Outlander Season 3 picked up where Season 2 left off. Claire and Jamie were separated by time, believing one would die in battle.
I took over Claire and Jamie part way through Outlander Season 3. Before that, I was writing my Outlander recaps over at Hidden Remote. But it’s time to get the full season up to date on this particular site.
Since rewatching the season, other elements of the episode have stood out. If you want to read my initial recap of the episode, you can here. However, this will go into other details and feelings throughout, more of a review within a recap.
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I will also separate this recap into two: focusing on Claire and Jamie’s separate lives as they started their 20-year separation in Outlander Season 3, Episode 1, “The Battle Joined.”
Let’s start with Claire. She spends the episode trying to navigate the 1940s. Pregnant with Jamie’s child but attempting to continue her marriage to Frank, she tries to fit in the best she can. Of course, her progressive opinions and views aren’t welcome around Frank’s Harvard colleagues, one of whom isn’t happy that women are now being admitted to Harvard Medical School. Of course, this is foreshadowing of things to come.
But right now, husband and wife are struggling in their own ways. Claire is clearly depressed and angry. The man she loved and adored forced her through the stones and into her own time. What he did was selfless, but that’s not the way Claire sees it right now. It’s not easy to get these sorts of emotions across on screen, but Outlander certainly tries.
Claire’s depression spirals, as she pulls away from Frank at every opportunity. This pregnancy is her burden and she won’t let Frank near her. That’s understandable considering he looks so much like Black Jack Randall, but I still can’t get over the idea that she just never told him the full truth. At least, I’m guessing she didn’t tell him about Black Jack. If she did, then he really doesn’t understand what that could do to a person!
Throughout the months of the pregnancy, Claire becomes increasingly more irritable and accuses Frank of just wanting sex. Honestly, he just wants to get some sort of normalcy back to his marriage. He wants to be with Claire again.
After throwing an ashtray at him and forcing him to sleep on the couch, Claire wakes him up to tell him that her waters have broken. It’s time to head to the hospital, where a sexist doctor is waiting to knock her out to give birth (yes, this sort of thing really happened). When Claire awakes confused and scared (understandably after Faith’s birth), she and Frank finally have the chance to bond over their daughter. Claire is willing to let him into the family now, realizing that she’s been awful to him in recent months.
It all looks perfect until the nurse asks her where the baby, who is called Brianna in case we needed the reminder, got her red hair from. If looks could kill, the nurse wouldn’t have survived Claire and Frank’s glares.
Meanwhile, it’s the storyline that kept me hooked throughout the Outlander Season 3 premiere. It’s all about the failed Battle of Culloden. The Jacobites have fallen and we see how through a series of flashes told from Jamie’s point of view. These memories adapt slightly with each telling, showing the haziness of memory.
While Claire’s story took place over the nine months of pregnancy, Jamie’s story was focused on the direct aftermath of Culloden. It was clear from this point that we’d see the 20-year separation at different points in time.
All Jamie wants to do is die. He believes he’ll go off to see Claire somewhere in the afterlife and even hallucinates her on the battlefield when it’s actually Rupert coming to save him. The soldiers who have survived are hiding out in a barn, but that isn’t going to last long.
The Redcoats find them and Lord Hal Grey organizes the execution of all the Jacobites. They will die with dignity, though, being shot in the head. Those who can’t stand will be strapped to a post to allow the death that he believes they deserve.
Since Jamie is so badly wounded after his fight with Black Jack Randall (who died on the battlefield as Claire told him), he’s left until the end. He says goodbye to various people both through memories and in person. The most important is certainly Rupert, who won’t forgive Jamie for killing Dougal but doesn’t want to go to his grave angry at him. After all, they were brothers-in-arms once. Rupert is shot off-screen and it’s the only time I’ll agree that a death off-screen is a real death.
When all the able-bodied men have been executed, it’s time to move onto the injured. Jamie finally gets his chance to die but there’s a catch. Hal realizes that Jamie is the same Red Jamie who saved his brother’s life. Because of that, there’s a debt that must be paid. Hal manages to secure Jamie safe passage to Lallybroch, despite Jamie certain that there is no debt that needs to be paid.
It was a devastating episode with the goodbyes (although all were handled perfectly) but one full of beautiful direction, lightning, and true depictions of the past. This is still my favorite episode of the whole of Outlander Season 3.
Next: Ranking the Outlander Season 3 episodes
What did you think of the Outlander Season 3 premiere? Which storyline drew you in more? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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