Season 3

Post by Contributing Author, Susan Jackson

I have to say Episode 304, Of Lost Things, is my favorite so far! It had everything I love about the story–moments of joy, some suspense, a bit of humor, a little disgust, and heart-tugging scenes.  Voyager is my number two favorite of the books series so far, so I am thoroughly enjoying this season. Of course, there is so much that happens, it’s hard to get my favorite scenes from the books compressed into a one-hour show, but I think the writer and producers did a fine job of making it all fit in this episode.

I loved the show scenes about Jamie so much that I wanted to hurry through the Claire’s scenes.  Having said that, I enjoyed the searching of the paper trail which Roger is helping Claire with–I have combed over old papers, myself, looking for information on my ancestry, so I can relate. When Claire finally finds out where Jamie was in the years after Culloden, that’s a huge moment for her! Oh, and the pearls–probably her most prized material possession which she thought was lost. Caitriona Balfe is flawless as Claire–her mind so deep in finding Jamie, she even brushes off Joe Abernathy when he calls from Boston about one of her patients. Cait conveys as much of Claire’s dilemma without words as she does with them.  I love Claire’s expression as it sinks in that she’s found Jamie’s name on the prison records, and her hands wrapped around the pearls, as if she’s holding on for her life.

As much as these moments are big ones for Claire, and enjoying watching Bree and Roger’s relationship develop, this episode for me, was all about Jamie. His stay at Helwater is a long and miserable one–he misses Claire desperately, and the child she bore him, in spite of his having never seen her.  He misses Scotland and his family, and on top of it all, he has to “shovel shit” and is looked down upon with suspicion by Lord Melton, John Grey’s brother. He is harassed by that uppity aristocrat, Geneva, getting blackmailed into having (really, really sexy) sex with her, and is drawn into the family drama. Helwater? More like Hell-on-Earth-water.

Choosing a favorite scene wasn’t hard for me.  Having watched the episode three times, (yeah, I know only three times?!), my heartstrings are pulled the most during one: Geneva’s (and Jamie’s!) infant son is left motherless with her death, and is in the care of his Aunt Isobel. Isobel and her mother are taking Willie out for a walk in his pram, and they come across Jamie and another stable hand on their way back to the estate.  Apparently, it’s about time for his OSHA-mandated break from the stables, so Jamie hops off his horse to speak to Isobel.  She apologizes for her harshness towards him the morning of Geneva’s death, and he accepts her apology.  But his heart and mind are on that sweet baby.  Jamie hears his nickname, Willie, and knows without a doubt it’s the right name for him, having had an older brother named Willie. The lonesome, tough Highlander cannot keep his eyes off wee Willie, and his eyes are filled with emotion as he looks down on him and says, “You’re a braw laddie, Willie. You’re so wee.  Dinna fash yourself. I am here.” Have mercy, the tears flowed!

Why is this my favorite scene? I relate to Jamie’s longing for family–his need to be a parent. Like Jamie’s mother Ellen, my mother died unexpectedly when I was eight years old.  She was diagnosed with a rare form of lung cancer and lymphoma in early December 1975, and was dead by December 20th.  It was the defining moment of my life.

As many motherless daughters know, the missing, the heartache, the longing for Mama never goes away.  As I grew older, I was a great babysitter, because my heart couldn’t wait to be a mother.  I practiced on my poor charges,  but learned invaluable lessons about the basics, and tucked all of those memories away for when the time came. That day arrived on June 13, 1993, when my precious daughter was born. I looked at her beautiful brown hair, her pouty lipstick-red lips, and fell head over heels in love.  She was perfect to me, and I finally felt all was right with the world.  I would’ve given my right arm to have Mama there with me, telling me I was doing things right, to help me when I came home as I was nursing a baby without a lot of outside support, and to make sure I took care of myself so I could get comfortable in my role as a new mother. But I did it.  I made it through those seemingly endless days and nights of nursing, burping, pooping, crying (I ate some sausage once which resulted in giving my baby terrible gas!), crying (my own!), rocking and napping. I felt Mama watching over me, even at times when I felt completely alone, as well as in the years to come when I added three more children to our little brood.

