Outlander: All Debts Paid (3x03)

Yay!!!!! John Grey is amazing. I'm really happy that he's getting a good amount of screen time. This episode includes some of my favorite passages in Voyager, and I'm very pleased with how they were handled.

Cons:

I will admit that the pacing felt a tad off in the Ardsmuir scenes. In the books, this is stretched out over a long period of time. John Grey and Jamie Fraser go from vile hatred to respect, friendship, and even unrequited love on John's part over the course of countless meals and games of chess. Here, we only see key moments. They hate each other. Jamie escapes briefly. They have a confrontation. They're playing chess. John screws it up by coming on to Jamie. John leads Jamie away to his new life at Helwater. Not a ton of time for the friendship to breathe.

Okay, also: Murtagh is still alive. I mean on the one hand I'm thrilled because I love him dearly. But this feels like a rather strange deviation from the source material. One of the tragedies of Jamie's life is how isolated he is at this point in the story. In fact, that's one of the things that leads to his friendship with John, because he finds against all odds that he can talk to this man somewhat as an equal. All of that is a bit undercut if he still has Murtagh, a close personal friend and family member, to lean on emotionally during his time in prison. Maybe this is a nitpick, and in many ways I am thrilled that Murtagh is still around, but... I don't know. I wonder how his character is going to fit in moving forward.

Pros:

All of that being said, I really liked John Grey. He's a pompous Brit in many ways, but he has a heart. Note his horror at the thought of the prisoners eating rats, and his attempted benevolence at giving the cells cats to rid them of the rat problem. He also portrays no particular racism towards the Scots in dealing with them - in that, if he shows them disrespect or disdain it is because they are prisoners, not because they are Scottish. Jamie and John play off of each other with such interesting intensity. The scene where Jamie reveals he remembers John from their first meeting was one of the episode's highlights (although the weird flashbacks to last season's episode were a little distracting and certainly unnecessary).

Throughout all of these scenes in Ardsmuir, we also get to see Jamie rediscover a purpose in life. It takes a remarkable man to make the best out of such a situation, but Jamie quickly becomes the de facto leader and spokesperson for the prisoners, granting him a unique opportunity to keep company with the prison's governor. He comes alive in the act of caring for his sick kinsmen, in particular Murtagh who is in a really bad way. John helpfully sends a doctor to care for Murtagh, which is one of the things that begins a friendship between himself and Jamie Fraser.

And let's talk about that friendship. Like I said, there wasn't a ton of time for the relationship to develop, but what we did see promises good things for the future. They'll have time to get to know each other while Jamie is at Helwater, and I can see these two forming the special bond that is so important to all of us who have read the books. The fact that Jamie can speak to John about Claire, joke about the fact that when they first met, Claire was never in any real danger, and speak about her being a "White Witch" and a healer, shows how much Jamie has grown to respect John. He hasn't been able to talk openly about Claire since losing her, but now is a chance for a little bit of healing. Of course, this comes on the heels of John sharing his own loss with Jamie. He tells the story of how he lost a particular friend (aka: lover) at Culloden, and how he will grieve for him forever. Jamie doesn't seem repulsed by this not-so-subtle reveal of John's sexuality, but he certainly doesn't take kindly to it when John puts his hand on Jamie's, a gesture far too intimate for Jamie's comfort.

This moment is a big, big thing in the book, and it comes across with similar severity here. Sam Heughan does a phenomenal job. Here he is, in a prison, with a British officer, and that British officer is expressing sexual interest in him... Yeah. PTSD like nobody's business. Just moments before, these two men had been sharing intimate and personal details with each other, open and vulnerable emotionally in a way that neither of them can be very often. And then suddenly, Jamie is steel. He is immovable and angry and will definitely kill John Grey if he doesn't take his hand off of him right this second. You can see the anguish in John, as well. Somehow this actor manages to portray the agony of being forced to keep his true self hidden at all times - and then in a moment of closeness, trusting someone with that true self only to be rejected with anger and threats of violence. Of course, John has no idea the minefield he's just stepped into in regards to Jamie's past traumas. Oh, the drama. So delicious.

As the episode ends, John, and Jamie are on... uncertain footing with one another. John has saved Jamie from indentured servitude in the colonies, and has brought him to relative comfort as a groomsman at a large estate. This means their relationship will continue, as John will continue to visit him to check on his welfare. It's John's way of saying sorry for his indiscretion, as well as indicating that he cares for Jamie, and it's easy to tell that Jamie's not sure how to process that.

Oh boy. As you might be able to tell from my extensive ramblings, I'm really in to John Grey as a character. I can't wait for more of him. But now, on to the equally compelling plot thread with Claire and Frank and Bree.

See, this is an area where I think the changes from the book really work. Obviously they've decided to expand Claire's story so that she can keep pace with Jamie's story. So instead of learning about Claire's time in medical school, Brianna's childhood, and Frank's death through a few very brief moments of flashback, we play it out from beginning to end. Another change is that Frank is way more sympathetic here than in the book. In the book, he has a string of affairs and although Claire knows about it, she didn't give her express permission. Here, Claire allows Frank to live a separate life, and Frank falls in love with another woman. I like the fact that Claire doesn't seem like a saint here. She doesn't cheat on Frank, literally, but she's been emotionally unavailable to him since her return. Meanwhile, Frank would have loved nothing more than a happy marriage with Claire, but when he realized he couldn't have that, he tried to find happiness elsewhere - with Claire's knowledge and permission. Claire is distant to her daughter because of how busy she is with medical school, while Frank is a doting father to Brianna. The whole thing leaves an impression that Frank and Claire are both damaged people in a tough spot, but... Claire might be slightly more the villain in this case.

And that's interesting. It shows the uglier side of having a soul mate - the kind of love that Jamie and Claire have is the stuff of fairy-tales, but it causes a lot of collateral damage. In this case, Claire hurts Frank, a good man, and can't look at her own daughter without being reminded of what she's lost. This version of events also makes Frank's death a lot more tragic. We'd just finished hearing Frank talk about how he wants a divorce and wants to live out the rest of his life with a wife who loves him. And then - bam. That future is stolen from him. Claire's goodbye to Frank was really touching. She tells him - or rather, his body, that she did love him. He was her first love. Ouch.

We are creeping ever closer to the reunion of the century - or rather, centuries. It's smart to keep us in suspense about it. The books did the same thing, making the moment all the more intense when it happens. I'm excited about so many of the things that are coming down the pipe this season, and I'm thrilled that everything thus far has kept me captivated.

8.5/10