Previously, on Outlander. Claire and Jamie are forced to marry. Jamie is a virgin. Claire is not.
Cue to the beautiful intro which I normally love but today can’t pass fast enough.
Claire and Frank walk hand in hand. They are happy, you can tell. Claire’r wearing a gorgeous off-white ensemble. Suddenly, Frank stops her and asks her is she is ready. Claire looks like “huh”? He shows her they have stopped in front of the Register Office and asks her to marry him. Thank God she was wearing an almost wedding-like dress- How convenient. But aaaawww! Frank is spontaneous and kinda romantic. I so like TV Frank much more than Book Frank.
We cut to the past where the priest is saying “you may kiss your bride” and Jamie and Claire are kissing. Say whaaaaat? WTF? Where’s the wedding? Where are the vows? The dress? Hey! Give me my money back! I know this is the sexpisode, but I wanted to see the wedding too! Everyone claps. Murtagh looks happy and I just love him. Claire looks worried. Really Claire? You just married and 6’2″, 23 year old, hot, romantic, loyal and honorable Highlander. You should look a little happier. Honestly.
Claire is alone in her room, voicing over about life being like pearls on a string. Oooh! Foreshadowing. We have a flashback to Claire and Frank going into the register office, Claire sliding her feet across the floor, which makes me love her even more. While doing so, she touches the cut she has on her wrist and I start praying the Gods we’ll be able to watch the blood vows.
In comes Jamie and they talk about how everyone is enjoying the wedding feast downstairs. They won’t go to bed until they’ve made things “official”. Jamie makes a “wee joke” in order to lighten the mood. It doesn’t go down very well with Claire who calls him a “regular Bob Hop”. And here start the series of modern day references Claire throws at Jamie through out the books and that Jamie doesn’t get. Cue the “aaaaawwwwww’s”. But even though all this is happening in the background, all I can pay attention to are Claire’s boobs being murder inside her corset. God! That must be painful! Jamie looks uncomfortable. Claire proposes a drink.
Jamie uses the drink as an excuse to make a toast in Claire’s honor. Claire uses the drink as an excuse to… well, drink. No toast for you Jamie, sorry. We don’t care about any of that cuz Jamie just said “my wife, Claire Frrrrrraser” and we all just died. Jamie is worried about Claire’s drinking. Ha! And he tells her she shouldn’t be afraid, it’s not like he was going to force himself on her. Me and my friends (we had a little gathering to watch the episode together) were screaming “oh, come on Claire!” to the screen. Since watching Outlander, my poor TV screen has been getting a lot of abuse.
Claire says she has questions. Well, duh. Like why is he still a virgin? But no. Our Claire decides to get politically correct just now and asks him why did he agree to marry her. Flashback to Dougal telling Jamie that the wedding is the only way to keep Claire safe. Oh, I see. So we are going to get whiplash from going back and forth with the story. Hold on to your seats ladies, this is going to be a bumpy ride. Ok, so we have the lads talking about the consummation of the marriage (clearly, that’s the only thing that’s in everyone’s head while watching this episode). And Jamie shows his true self when telling Dougal, in a very commanding way, to stop talking about his would-be-wife as a common “whoooooor”.
Back to the wedding night, Claire realizes Jamie married her to keep her safe. Yeah, well. That’s one out of three reasons we book-readers know. Anyways… Jamie tells Claire: “you have my name, my clan, my family, and if necessary, the protection of my body as well”. Panty dropper if I ever heard one. Apparently, Claire thinks so too, because she lets go of the wine and sits next to Jamie on the bed. Ok, here we go. They are about to kiss when… Claire asks him to tell her about his family. Seriously Claire, come on! This is just a 60 minute episode. Don’t waste time! We’ve already lost…. 9 minutes. WTH? It’s been only 9 minutes? Ok, we are a bit anxious. Carry on, don’t mind me.
So Jamie embarks on the story of his family. And Claire (and the audience) can’t help but be a little fascinated by him. Night falls. Jamie mentions his aunt Jocasta and I squee. Just when they were getting comfort, Rupert and Angus burst into the room. What? No key on the door? Jamie, that was a very rookie move!
Now Claire says it’s getting rather late and that they should go to bed. Jamie looks excited. Anyway, Jamie reasons that Claire won’t be able to sleep with her corset on, cuz apparently he hasn’t noticed all the previous times when she did. But that’s not here nor there. He offers to help her with her laces. Jamie finally touches her when Claire says “it’s my turn” and we all nod our heads as the pervy little audience that we are. Something about a a kiss, a monk, the kilt dropping and not needing help and they finally fall on the bed. Just like that, it’s over. Claire looks as disappointed as we feel. But all is forgotten (well, not quite) when Jamie says he thought you should do it from the back, like horses, ken? Oh, Jamie. We love you so. But then conversation turns serious again when Jamie asks Claire if liked it. Well, no. Jamie looks thoroughly sad and disappointed and ashamed and we just wanna hug him, don’t we? Thankfully Claire takes pity on the lad and tells him she did like it. Actually, she enjoyed it. And while voicing over about being a bigamist and a adulteress, she wonders off to the pub in just her see-through shirt. Not the brightest move, as every Highlander is downstairs ready to make jokes.
