Outlander: First Wife (3x08)

Well, I knew this was coming. Let's take a look.

Cons:

I'm not sure what the answer is here, but Jamie still comes across as a total bastard for not telling Claire about Laoghaire. I'm not mad that he got remarried... I mean, Claire would have to be quite the hypocrite to be mad at Jamie for having a life in the last twenty years. But the lies? I'm not sure I can explain them away.

I adore the fact that Jenny is angry with Claire, and I wouldn't change that for the world. One thing is bothering me, though. Claire realizes that she can't tell Jenny the full truth about why she's been away so long, but why not tell her about Brianna? If she says she was pregnant and found out about it just before Culloden, wouldn't that help to explain why she ran off instead of looking for Jamie? I would think Claire would want to stick as close to the truth as possible, given the circumstances.

Pros:

Those are probably minor quibbles, in the scheme of things. The episode was mostly wonderful. It was nice to be back in Lallybroch. Jamie and Claire spend so much of the story flitting around from place to place that it's nice to have a setting that feels a bit like home. I admire how much this show has built up Lallybroch to be that place - they've instilled it with such a sense of comfort, despite how little time we've actually spent there.

Jenny's anger was so delicious to me. As she says at one point, if Claire was really family, she would have written to say she was alive. And this is a fair point - if you take the time travel out of it, Claire does not have a good excuse for letting her family believe her to be dead for all those years. And yet of course telling the truth would be difficult for obvious reasons as well. Jenny is a reasonable woman, but she's not about to just forget the past twenty years. Everybody else, especially Jamie and Fergus, have just been so overjoyed to see Claire again that they haven't had much of a chance to express their anger. But here, we get the reaction of someone who feels utterly betrayed, and it was nice to see that contrast.

And then you've got Laoghaire. I appreciate the time and effort that went in to the development of her character. She's clearly a troubled woman, but she's not the devil, and she has her own grievances and hardships to bear. This episode did such a clever thing in setting up her character. First, we see that Jamie has lied to Claire, and we're angry at him on her behalf. And then we see Laoghaire, and she shoots Jamie (accidentally), and while of course we can't support such a thing, we're so angry at Jamie at this point that it comes across as a careless and slightly vindictive accident rather than a cold-blooded murder attempt. Only after Laoghaire has fled the scene do we see the backstory of how this marriage came to happen. Jamie is safe and out of the woods medically speaking, so he tells Claire how it all began. I like the shape of this story arc, how it weaves around the central question of Jamie and Laoghaire, and shows all of the moving pieces surrounding it.

The flashback, where Jamie dances and laughs with Laoghaire's two young daughters, is so heartwarming. Just as Claire's anger starts to thaw, the audience too can understand why Jamie might do such a thing. It's so delightful to see him happy. He's lost so much, and he deserves peace. We end the episode with no love lost for Laoghaire, but we can understand where Jamie is coming from in all of this.

Great acting from Heughan and Balfe in the confrontation scene. The two of them are furious, and they begin to vent their anger in an... interesting way before Jenny comes in and interrupts them. The passion between them was palpable. There's so much hurt and disbelief and confusion on both sides. We're seeing things mostly from Claire's point of view here, as of course Jamie's deceit is fresh and horrifying. But we also know how much Jamie has suffered in the last twenty years compared to Claire. Her pain is no less legitimate, but she has led a cushy life with her daughter for the past two decades. Jamie has his legitimate grievances as well.

I also like the fact that Claire is a bit uncertain as to her role in Jamie's life and in this whole 18th Century world she's come back to. She's not sure they belong together anymore, and she tells Jamie this. It's not about love - they know they love each other. But both of them had lives that they didn't at all hate, and by disrupting those lives they've thrown things into such turmoil. In the books, I recall Claire being a bit more certain of her place in Jamie's life. I like the idea of her wavering a bit. Leaving behind Brianna and everything else in 20th Century Boston isn't easy for her, nor should it be.

Finally, you've got the ending with Selkie Island. We see, in flashback, that Jamie found treasure when he swam to the isle during his stay at Ardsmuir. He gave Lord John one of the sapphires that he found, but the rest is still hidden. Laoghaire is demanding recompense for her loss of support, since Jamie's marriage to her is invalid. Jamie decides to pay the sum by taking the treasure from the island to France, and having it converted to common coin that Laoghaire can use to pay for herself and her children. Since Jamie's arm is still on the mend, Young Ian is the one to swim out to the island. Unfortunately, a mysterious ship appears and kidnaps Ian, as Jamie and Claire watch helplessly from the shore!

Before this season started, I was worried about how the pacing would work, and this was one of the main reasons why - all of the stuff up until now has been important, but we haven't even begun the trip to the colonies yet, which does in fact take up a large chunk of the book. But I actually rather like this. We swoop in to Lallybroch, remind everybody of what's going on there, but there's no lingering. We're on to new adventures!

I've come around to Young Ian - the first time I saw him, I worried about the casting. But I think he's doing a great job, and I love the way he has totally accepted Claire right away. It's adorable how he keeps calling her "auntie." And his adoration of Jamie is really clear as well. I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that Ian is a big and important character moving forward in the series, so I like the foundational work we're doing with him now.

I think I'll stop there - this episode had to do a lot of hard work. It had to address the Laoghaire issue, bring Jenny back in to the fold, and catapult our intrepid adventurers off on a new leg of their journey. I think it managed to balance all of those things pretty well!

8/10