Through these twenty-four years, however, I’ve had a gnawing fear something was going to happen to me. The fear of death is real–not the actual dying, but the fear of not being able to be there for my children. I know it wasn’t my mother’s choice to leave my brother and me, and I can only imagine how she felt when the realization hit her that she didn’t have long to live.  As I passed the age of 40 which Mama was when she died, my anxiety eased somewhat.  Even when I was faced with traditional treatment-resistant thyroid cancer at the age of 47, those feelings weren’t as strong as they were when my children were younger, when I had so much to tell them, teach them, and songs to sing to them. When I first laid my eyes on my babies, I wanted them to be safe in knowing I was there.  “Hush your fussin’. Mama’s got you,” is my Southern way of saying, “Dinna fash yourself. I am here.” I want to be here on this Earth for my children as long as I’m able, to care for them, and share life lessons with them.

After so much heartache, Jamie was finally blessed with a child to pour his love and knowledge into, even though Willie didn’t know who “Mac” truly was.  In spite of the conditions at Helwater, Jamie chose to just to be with Willie.  Jamie was a laird.  He had an estate to help run, and people who depended on him.  But his “Da” heart knew that Willie needed him and Jamie needed Willie.  Willie grew to love him, and Jamie’s departure from the estate and Willie was a tough one to watch.  I can only imagine Jamie’s heartbreak as he rode away from Helwater estate and his precious Willie.  I’m thankful I don’t have to make a choice like that, nor do I ever want to. When my time comes, though, I want my children to hear me in their memory, saying, “Hush your fussin’. Mama’s got you.”

What was your favorite scene of Episode 304, Of Lost Things? Is it possible to name just one? Please share your thoughts in the comments and once again, thanks for reading Outlander North Carolina!

Susan Jackson is a mother of four who lives in coastal North Carolina, and is an avid Outlander fan.  Besides reading, she loves cooking and baking, and music.  She is a thyroid cancer survivor and has worked in education most of her life. She hopes to one day blog about her thyroid cancer journey. She is a contributing author for Outlander North Carolina and has previously written about the infamous Stede Bonnet in Will The Real Stephen Bonnet Please Stand Up? 

Credit for All Episode 304 Photos: STARZ

Oh my! Before I get to my favorite scene from Episode 303, All Debts Paid, I just gotta say…did we have some big surprises in this episode or what? Biggest for me – Murtagh is alive!

At least he is for the time being anyway. I can’t wait to see what they do with his character going forward! Second surprise, Frank DID cheat – as the series writers saw it – and that’s the way I had always interpreted it in the book – right or wrong. I know Diana is still leaving that somewhat up in the air and she can do that…she wrote the books!

Another big surprise for me, and maybe not so much for you, was how much I really liked Lord John Grey. I know a lot of people love his character in the books; however, he just hasn’t been one of my favorites and I didn’t expect to like him in the show. I’m very protective when it comes to Claire and Jamie’s relationship and anyone who might want to tinker with that is not high on my list. However, I have to say that David Berry brought a real compassion and loveability to Lord John that I failed to see in the books.

In large part due to Berry’s interpretation and portrayal of his character, I see more clearly that Lord John is a man of compassion, integrity and honor. He is someone I can see Jamie really coming to like and even admire as a soldier, a man and a friend. Actually, they have a lot of attributes in common. I love the books but sometimes the show helps me to see things from a different perspective and I love that! I can read the books and be perfectly happy and I can watch the show and be perfectly happy but I thought this episode was a wonderful compliment to the book and vice versa. Speaking of this episode and before I ramble on any further, I have to get on with my favorite scene of Episode 303, All Debts Paid. But before I give it away, I want to let you know that my pick for this episode is very personal and something I’d like to share with you from my heart.

