Outlander: Surrender (3x02)

Fergus!!!! My darling!!!

Cons:

Honestly, this episode was pretty close to perfect. The one thing I have in the "cons" column is more a question about how they've chosen to pace this season. In the books, the time with Claire would be spent with her in her late forties with adult Brianna in Scotland, like how last season ended. By going back and focusing chronologically on Claire's life, we're not going to get as much build over time of Claire's decision to go back and find Jamie again (I know, shocking spoiler, right?). This also means probably less screen-time with Brianna and Roger before the fateful moment of separation between Claire and Brianna. In last season's finale, I found Brianna a little one-note, and I was looking forward to getting some more time with her to flesh out the character a bit. She's really important moving forward, and I don't want the TV show to skimp on Brianna Randall just in the interests of focusing more on Claire and Jamie, as much as I like them.

Pros:

Literally, though, this episode was great. To start with Claire and Frank, they finally rekindle their sex life, but it seems pretty clear that Claire is thinking of Jamie whenever she's with Frank, and he eventually calls her on it. They go back to having a sexless marriage, although they are still amiable and still both love their daughter greatly. We also see Claire make the decision to go to medical school. As she sits down in her first class, she is ostracized by her fellow students, and the professor seems intent on ignoring her existence. She is approached by Joe Abernathy, a black medical student. The two share a brief moment of bonding over their shared isolation.

I'm tempted to point out here that the stuff in 18th century Scotland is more interesting than what's going on in 20th century America. Because, yeah, duh. But that doesn't discount any of the lovely character work that's being done in these scenes. Frank is a lot more easy to hate in the books. Here, you can kind of feel for his situation. It's not that he feels he deserves sex from his wife whenever he wants it... it's more like he signed up for a certain life, and even when that certain life was thrown completely out the window, he agreed to be patient and loving with the expectation that some sort of equilibrium could be reached. On the other hand you have Claire, who loves her daughter deeply and is doing her best to integrate into her life, but she can't magically forget the past or give Frank whatever he wants. Frank is going to have to accept the fact that Claire is giving as much of herself as she is capable of giving. It's a hard pill to swallow, and I like that I feel real sympathy for Frank in this situation. I mean I don't feel too devastated, but still. He's not some monster.

There's this wonderful theme going on in this episode that ties together Claire's plot and Jamie's, and that's the idea of moving on after losing a loved one. I feel like so few romances really deal with the subject of life after love. Jamie and Claire are both scarred and irreparably changed by losing each other, but that does not mean their lives are over. Claire has her daughter, and is making choices to improve her life and be a part of something bigger than herself by going to medical school. And Jamie...

Well, let's just say Jamie takes Claire's loss a little harder. At least, on the surface. And you can't really blame him, can you? Claire returned to a relatively cushy life with a man who cares for her and wants to protect her, and she has Bree to remind her of Jamie and give her a piece of him. Jamie, meanwhile, is living in a cave on his family's property because he's still a wanted Jacobite fugitive. He's basically cut himself off from all of society, only poking in occasionally to see Jenny, Ian, Fergus, and the rest of the kids. However, a horrible incident occurs and changes Jamie's mindset. A group of Redcoats come dangerously close to Jamie's hideout, and Fergus leads them away by taunting them. They hold him down and cut off his hand in punishment, while Jamie looks on, horrified. Jamie is able to rush him to the house after the Redcoats leave, and Fergus lives, although he is now an amputee. Jamie decides he cannot keep putting his family in danger. He arranges with an unwilling Jenny that she should turn him in, thus getting Jamie arrested while Ian and Jenny will be safe from retribution for harboring a fugitive, and will actually get the reward money for his capture. The episode ends with Jamie being taken away.

Oh man. So much to discuss.

So, like I said, the common theme here is moving on with your life after the loss of a loved one. Jamie is not so good at that, letting himself grow wild and un-groomed, barely speaking with anybody on the rare occasions he actually emerges from the cave, and brushing off Fergus and Jenny when they attempt to reach out to him. He's an utter mess. However, in a very touching moment towards the end of the episode, we see how the experience with Fergus has woken him to the fact that he still has people he loves in this world. He allows Mary MacNab to come visit him in his cave right before he is set to be "sold out" by Jenny and taken to prison. She shaves him and cuts his hair, returning him in outward appearance to the Jamie we've known for most of the show. And then Mary and Jamie have sex. We get a very chaste fade-away, actually, which I thought was an interesting contrast to the somewhat prolonged sex scenes between Claire and Frank. But it makes a lot of sense - Frank and Claire are not connecting on an emotional level, as badly as Frank might want them to be. Jamie and Mary, on the other hand, are both going in to this encounter with no false pretense. Mary wants to offer something to Jamie that she also needs herself, being a widow. A moment of connection that, while less than what they both had with their lost spouses, is still something new, and precious in its own way.

Jenny is one of my favorites. Great acting from Laura Donnelly in this episode, especially at the end. Jamie and Jenny have to act out a scene wherein Jamie is coming home and they're seeing each other for the first time, and then Jamie is shocked and hurt at Jenny's betrayal, and Jenny says that he brought this on himself. Donnelly plays this moment with all the pain and rage Jenny must surely be feeling, even as she's acting for the sake of the ruse. When she says she'll never forgive him, we're left wondering if there's any truth to that line.

And now to Fergus. Oh my God I love him so much. It's so sad to think that this is probably the last we'll see of young Fergus, as he's been recast for the older version of the character. But here, he's at his finest. Jamie spends several years in the cave, so in this episode we have a teenaged Fergus instead of a little boy of twelve. Speaking of talented acting, Romann Berrux does an amazing job with a slightly older Fergus who has been living in Scotland as he grows to adulthood. His accent is still mostly French, but he's adjusted it to add some Scots sounds as well. Very impressive. And he manages to keep that wide-eyed trickster vibe while being realistically an older and more brash kid.

But let's get to the thing that I really want to talk about, which is Fergus leading the soldiers away from Jamie, losing his hand, and then being an adorable sweetheart about it. Everything about this sequence was lifted from the book, and I was so happy to see all of my favorite elements being included. It's heartbreaking to see Jamie's reaction, of course, but this moment of terror is what snaps him out of it and gets him back to the present day. He jumps into survival mode, and once he hears Fergus will live, he drops to his knees in a potent mixture of grief and relief. And then he tells Fergus that he reminds him that he has someone to live for. The scene from the book that I really hoped they would include (and they did!) is where Fergus reminds Jamie that in Paris, Jamie promised that should Fergus die while in Jamie's service, Jamie would pray for him... but if Fergus lost an ear or a hand, Jamie would care for him forever. In one fell swoop, as Fergus says, he has become a "man of leisure." Oh man just kill me now this was so adorable.

As a book reader, I have a fair idea of what's coming up in the next episode. So even though I'm sad to be saying goodbye to young Fergus, I'm beyond excited to start being properly acquainted with another favorite of mine - Lord John Grey!

9/10