Outlander: Je Suis Prest (2x09)

This is one of the better episodes this show has ever had. I'm getting mighty nervous for the rest of this season, because I anticipate a lot of angst. In fact, I'm pretty much guaranteed it at this point. Let's get talking about this episode.

Cons:

There were only two small things I'd call "flaws" in this episode, and they were more matters of slight discomfort for me. First of all, Jamie makes the decision to sentence himself to flogging in this episode for being lax with the security of his training camp. This isn't at all a bad decision from a leadership standpoint, but it all happened so fast, and the ramifications were so little dwelt on, that the whole scene gave me whiplash. It's like I knew this scene was supposed to teach me something new about Jamie or about the situation, but I couldn't quite figure out what.

The other thing is even more difficult to describe. We meet Lord John Grey in this episode (yay yay yay my excitement knows no bounds) and then we get Claire and Jamie cleverly tricking him into giving up information about his camp of British soldiers. How do they trick him? Claire pretends to be a British prisoner of the dirty Scots, and Jamie threatens to rape her unless poor teenaged John does the right thing and saves her honor. Now, in the books, this is much more subtle. John sees Jamie and Claire goofing off and comes to the wrong conclusion, hearing Claire's English accent. He actually confronts Jamie for the sole purpose of saving Claire's precious honor, and Jamie, perceiving that this annoying little intruder has got the wrong idea, decides to role with it, leveraging Claire's completely fabricated distress against John's helpful knowledge about the nearby British camp. I liked this in the books because the whole thing played off of John's unfair assumptions about Scottish brutality. He dug his own grave by making an unfair guess about his enemies. In this version, we get Claire and Jamie playacting sexual assault, on purpose, to force John to do what they want. Obviously as the viewers we know that Claire is fabricating this story to a) get them the information that they want and b) stop Jamie from having to cause the boy bodily harm. I just... I don't know. The presentation in the book of this same scenario is so much more subtle. In a show that deals very seriously with the consequences of rape and sexual assault, it's very jarring to see Claire and Jamie acting out such a scenario, even when I understand the reasoning.

Pros:

The thing that makes this episode so wonderful is that it feels very self-contained and thematically tight, while still covering a lot of ground and introducing a lot of new elements to the story. The plot can be summed up in a couple of brief sentences: Jamie trains the men of Clan Fraser, goes head to head with the newly arrived Dougal over how to handle the coming war, and eventually leads a successful raid on British troops, ruining their equipment. Claire, meanwhile, deals with her PTSD in a series of flashbacks detailing her experiences during WWII. All of these different elements had a lot of complexities and were explored with the proper amount of time and weight. The thing that ties this episode together is the title: "Je Suis Prest," Clan Fraser's motto. It translates to "I am ready," and this episode deals with many of our key characters and their struggle to get to a place of readiness.

Let's start with Jamie. He has seen war against an organized army before, back when he fought in France, and knows that the guerrilla style common to the highlanders isn't going to work. He tries to train the men up, using hardcore training methods and giving the lash to disobedient or lax soldiers. We didn't get a cheesy training montage or anything, but we can see that as Jamie gets his men ready, he is also readying himself for this position of command. He doesn't let anybody steamroll over him - not the discontented soldiers with their shoddy weaponry and clueless attitudes, and not even the formidable Dougal MacKenzie, who thinks he knows what's best.

Speaking of Dougal, we get his return in this episode, along with some of our other favorite Castle Leoch folks - Rupert and Angus! Dougal does not have men from Clan MacKenzie with him - Colum has remained firm in his neutrality. As a consequence, Dougal must bend to Jamie's leadership if he wants his few men to be allowed to join with the Frasers. This causes quite the power shift in their relationship. The last time we were with Dougal, he was clearly the alpha. On MacKenzie soil, Jamie was always going to be in Dougal's service. To see that dynamic shift, and to see Jamie hold firm to it, was really very interesting. Dougal doesn't think that he needs to "get ready" for the rebellion. It seems that all he cares about is earning favor with Prince Charles. He's not concerned about his men getting in fighting shape. However, by the end of the episode he has bowed to Jamie's place of leadership, and Jamie has honored his uncle with the privilege of being the one to ride down into the Jacobite camp and announce their arrival to Prince Charles Stuart. As somebody who knows where this is going, let's just say I'm mighty interested to watch Dougal and Jamie's relationship continue to play out onscreen.

