and once again, Jenny is getting shit done.

What about you? How did you like this episode? 

Comments are Closed

  1. LML says:

    I love reading these reviews -thank you!- because after Jamie’s torture in Outlander I finished the book and quit the series. Yet every so often through the years I wondered what happened next…

  2. Laurel says:

    Voyager is my favorite book of the series, so I am a little more grumpy about the changes. I don’t want to be a Poutlander, so I try to appreciate the show for what it is and not fuss too much about changes (& in fact understand why they have made some, since you can’t do in 13 hours what the audiobook takes 40 hours to do), but I miss how more developed Ian is in the books. Frank is definitely a more sympathetic character in the TV show, & while that is great for his character, I am not so sure it is great for Claire. Jenny is always great, so I wish there was more of her.

  3. DonnaMarie says:

    My burning issue was trying to figure out who was who with Jenny’s kids. And where’s the baby girl that Jaime was cuddling with last season?

    Those Dick Ban Dyke Show beds broke my heart for Frank. I know I’m supposed to be all Claire and Jamie forever, but how can you not be in sympathy with Frank? He’s lost the woman he loves. In the books it’s easier to be out of charity with him. The onscreen character is so well portayed that it makes me want to smack Claire.

  4. Christine says:

    I’m afraid I’m with Elyse. I adored Outlander when it was first released and I didn’t know anyone else who had read it so I had to deal with my trauma over the Jamie/Randall nightmare alone but it ended well and I left thinking all was right in their world. When I saw a sequel emerge I was mildly annoyed and when I read it I felt like banging my head against the wall in frustration. I think I barely made it through Voyager before declaring “I’m out”. By that point, to me, it felt like masochism and I just couldn’t take one more rape, mutilation, or other horrible horrible thing happening to characters I liked. Every now and then I pop on the net to read a summary of the latest book and I watched season one of the show but otherwise try not to get sucked back in because in the end I find it very depressing.

  5. MClaudia says:

    My non-book reader husband really liked this episode; me, not so much… maybe because of the subtle changes? I dunno. My husband is also hugely sympathetic to Frank, and I wonder if the show will portray him in a worse light down the road esp. in relation to Joe.

  6. Christine says:

    @MClaudia- this is another problem I am having with the television adaption (which in so many respects is just excellent). This is a pretty feminist series of books written by a woman author.

    It’s being adapted by a man who has said clearly and often that he likes Frank, and he obviously identifies or relates with the character in some ways so he is changing the character to be more of what he likes and to make him the “hurt one” more, and nicer than he ever was in the books. So my gripe is does every work a woman writes have to be redone and revamped by a man so men will like it more? It’s Claire’s story (and arguably Jamie’s as well) so shouldn’t it reflect Claire’s or even Gabaldon’s point of view toward Frank?

    I know there are people who will say “it’s an adaptation like any TV adaptation of a book or series, things change, get over it”. But when you have a powerful female voice’s like Gabaldon’s, and her view of one of the main men in the novel being significantly altered, it concerns me. The story isn’t about Ronald Moore’s feelings or Frank’s it’s about Claire’s and arguably the more marginalized people.

  7. Antipodean Shenanigans says:

    One of the things I liked about Voyager (my favourite of the first four books I’ve read so far) was that we got the big long section about Jamie’s goings-on, without interruption from Claire.
    I don’t feel like the intercutting between timelines is working for me in this adaptation, but I understand why it has to be done from a TV perspective.
    I hope each episode will keep getting better.

  8. Crystal F. says:

    There are just SO many ‘Oh God. I know I read the book, but I still don’t want to SEE it!’ moments in this ep.

    (And I was so happy to finally see Joe Abernathy I completely forgot his name.)

  9. Susan says:

    @Laurel: Poutlander! 😀

    Voyager was my second favorite book in the series, so I really hope they do justice to it. I’m not watching the shows in real time–in fact, I stopped early in the first season because they were just making me too tense despite knowing what was going to happen. But I’ve been buying each season so I’m planning to catch up at some point. It just seems less nerve-wracking that way. But I religiously read these recaps so I’ll be prepared. (This makes me sound really neurotic.)

    Agree with everything said about Frank. He was not a sympathetic character in the books. Unless I’m misremembering (and it has been years since I last read the book), it was pretty clear he cheated on Claire during the war. And, after the move to America, I don’t think he loved Claire, but was just kinda sulky and petulant that he wasn’t the center of her attention (because of Jamie, Bree, her career, etc.) the way he expected the be. Making him more long-sufferingly heroic totally changes the whole dynamic.

  10. Donna Marie says:

    @Susan, totally agree. I know he’s not a sympathetic character, but the way he’s portrayed in the show he’s sort of a long suffering sadsack. I don’t want to be in charity with him, but here I am. I need to see book Frank really soon, because if they make me have an ugly cry over his death, I’m going to be very angry.

  11. Robin Bayne says:

    Thanks so much for doing these recaps!

  12. Irene Headley says:

    One of the reasons I stopped reading the books was that Claire was annoying me, and I felt very bad for Frank. In the books he behaves badly, but, for example, the USA-based cheating takes place several years into a dead marriage, so I don’t find it okay, but do find it more explicable.

Comments are closed.

By posting a comment, you consent to have your personally identifiable information collected and used in accordance with our privacy policy.

↑ Back to Top