My oldest sister has suffered from Alzheimer’s for about 15 years and has been in a nursing home for about the last ten of those. This past Monday morning at 2 a.m., she passed peacefully away in her sleep. It’s been a very rough week for my other sister and me as we have dealt with her passing and all that goes along with it – notifying relatives, going to the funeral home to discuss and decide on arrangements, picking out her final clothing ensemble, talking to the florist, meeting with the minister to discuss the service, and then the funeral service itself. But the hardest thing was the first viewing of her body at the funeral home. It took my breath away. There she was lying in the coffin, looking more beautiful and alive in death than she had looked in her final years of life. All the suffering was gone from her face. The struggle was over. When I looked at her, I saw the sister I had known since infancy, since early childhood and beyond, who had in many ways been a mother figure to me because she was 22 years my senior. There she was – the person I remembered. Not the shell of the person she had become at the hands of a savage disease.

When Claire walked into the morgue to see Frank for the first time after his accident and resulting death, she saw the Frank she had known and loved when they had married.

Her first love, as she put it. She didn’t see the man who thought she had lost her mind twenty years before or the man who resented her undying love for Jamie or the man who cheated on her (or didn’t?) nor did she see the man who had threatened to take Brianna away from her.

No, when Claire looked at Frank on that table, she saw the man she had met, loved and married. The struggle for Frank was over. The torment he had endured and the betrayal and bitterness he had felt ever since Claire had come back to him twenty years before was no more.  And, there he was – the person Claire remembered.

One last comparison and the most important one, if you will allow me.  When I stood by my sister’s coffin looking at her, I thought about the things I wish I had been able to do for and say to her before she died. I wish I had visited her on Saturday as I had first planned instead of waiting until Monday morning when it was six hours too late. I wish I had been able to tell her one more time that I loved her and say it repeatedly until she came out of the dark abyss to say it back to me as was the routine between us when I visited her. But regrets and good intentions cannot undo what has not been done.

It was the same for Claire. Things put off or left undone. Words of love left unspoken. We know that Frank could never replace Jamie as Claire’s true love but Frank was her first love and she did love him very much. She didn’t speak those words to him after her return through the stones and when she saw him lying there, more peaceful in death than in life, she knew too late the things she might have spoken and the things she could have, and perhaps might have done differently. Claire then speaks the words of love to Frank if he is close enough to hear which she wished she had spoken before but was too late.

As Claire walks out the door, she starts a new chapter of her life without Frank.

I, too, now start a new chapter without my sister. Like Claire, I don’t know what that next chapter holds but I do know that it will be filled with more words and actions of love. I will not wait or put off or make excuses because life can change in a heartbeat and in a heartbeat it can be too late.

What was your favorite scene of Episode 303, All Debts Paid? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below! In the meantime, Dear Readers, I want you to know how much I love and appreciate each and every one of you! Now, do me and yourself a favor, go tell someone you love them! You may not get another chance!

Photo Credits: STARZ

How do you pick a favorite scene from so many wonderful moments? Episode 302, Surrender, was filled with them. What an emotional ride we Outlander fans took! Claire’s visions of Jamie, Jamie’s vision of Claire, Claire and Frank coming together then breaking apart, Claire meeting Joe Abernathy, Fergus losing his hand, Mary McNabb lying to cover up for Jamie and Jenny, Jamie and Mary’s tender scene in the cave, and Jamie being arrested in a carefully hatched scheme. And, that’s just to name a few. So, what’s my favorite? It’s one I didn’t mention.

My favorite scene was the heartbreaking moment when Jenny comes downstairs to the sitting room to find Jamie after Fergus loses his hand.

Jenny says, “Your quick action saved him, brother.”

“I should have stopped them,” Jamie answers.

To which Jenny replies, “Then ye’d be dead and so would he. We’d all be dead.”

At that moment, James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser, the king of men, crumbles to the floor, sobbing in his sister’s arms. The weight of the events of his life driving him to his knees.

Our beloved warrior who has been through so much, suffered so much, lost so much finally “surrenders” to the burden and clutches desperately onto the only person remaining who might possibly understand.

There, cradled in Jenny’s arms, did Jamie see flashbacks of his life and all the could have beens? I can imagine that he did. Life had not turned out the way he had expected.

