

And although Claire is trying to still muster fondness toward him, we can tell how well that’s going.
#Order of outlander episodes cracked
By the end of this episode, even their bed has cracked - they sleep separately now. It’s a flicker of misplaced passion, the beginning of a quiet collapse. “I miss my husband,” she explains, which is the closest she can get to the truth, and before Frank kisses her back, a shadow of resignation passes over his eyes. When she gets so touch-starved that she reaches out, he’s the one who’s startled. Her struggle this episode is to wrench them both out of domestic limbo - a surprisingly painful piece of business, given that she doesn’t love him and they both already know. She’s fighting herself, which is more interesting. That means that Claire isn’t fighting Frank.
#Order of outlander episodes professional
As far as we know, he supports Claire’s professional ambition (certainly we don’t see him make any objections to Claire’s attending medical school), and seems to be a loving father.

It’s complicated by the fact that Frank seems to be doing his fumbling best. But the actress Caitriona Balfe is putting energy into Claire’s sharp edges right now, and the result is both illuminating and a little crushing. Even their halting conversation feels somehow intimate, as if that connection, more than the sex, will shore them up a little for whatever loneliness lies ahead.Ĭlaire is a fascinating character, sometimes by design and sometimes by implication. When Jenny argues against his plan to turn himself in, we know why he says a British jail has “little difference to the prison I live in now.”īy the time Mary MacNab offers him a little human comfort, it doesn’t feel like romance so much as a relief he’s so touch-starved he jolts at the touch of her hand. The actor Sam Heughan smartly foregrounds Jamie’s shell shock something inside of him is frozen as the world tries to move on. By the time he’s inhabiting himself again, we’ve spent a while watching people try and fail to reach him - especially Jenny, who’s clearly struggling not to mourn a man who’s right in front of her. Jamie’s so hollowed out he’s practically haunting the place. And it’s violence the episode didn’t need in order to make Jamie’s situation seem serious.
