The Outlander premiere didn’t waste any energy bringing viewers up to speed. You know that usual intro—“Last time on…”? That part they usually put out before the start of a new season with a quick rundown of what’s already happened? Well, season two opens with a one-word voiceover by Claire Randall-Fraser (Caitriona Balfe), our time-traveling heroine. “Previously,” she says, and then bam! There’s Black Jack Randall nailing Jamie’s hand into a table! Black Jack Randall, the show’s villain, is raping Jamie (Sam Heughan)! Torturing him in a dirty dungeon. Just in case, you know, you somehow forgot about the most disturbing scene thus far. (Even Game of Thrones hasn't matched it for sheer sexual sadism, and they’re on HBO.)
I was expecting a few images stitched together for some overall background: WWII nurse stumbles away from her husband and through some magic stones, is transported back to the mid-1700s, becomes entangled with the Jacobite rebellion—and, of course, most important, she gets under the kilt of a strapping young Highlander whose passionate embrace is better than a return to her own era: the one with antibiotics, deodorant, cars, human rights, and indoor plumbing. (All I can say is, the sex really must be fantastic.) No, you already know all that stuff, the show presumes. Instead, we’re right back at one of the worst rapes ever on television. The consequences of that assault will clearly reverberate through new episodes. “You can’t escape what’s been done to you” feels like the show’s unofficial motto. An unflinching look at the past, with all its grime and pain, is at least half of Outlander’s raison d’être—along with that aforementioned fantastic sex (pretentious French phrase included because of the new setting but more on that later).
Back to the show: Claire Randall-slash-Fraser, a woman destined to be disoriented by whatever time period she’s plopped into, wanders a street in 1940s Scotland, clad in rumpled 18th-century garb, like a madwoman. “I wished I were dead,” she says. Yes, she’s back in her own time but definitely not feeling fine. Something horrible has clearly gone down. “Who won?” she asks a helpful samaritan. “Who won the battle of Culloden?” she screams hysterically. Well, the British, she’s told, of course, before she passes out. Whatever great plan they had to prevent the slaughter on Culloden Moor to save clan culture, to change the course of history, just did not work. Fate will have its way, Claire. You and Jamie couldn’t stop it any more than Oedipus could avoid marrying his mom. (This is all before the opening theme song!)
To make things even worse, Claire now has to deal with her first husband, Frank Randall, who, due to the miracle of genetics and the fact that both characters are played by the same actor (Tobais Menzes), horribly resembles his ancestor Black Jack. This gentle academic, a dead ringer for the evil villain, provokes a violent flashback in Claire with his well-meaning touch. Just as Jamie, still traumatized by the assault, flinches when his own wife tries to comfort him. PTSD didn’t have a name in the 1740s, or in 1948, but it was very much a thing. The crippling legacy of trauma is a theme Outlander comes back to again and again. Pain doesn’t just dissipate from one episode, or season, to the next.
So what’s a girl to do when the love of her life has been dead and buried for a couple of centuries and history books can’t offer any details? She spills the beans to the first husband, the one who still loves her. And he’s willing to take her back, but it’s complicated. She brought something back with her besides passion and regret—something in her uterus. This is enough to send even the gentle Frank into a rage. Maybe he’s more like his ancestor than we thought? But after cooling down, he’s willing to make it work. “Time to leave the past behind,” she says. They burn her 18th-century clothes and it’s off to America! Lean into a slightly awkward marital compromise with a good guy who loves you enough to raise another man’s kid as his own. Could be worse.
Cut to happier times with her hotter, gingerier husband. She’s still in the past and Claire and Jamie have just arrived in France, though he’s as haunted as Claire will “later” become: “Sometimes I can feel his touch like he’s here,” he says, unable to move forward. Thankfully, they have a project to focus on.
“Here, before the prince sails for Scotland, we can infiltrate the Jacobite movement. Discover where they get their money and their arms and find a way to disrupt their plans.” she proposes, always the hero. Luckily, Jamie’s cousin is a Jacobite and Jamie’s horrible back scars can convince anyone he hates the British enough to join a rebellion. They’re in! He has some reservations, sure, undermining his own people’s rebellion, but since his wife assures him it’s doomed to failure, what else can you do? A doomed, romantic adventure awaits! We, the audience, have a pretty good idea how it ends, but with compelling, hot, charismatic heroes…it’s hard not to be caught up in their plucky idealism.
One last thing: Because Claire can’t go five minutes without trying to fix something and thereby making a new enemy, she inserts herself as sailors are being carried off a ship. “The pox!” she insists in French, which leads to the ship and all its cargo destroyed. A fortune lost for an evil French count who flat-out vows revenge to their faces. As if these two didn’t already have enough people trying to kill them. “Life with you is never dull,” Jamie says. Be careful, Claire! You can’t escape the things you do to other people either. Sometimes that can lead to even worse traumas, and you might be getting dangerously close to your limit, Sassenach.