Jamie was not born to be a laird but when his older brother Willie died, he had been groomed for the position by his father. As a young boy, I’m sure he dreamed of becoming laird of Lallybroch one day. There was hope and excitement for all that the future might bring. But the future as he saw it would be cruelly snatched from him as he, a Scottish lad at the time, was arrested and taken off to Fort William where he was brutally flogged by Black Jack Randall. As if things couldn’t be worse, his father died as a result of watching the flogging. Those events were the beginning of Jamie’s life turning from one of hope and excitement to one of danger and fear.

In the years that followed, Jamie’s life was anything but easy. On the run with no safe home, burden was built upon burden, struggle upon struggle, pain and heartbreak one upon another like the stones of a cairn. But then he met Claire. We know that he loved her from the first night he saw her and even though he had no reason to believe that she would ever return his feelings, in those moments in the darkness on the night they first met, a small light of hope had to have gleamed in his heart. Could there be love and happiness after all? When he married Claire, he must have felt that spark of hope fully realized. His words from The Wedding episode,

“I remember every moment, every second. I’ll never forget when I came out of the church and saw you for the first time. It was as if I stepped outside on a cloudy day and suddenly the sun came out.”

That cloudy day had been Jamie’s life for the past three years and Claire suddenly became his sun.

After his marriage to Claire, Jamie would likely have thought his life was changing for the better and perhaps things were going to work out after all.  It wasn’t long before he understood there would be no happily ever after. Savagely imprisoned, tortured and raped by Black Jack Randall, Jamie’s life turns to despair. It is Claire’s love that heals him but he must flee his beloved Scotland for France and there again, tragedy strikes. Fergus is raped by Black Jack resulting in the breaking of Jamie’s promise to Claire and the duel with Randall ending with the miscarriage of Baby Faith. Returning to Scotland, there is once again renewed hope for Jamie & Claire but it is quickly dashed by The Bonnie Prince. Jamie must now go to war in an attempt to once more change the tide of the future but again, the light of hope is stamped out beneath the boots of the Redcoats on the battlefield of Culloden Moor. Claire is gone forever and he is alive despite his wish to be dead. But, for Jamie, his life really did end on that battlefield. Jenny put it well,

“Brother! You ken why I can lie to the British and feel at peace? It’s because I’m not lyin’. James Fraser hasna been here for a long, long time.”

The one person he had loved more than anything or anyone else in the world, the one person who had helped him move on and survive all the scars, all the wounds, all the heartbreak and hopelessness of his past, the one who had healed him on so many different levels was gone. Claire was gone.  As Ian told Jamie,

“My leg, it’s not there, as anyone can plainly see, and yet, it pains me terrible sometimes. Even wakes me up at night. Fergus, the lad, he’ll likely feel the same wi’ his hand. Feeling a pain in a part of ye that’s lost…and that’s just a hand. Claire was yer heart.”

Hiding in a cave for seven years, Jamie had become only a glimmer of the man he once was. He wasn’t supposed to be there after all and living as a coward, as Fergus had described him, was not who Jamie was.  As it turns out, it was the tragedy of Fergus losing his hand which becomes the one weight Jamie cannot withstand. Added to all the other things that had come before, the mighty, teetering stone cairn of his life crumbles and falls.

In this scene, I see a man reliving the moments of his life wondering how it all came to naught, all the hopes and dreams of his childhood and those of his marriage to Claire. I grieve with him as he remembers the horrific events of his life which have brought him to this place. And it is there, at Lallybroch, where hope had begun for him as a boy, that it ends for him as a broken man. In this scene, I understand his tears and the whys he must have spoken inwardly and the complete despair he shows outwardly.

Jamie had lost everything, most of all his heart, and there was nothing left of the hopes and dreams he had once had. Like Claire, they were gone. On that floor at Lallybroch, he surrenders his strength at last and mourns the loss of all that he held so dear.

So there you have it. My favorite scene. Tell me, what was yours? And why? I’d love to hear from you.

(Photo & Script Credits: STARZ)