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Outlander

Here we are, Outlander fans. It’s all come down to this. The Battle of Culloden is going to happen. Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and Jamie (Sam Heughan) will be torn asunder. Sweet Frank is going to raise their daughter as an American in Boston. Everything is coming to a seemingly tragic end. Who could save us from this horror?

The Avengers?

No, not the Marvel Avengers — the 1960s Avengers. The Season Two Outlander season finale opens in Scotland in 1968. A handsome young man covered in tweed tries to let Diana Rigg distract him from his worries and woes, but it’s no use. He’s little Roger Wakefield and this is his father’s, the kind Reverend’s, funeral. Who do you suppose has arrived to pay her respects? None other than Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser Randall, the hottest middle-aged woman who has ever lived.

I mean, just look at her! She looks like Jackie Kennedy with more class! Is there anyone hotter? Oh, look: Her daughter.

Yes, that’s Brianna Randall, aka Jamie and Claire’s time traveling fetus love child. She’s all grown up and studying history at Harvard. Claire is a surgeon. Sweet Frank is conveniently dead. And Roger wants to hang out with these hot broads and show them the glory of Scotland. Needless to say, they agree.

Now, my dear friends, here is where things get tricky. We flashback to the morning of the Battle of Culloden. Jamie and Claire are despondent. Prince Charlie is comparing himself to Jesus. Dougal is skulking about being creepy and Dougal-y. Things are so bad that Claire tries to convince Jamie that the best course of action would be to poison Charles Stuart. It’s a desperate plan for desperate time…

Toggling back-and-forth to the swinging ’60s…Brianna explores Ft. William with Roger. The two talk about military history, which in my world is pillowtalk. Claire, too, is revisiting all the major scenes from her lovelorn past. She drives to Lallybroch and hears echoes of happier days. For a moment, she even thinks she sees Jamie in his prime. Hubba, hubba…

Claire spends the rest of the day studying genealogy and emotionally bludgeoning herself with memories from the past. As this goes on, Roger takes Brianna to the most erotic place on earth: a mid-century British college. Roger goes to check on something deeply nerdy (I’m fanning myself; Are you fanning yourselves?) While wandering through the university, Brianna finds herself drawn to an impassioned Scottish woman’s voice. She’s arguing for freedom, for nationalism, for the hot conquerers of the past. She is…GEILLIS!?!?

Aw shit, do you remember Geillis from Season One? She was Claire’s weird friend from the future who was burned as a witch. She let Dougal knock her up. She slowly murdered her own nice husband. Anyway, she’s here and her name is Gillian Edgars. She wants Brianna to join her fancy “feminist” Scottish nationalist crusade. Brianna thinks she’s cool, but she also thinks that any monarchist cause is hypocritical and full of baloney. Hoo boy…

Jumping back to the past…Claire has indeed convinced Jamie that they should kill the Prince. The only problem is that creeping creeper Dougal overhears this plan and he is not happy. This is treason! He also says some very unkind things about Claire and her free-thinking approach to sexuality. Soon, Dougal and Jamie are fighting…to the death!

The two are locked in a stalemate. Jamie manages to turn Dougal’s dagger away from him, but he doesn’t have the strength to push it down into his uncle’s chest. This is where Claire jumps in and helps her husband commit murder…like a family.

Sadly, Rupert walks in like a boob right after this happens. He curses Jamie for killing his beloved war chief and then…gives Jamie a few hours’ head start to get away? Male friendship is confusing to me. However, Jamie’s “Ride or Die” BFF, the human Chewbacca, Murtagh is totally on our heroes’ side. In fact, he makes a joke about how long it took for Jamie to finally off the old bastard! (SHIT, MURTAGH!) Murtagh and Claire witness Jamie signing over Lallybroch to Jenny’s eldest son and they send little Fergus off with it. It’s a gut-wrenching moment because it’s clear that Jamie is preparing to die.

In the future, Brianna and Roger look at old, dusty papers in an attic (*SWOON*) and our new heroine figures out that Sweet Frank was not her biological father. She angrily confronts Claire about this and instead of dodging the truth, she straight up tells Brianna that her dad was a hot Highlander from the 18th century and that the sex was AMAZING, but it wasn’t all about sex, it was about love. Brianna is both horrified and grossed out. She huffs off like an insolent teen declaring that she wishes Claire were dead! Yes, we are indeed in the 1960s.

In the past, Jamie is trying to reason with Claire to go through the stones and in the 1960s, Claire has been trying to track down Geillis to warn her not to. She’s made a connection with Geillis’s drunk 1960s husband and discovered that the lady is so frantically pro-Scotland that she plans on going back in time to ensure the Jacobite Rebellion succeeds. (Again: Hoo boy.) Things get even more wrinkled when it’s revealed that Roger is a direct descendent of Dougal and Geillis’ son. He’s also a McKenzie, which means that it’s a little bit awkward that he and Brianna have been flirting. They’re like first cousins seventeen times removed or something.

Delightfully, Roger has been taking every strange revelation in its stride. He convinces Brianna that it’s better to let Claire work out her delusions and tells Claire that they should warn Geillis to be careful of being burned as a witch in the 1740s. It’s a capital plan and they all drive off to the stones. The problem is that they are slightly too late. You see, when they arrive they discover that Geillis has burned her husband as a sacrifice to the fairies to make the magic work. Um, guys, I think Geillis is kind of crazy.

Claire calls out to the serial husband killer, but it’s too late. She leaps through the stones. It’s a magical sight that finally convinces Brianna that her mom is not Looney Tunes and takes Claire back to her final moments with Jamie.

These are bitter, beautiful moments. They are tender. They are true.

They soon include kissing…

…and that kissing leads to the fastest quickie in all of Outlander.

Back in 1968, Brianna suddenly wants to know all about her real father. Claire starts lovingly describing the sum of all her orgasms as a tall man who liked chess. Soon Roger drops a bombshell: James Fraser didn’t die at the Battle of Culloden.

SAY WHAT?

Roger’s like, “Yeah, six Fraser war captains were captured and only five were executed. Their names are in a church and Jamie isn’t one of them.”

The dawn breaks in the horizon, lighting Claire with the soft warm glow of God. She looks on at the stones, bathed in this magic God light, and declares that she has to return to the past, return to her Jamie, return to hope…