Then there's Claire. I loved this interpretation of her attitude on war. That she should have PTSD from her time during the Second World War makes perfect sense, and it feels like something we've always known about her, even if it hasn't been explicitly explored before. We see a series of flashbacks wherein Claire makes friends with some American soldiers, and then is forced to hide in a ditch as they are shot off the road and killed by the Germans. In shock, Claire lays there covering her ears from the dead echo of her friends' screams until she is rescued by more Allied soldiers. In remembering this, the sound of gunshots and the sight of another wartime camp sends Claire into a panic. She cries out her feelings of fear and anguish to Jamie, who understands all too well what it's like to be triggered and brought back to a horrible event from the past.

I loved all of the flashbacks, I loved seeing Claire in her element, and I loved how the two wars tied together in Claire's mind. Hints of Claire's past/future in the army as a combat nurse really help us viewers to understand and accept her relatively impressive competence in the world of eighteenth century Scotland. She is, understandably, more prepared than most would be to deal with the harsh realities of living rough during a war. She's already done it - albeit a few hundred years along in time. I also felt the visceral reaction she had to being shot at, and how the sound of musket fire on the training grounds would have brought all of that back to her. She had a pretty darn dangerous job, and her life hasn't exactly shaped up to be more relaxing since.

Before we get to the introduction of THE BEST CHARACTER EVER, I want to check in with the other Best Character Ever, our adorable friend Fergus. I should just have a segment called "Fergus Watch" in these things. This week, we get the adorable sight of Fergus reuniting with his pseudo-surrogate parents. "Milord! Milady!" he calls, and he runs straight to Claire and gives her a big hug. Just be still my freakin' heart. I love Fergus an unreasonable amount.

And the same can be said for Lord John Grey! I mean I knew that he was only sixteen when first met in Dragonfly in Amber, but I sort of forget about that when I think of him, because I associate him as one of Jamie's peers, in a sense, rather than this annoying little kid. All I can say is, for those who watch the show and haven't read the books, I cannot overstate the import and awesomeness of that kid who rushed into the camp and tried to kill Jamie. Lord John. I'm just so happy. More coherently, I just love the fact that when you first meet John, he's trying to kill Jamie, and yet you come out of the exchange with a sort of amused and grudgingly impressed sense of him as a character. He has been told certain things about Red Jamie, the notorious Scottish Highlander, and he's acting with what is actually considerable bravery, based on those assumptions. I mean, to be fair, these particular Scots are at war with John's particular Englishmen. He's not doing anything wrong in striking first.

Also, in setup of what is going to be a truly complicated and yet inexplicably strong friendship, we see that Jamie doesn't really hate John for his murder attempt. If anything, he rather respects John's moxie. As John leaves, his life having been spared by Jamie after he gives up information about the British camp, John declares himself to be in Jamie's debt. He plans on dispensing with that debt as soon as possible by returning a favor of equal value. And then, once they're even, John plans on killing Jamie. There's the sense that Jamie is more than a little amused at the thought of this small little man taking him on, but Jamie doesn't laugh, or scoff, or anything like that. He gravely says that in that case, he hopes they do not meet again, and even gives John a little ironic bow. God, I'm just so excited to see these two men form what has got to be the most unlikely of all friendships. Just wait until you see this one play out.

The episode ends on a note of triumph. Thanks to John's unwillingly supplied information, Jamie is able to take some of his men on a raid of the British camp. They dismantle their wagons and cannons and burn the wheels, thus crippling their effectiveness. It's a wonderful way to circle around on the episode's themes of preparedness. After all the drilling and marching that Jamie has put his men through, they actually do end up using more guerilla-like techniques in sneaking into the camp at night and wrecking havoc. There's probably something to be said of both methods of going to war, and Jamie has clearly reconciled the two ideas in his mind. As they approach Stuart's camp to meet up with the Prince, Jamie gives Dougal the honor of announcing their arrival. As they go forth, Jamie looks in on Claire to see how she's doing. She says: "Je Suis Prest." She's ready.

But I'm not! Seriously, I'm getting so nervous for what I know is coming. Even non-book people know what's coming, in a very real sense... we all saw that Claire ends up back in her own time before this is all over! Is everybody as excited as I am to see how it all comes about?

9/10