S1 E9: The Reckoning
It has been far too long since we were last in the Scottish highlands with brawny, kilt wearing men but at long last the wait is over. If you want to know how long you have to wait in this episode before sex happens, that is about fifty-one minutes, aka TOO LONG.
As the episode opens, Jamie is waxing poetically about choices and so on, but since sex or his bare body wasn’t happening, I tuned it out. Then Jamie and other clanfolk are meeting with a guy who has a name that will help clear Jamie’s name but alas, that name is Black Jack Randall who committed the crime for which Jamie is wanted. Jamie is still shit out of luck. Bad Black Jack. As that business concludes, Jamie learns Claire has been taken by the redcoats.
Of course she has.
So much of modern entertainment is predicated on the idea of a woman imperiled. Outlander is no different. We have been oft reminded of Claire’s womanly vulnerability in a world ruled by men. (See all television shows always.) The final episode of the first half of the season reveled in Claire’s vulnerability at the hands of Black Jack Randall. I am still irritated just thinking about it but it’s the second half of the first season. I’ll try to let that go.
The men go to Fort William and plot to free Claire from Jack Randall’s evil grasp. With rope and some moxie, Jamie finds himself in Randall’s chambers where the bastard has Claire bent over a table, about to be raped. He is the worst man in the history of men which is, frankly, saying something. “I’ll thank you to take your hands off my wife,” Jamie says sort of rakishly which makes the moment a little confusing. (Also, note the possessive there, as if the issue is that she’s married and that would make her violation worse.)
Randall is sadistically pleased to learn that Claire has married the young man he so brutally flogged years ago. He even asks to see Jamie’s back again. Dude is a sick puppy. Because Randall thinks he’s still running things, he tells Jamie to set his gun down so the young man can watch Randall defile his wife. Randall stays smug and gross as Claire implores Jamie first to shoot Randall and then to save himself. Like what? Claire! Pick one. Also, why does Randall talk so much? He is an incessant chatterbox.
The scene goes on for entirely too long with Claire stripped naked to her waist. It’s exploitative and annoying. Claire deserves better. Finally, Jamie gains the upper hand because his pistol wasn’t loaded and oops, Randall is surprised. Jamie knocks Randall out, and frees his beloved bride. At the edge of the fort’s roof, they stare into an abyss, unsure if there is water below but they jump because hey, the couple that jumps into a potentially deadly situation while being chased by redcoats together, stays together.
Off they ride into the mist with the rest of the gang. Once they stop to water the horses, Jamie makes sure Randall didn’t rape Claire (and I am really SUSPICIOUS about his motives for asking this question) and then he and Claire have a rousing argument about FEELINGS and such. Jamie is mad Claire didn’t “obey” and is expecting an apology. Claire is mad because Jamie is suggesting that her kidnapping is her fault. See? Women and men have been having the same arguments for centuries. Then they talk about that one time Claire was almost raped which is not to be confused with this time when Claire was almost raped. There’s a pattern here, you see. You see? Fucking television.
Anyway, Jamie and Claire really go at it and she calls him a “fucking bastard,” and he calls her a “foul-mouthed bitch,” and then he is sort of shattered as the adrenaline leaves his body. He tells Claire that hearing her scream was like “tearing my guts out,” and all of a sudden, Claire’s ordeal is all about Jamie and his man feelings and Claire is asking for forgiveness and apologizing. Nonsense.
Jamie forgives Claire and apologizes. In a voice over, he admits he would always forgive her because TWU LUV. Back at the hearth, Claire tries to talk to the menfolk but they give her silent treatment because she put everyone’s lives in danger and the silent treatment is the most mature way to deal with the problem. With a bit of macho encouragement from his kin, Jamie heads up to their room to teach Claire a lesson. There is a “matter to settle” between them. A man who had endangered the clan the way Claire did, Jamie explains, would have been flogged or some such.
As Claire’s husband, Jamie must discipline her appropriately. After a stern lecture, Jamie takes off his belt and declares, “I’m going to punish you for it,” with “it” being disobeying his orders. Excuse me, Jamie, what? This is when I sat STRAIGHT UP IN MY SEAT. My eyeballs were all the way open.
Claire is, what with her being a modern woman, indignant. Jamie remains resolute because he is a man and this is his duty and other such shallow justifications. Try as she may, Claire cannot talk her way out of her spanking. Yup. Jamie, a grown ass man, spanks his wife, who is a grown ass woman, to punish her and not in the kinky, consensual sense. Claire fights back and it’s clear they try to play the scene for laughs only it’s not that funny because this is actually domestic violence, highland style. “This will go faster if you just heel woman,” Jamie says but Claire is not going to heel. This entire scene stressed me out because the spanking was clearly non consensual, the show handled the scene really weirdly and a bit irresponsibly, but I would let Jamie spank me among many other things.
