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Outlander

Things are starting to perk up on Outlander. Last week, Jamie (Sam Heughan) and Claire (Caitriona Balfe) returned to Scotland and successfully laid the groundwork to help win the Jacobite Rebellion. They have troops, they have hope, and they have a plan. So where to next?

Well, now that we’re back in Scotland, it’s time to reunite with the old gang from season one. Once at camp, Claire and Jamie see not only Murtagh and their French ward Fergus, but good ol’ Angus and Rupert. There are hugs, there are jokes, and there are casual misogynistic references.

Oh and Dougal’s here, too. Remember all the times he tried to rape Claire? Those were the days…the sweet, innocent days of Season One. Tra la, tra la.

These friends and family members have reunited for the the common cause. They are to fight for glory! Fight for Scotland! Fight to an inevitable and bitter death!

But first thing’s first: training. Jamie and Murtagh have to whip the troops into shape which means we get a fantastic series of training montages set to stirring Celtic music throughout the episode. I LOVE IT.

This camp stuff is great, but it also brings Claire back to World War II. Just as the Americans taught the Brits to play baseball on base, the Scots are teaching little French Fergus how to play field hockey. This invokes a flashback: We get to look at Claire in action, chilling with some nice American guys from the Airborne. You know, the Band of Brothers guys. She likes them because they are nice and earnest and one of them can pick up a George Bernard Shaw reference.

Jamie gives a Braveheart-like speech, but it’s like a scary Braveheart speech. He warns them that they need discipline to take on modern forces. It’s a sentiment that Celtic commanders have been struggling to impart to their rough and rumble troops since the time of Julius Caesar. Will this motley crew of Highlanders heed Jamie’s warnings?

Probably not.

Dougal is trying to teach the men a different lesson and that’s that crazy shirtless Scotsmen are better in battle than disciplined redcoats with all the modern tools of murdering. Jamie remains unconvinced.

Later Dougal confronts Claire and asks her to intercede on his behalf with Jamie. He tries to use the whole, “Har har, remember when I tried to blackmail you into marrying me?” thing to blackmail her again. Claire reveals that Jamie already knows and then gives Dougal an armchair psychology diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Then she tells him to…well…you know.

Later, Dougal arrives at the campfire with ten “volunteers.” Jamie is pissed about it for various high-minded Scotch-centric reasons. He’s also fuming because Ross and Kincaid, two dudes in their ranks, let the stranger dangers in. So, the two nice and inept Scotsmen get whipped on Jamie’s orders. Claire has negative feelings about this.

Meanwhile, Claire is kind of going off the deep end. In the midst of all the cool training montages, she’s seeing the ghosts of dead soldiers and hearing blitzkriegs in the highlands. It seems that Claire might suffer from a touch of the PTSD. We flashback again to the war and see Claire survive a brutal nighttime attack. How precisely does she survive? By abandoning one of the nice Yanks to die in the road and watching the other one sacrifice himself. She listens to both of them dying, crying for help. The tragic sounds haunt her in the Highlands and Jamie comforts her.

Jamie has a great idea: Claire should leave the troops and return to Lallybroch where she’s safe. I mean, this is the idea I would spring for. Lallybroch is fun. There are nice people and fun times and there are tons of potatoes to eat. I love eating potatoes. Potatoes are better than war.

But Claire — sigh — protests. (OF COURSE SHE PROTESTS.) She says that if she hides from the battle, then she will feel exactly like she did listening to the poor soldiers dying in the road. She likens it to being a “dragonfly in amber.” It’s a puzzling metaphor that just so happens to be the name of the book this season of Outlander is based on. As she says this, you can almost hear book sales shoot up. [Click here to purchase on Amazon.]

Claire refuses to be the dragonfly in amber. Claire is a heroine. Claire is a ballbuster. Claire is going to war! And Jamie is kind of turned on by it.

Later, a 16-year-old Englishman named William Grey stumbles upon Jamie in the night and tries to murder him. Why? Oh, because Jamie has a nickname of his own now: “Red Jamie.” Claire bursts in as Jamie begins to torture the kid for intel and intervenes with a ruse. Jamie pretends to sexually assault Claire (and it’s played for laughs and again I don’t know how I feel about these “funny” sexual assault scenes, real or fake, this season). Grey honorably spills the beans to spare Claire from being ravished. He then swears that he owes Jamie a debt of life, but as soon as that debt is fulfilled, he’ll kill Jamie. You almost think that if this kid wasn’t English, he and Jamie would be pals.

Jamie follows all this with his own honorable sacrifice. Instead of lashing out – literally — on one of his incompetent men, he takes the whipping for everyone’s negligence. This, and not quirky improv games, is the Highlander equivalent of corporate team-building.

Jamie leads a small party in a commando raid and he returns to Claire triumphant (and horny). He tells Claire that her little ruse is what led to their success. But there’s no time for sex! Jamie and Claire must lead their men onwards to the main Stuart camp. They say they are both ready for this — but are they? I guess that’s what the rest of the season is about!