Jamie goes to get them some food and they all tell jokes. All but Dougal, who looks like he just bumped his little toe on the edge of a table. Jamie goes back to the room, they eat, he tells her he is completely under her power and happy to be there. And then he says “mo nighean donn” and I swear all my friends and I were shouting and crying. Of course, we do know what that phrase means, unlike Claire who doesn’t understand Gaelic. He tells her it means “my brown haired lass” and praises her hair. Smart move, Jamie. But Claire, deflects the move by asking about his new kilt. We all wanna strangle Claire.
Whiplash flashback to Jamie getting his Fraser kilt. Murtagh tells him the story about how he got the kilt and how he fears for his safety. But all Jamie can talk about is the wedding and how he plans to be married just the one time and wants to do it in a way his mother would be proud. Talk of his mother makes Murtagh sad and he says the nicest thing possible about Claire. By the way, every time Murtagh’s on screen I become emotional.
We whiplash back to the wedding night. Claire says she is surprised Dougal waited long enough for them to get the kilt, but Jamie says he slowed him down. Flashback to Jamie accepting to get married. Seriously, my neck is starting to hurt from going back and forth. Jamie says he agrees to marry Claire under 3 conditions:
1/ They have to be wed properly. In a church. With a priest. Flashback or forward or sideways, I’m getting lost here, to Dougal and Willie threatening a priest to oversee the ceremony. One of the best scenes yet.
Back to the wedding night, Claire asks about his second condition while Jamie is kissing her wrist. I’m amazed by Claire’s powers of concentration.
2/ Flashback to Rupert and Angus getting a ring. This 2 might possibly become my favorites. Even more so than Claire and Jamie. Ok, let me take 5 minutes here. So I know that in the book Jamie uses his father’s ruby ring and later on, when they return to Leoch he buys Claire the gorgeous ring with the Celtic knots and thistle and the engraved phrase and all. And I love that. But I understand why they chose to change it for TV. And I like the concept of Claire having a ring made out of the key to Lallybroch. To Jamie’s home. Remember that at this point in the story, Jamie thought he couldn’t go back to his home. So him giving Claire a ring that stands for Lallybroch is like he is saying that now Claire is his home.
Back to the wedding night, I’m gonna need a neck collar after this episode. Claire asks a key to what? Oh, Claire… if you only knew… She finally asks about the third condition. Jamie says he left that one to Ned.
3/ Flashback to Ned in a brothel, surrounded by “whoooooors”, trying to find a dress. Miraculously, he does find one.
Back to the weeding night, Claire admits what she had been doing all day: drinking. And she says she kinda remembers what happened, but she had a monstrous hungover. Well, duh. Jamie, on the other hand, does remember everything. He remembers when he came out of the church, wearing his best Highland regalia and he saw her for the first time. He says it felt like he had stepped out into a cloudy day and suddenly the sun came out. Ok, so they kinda used my favorite quote. Applied to Claire, not to Jamie. But I still squealed like the emotional fangirl I am. By the way, the wedding dress is gorgeous! Now I wanna get married just to wear that dress. Claire has a last go at trying not to marry Jamie and says she can’t marry him because she doesn’t know his name. Please, a moment of silence. He is about to say it for the first time…
“It’s Fraser. James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser”
Did you hear it? It was the sound of a million ovaries exploding.
Before going into the church, Claire takes off her golden wedding band. The one that belongs to Frank. And, finally, we see the ceremony. The vows, the I do’s, the ring. The church looks stunning, what with all the candles and flowers. I want Murtagh, Rupert and Angus as my wedding planners. And then came the Gaelic blood vow and I was crying like a baby.
Back in the wedding night, Jamie tells her that when she kissed him like that, he thought she might not be that sorry about marrying him. Apparently the Blood Vow smitten Claire as much as it did us, cuz she asks Jamie to take off his shirt cuz we, I mean, she wants to look at him. The room goes silent. Then Jamie asks Claire to take off her shift. And when Jamie’s voice changes when he says “one that is mine”, you know we are never leaving that wedding room again.
Yeah, ok. So they finally do it, and do it, and do it. Let me just say I’m so glad this episode was written and directed by women.
When Jamie falls asleep, Claire goes downstairs to get more wine. She goes down naked, just wrapped in the kilt. Seriously, Claire? There she meets Dougal, who tells her he has just come back from telling Randall the happy news and plainly tells Claire he wants to have sex with her. Say whaaaaat? But in comes Rupert and we are saved.
Then Jamie wakes up and gives her his mother’s pearl necklace, saying that he has very few things from her and that they are all very precious to him, as she is. And, you guess it. They do it again.
In the morning, while getting ready to leave, Claire dusts off her wedding dress and from it falls her golden ring, Frank’s ring. It rolls off the floor, almost falls down a crack on the floor, but Claire saves it. she puts it back on her hand and the episode ends with her looking at both her hands, one wearing the golden ring; the other one, the silver one. Way to kill the mood, Starz.