Being a feminist is hard.
The next morning when Claire comes down for some shitty porridge breakfast, everyone knows she has been spanked and they all think it is very funny. It is not funny! Men are the worst. The newlyweds return to Castle Leoch where they are greeted joyously by almost every one. Colum is not pleased, however. Because Jamie married a Sassenach, it will be near impossible for Jamie to succeed Colum as laird. Colum is also angry that Dougal raised money for the Jacobites but Jamie is a crafty young man and he comes up with a solution that will allow Colum to show the clan’s loyalty to the crown while they also try to return the rightful Scottish king to the throne. All this political nonsense was incredibly dull but long story short, there is peace in the clan.
There’s also a scorned woman lurking about—the young lass Jamie was flirting with before he married, Laoghaire MacKenzie, is heartbroken that Jamie married while he was gone collecting rents. At a secret waterfall, Laoghaire tries to woo Jamie back with her feminine wiles aka her virginity. Yes, she straight up offers Jamie her virginity as a prize but Jamie only has eyes and heart for Claire even though he’s also an asshole who thinks spanking his wife will somehow teach her to “obey.” She runs off as Jamie shouts “Sorry,” but that’s not even close to what the lass wants to hear from the object of her affection.
Back in their room, a fire is crackling but Claire is still giving Jamie the cold shoulder. Team Claire! Jamie falls to his knees and vows to never raise his hand against Claire again. It’s all very romantic but we’re still angry with Jamie. Claire tries to resist the incredibly hot, fit, brawny man before her but alas, the loins want what they want. Keeping it real, I would forgive him too. He also tells Claire her wedding ring is made of a key and says, “You are my home now,” so to be fair, Claire was fighting an impossible battle. Surrender was her only option.
Finally, after like 51 minutes of blah blah blah, they start making love with an EXCESS of heavy breathing and wet lips sounds. Claire climbs on top of her husband and soon she’s riding her way to ecstasy. Before she gives in entirely though, she grabs Jamie’s sword, holds it to his throat and says, “I will cut your heart and have it for breakfast,” should he ever raise his hand to her again. That’s goddamned right, Claire. You tell him, with your vagina gently cradling his cock.
Then Claire gives up all pretense of anger and they just go AT IT. Jamie, being the romantic one, starts babbling about how Claire is his and he loves her and so on. Claire seems to enjoy herself. In the afterglow she even calls him, “Master,” and girl, why not? It’s clear Jamie is getting really good at sex. Jamie is still babbling romantic nonsense but I tuned most of that out so I could focus on his biceps.
As they are about to get sustenance before getting back to the sexing, Claire looks under the bed (because they were getting down on the floor), and finds a bad luck charm under their bed. Jamie is convinced Laoghaire placed it there and he’s probably right even though it’s going to be one hell of a lazy plotline to have a woman scorned going after the newlyweds. Anyway, that’s the end of the episode. Hopefully next week there will be more sex, one hundred percent less domestic violence and less chatter that isn’t about sex.
(Bonus: No Frank this episode.)
(What is with this split season nonsense?)
Tags: Claire Fraser, Jamie Fraser, outlander, SRSLY? Not enough sex, Starz, WTF Jamie get your life right
This is a great recap. It’s SUCH A WEIRD SCENE. I guess it shows that Claire is part of the group and 1743 was a different time blah blah blah. If I were adapting it, I would have had Jamie and Claire work together to MAKE IT SOUND LIKE he was punishing her while pulling one on the dumb-dumbs downstairs. I mean, they are smart people who should be able to take down the patriarchy together. None of this tawsing makes you think about it more bullshit.
now I’m mad this isn’t what happened.
I was only half watching and thought it was as coolstorymere said: that they were having a hilarious fun time fooling the guys downstairs. But then we re-started the episode to get the full story and I was disappointed. I hoped that someone here would address the scene and here it is! The Toast never disappoints. Thank you, Roxane!
If it helps: as a straight man, I am not at all conflicted, because spanking your wife? To punish her? What the actual fuck? (The biceps don’t distract me.)
I have to say that as a feminist, I too was conflicted about this episode. Having read the book I was curious to see how the “spanking ” scene would translate on t.v. I think it was easier to cope with when it was described in Claire’so voice.The director giving voice to Jaime here was off putting, I thought. At least reading about Claire’so righteous outrage helped me follow along with her own conflicting feelings Jaime- “I love him, …I hate him,…I love him.
I thought having it from Jamie’s POV helped. It let you see where his heart and head was in all of this. I never lost sight of how Claire was feeling, she was very vocal. I think it played out better on screen than in the book. This is a story about people in another time…two different times actually, and neither our own. I try to keep that in mind while watching this work of fiction.
I actually had more in my original post where part of my conflict is easily resolved because I felt Claire’s feelings for Jaime in the book. And the sex in the book was far more primal and satisfying. Also lost in my original post was that Jamie could spank me anytime.
“part of my conflict is easily resolved because I felt Claire’s feelings for Jaime in the book”
That reminds me of a post at Dear Author about about why some readers are able to accept sexual violence between the hero and heroine in genre romance – she argues that it comes down to “reader consent.”
For me, the key element … is the extent to which the reader consents on behalf of the heroine, not only to the hero’s forceful taking, but also to the happy romantic ending that the couple share
Here’s the link – http://dearauthor.com/features/letters-of-opinion…
The sex, costumes and scenery keep me watching this show in spite of its retrograde sexual politics. Also, I use the show as raw material to weave an alternate bisexual historical romance over what the show’s writers (and, I assume, the author of the books) offer. In my version, Claire arrives at the waterfall after Jamie has left, and consoles Laoghaire. Their conversation becomes flirtatious, then they kiss. Claire teaches Laoghaire about fingers and clits. Laoghaire is an enthusiastic pupil and learns quickly. Later, when Claire is with Jamie, she gets him to admit that he spanked her because of his repressed desire to be disciplined himself. He apologizes, and later there is a consensual spanking with him on the receiving end. If someone would actually make a rapeless, queer/feminist version of material like Outlander, or Game of Thrones, I would watch the shit out of it.
In case anyone either missed that or tried to convince themselves that it didn’t happen, we are presented with the final scene in which Jamie recalls that Claire called him a sadist and asks what that word means. Claire smiles – for reasons known only to God and the director – as she explains that a sadist is someone who derives sexual pleasure from causing others pain. Jamie smiles – apparently unable to distinguish a slur from a complement – and says that she really had him pegged.
Yeah, what was with that? It was weird enough during the beating when he was all ‘I said I was going to punish you, I never said I wasn’t going to enjoy it’ and then he flat out admits that calling him a sadist is accurate.
Ok, WHAT? So we have two scenes in which it is made clear abundantly clear that Jamie is turned on my hurting Claire even though he clearly knows that Claire was a frightened and unwilling victim. So the only difference between Jamie and Black Jack is one of degree. The writers seem to be telling us, hey – all guys are into hurting women in a ‘kinky-only-to-him NON-consensual’ way, but they should try not to take it as far as Black Jack does because… um… well… either because that’s just going too far or because he really gets off on hurting GUYS. Yikes. It’s almost as if Jamie being hot isn’t enough to cover up the fact that the writers are misogynistic douchebags.
to be fair to the writers, they faithfully adapted from the book. i’d been curious as to how they’d handle this very problematic portion of the book, thinking they’d tone it down a bit, but they totally didn’t. it is practically verbatim. i wish they’d left out the parts about him enjoying it, though in the books they clarify that he doesn’t like hurting her, but he couldn’t help but get turned on by her bare pink ass. also, he swears never to do it again, and, unlike actual sadists and abusers, he doesn’t.
Ah, so the show *didn’t* attempt to handle it any better than the book. Alas.
I don’t exactly know why the split season came about but it seems like recently everyone is getting into it. It leads to some excellent “midseason finales” but I still don’t know if I like it.
Full disclosure: I have not watched this episode yet. I plan on doing so later on with a plateful of Easter carnitas and a big glass of wine. I haven’t been very impressed with the show so far, at all, and not only because I’m weirdly unattracted to the guy playing Jamie (I KNOW, I KNOW) but because the show’s Claire is just SO watered down! I’ve read all the books and loved them, and I’m just so disappointed in the way the show is portraying her. She has so much more wit and strength and sass in the books. Her character is about as feminist as a woman from the 40’s could be expected to be, and her struggle with the incredible sexism of the 1700s is pretty engaging in the books. I don’t know. Maybe it’ll get better.
Yeah, I still haven’t made it through the first part of this series yet for the same reasons. Claire just seems so…dumb to me on the show? Like, yes she is brave and battle hardened and doesn’t take crap from anybody, etc, but in the books I feel like she just generally had more sense and tact. Claire’s greatest stengths, her independence and compassion, are also what gets her into trouble – I feel like the show has taken these qualities and flattened them into recklessness and foolishness.
This episode was so confusing for me, too. I was like, “WHAT HOW DARE YOUU” and then “BUTT.” Also, Claire has very nice boobs, good job to her.
I was actually giggling at the beginning of the spanking scene because I thought, like, no way was he really going to do it. I was SO SURE that he was going to follow up with an “och aye just kidding” but then he spanked her and I just. This show is so weird. Also fuck split seasons.
I HATED the book Outlander and this episode is one of the reasons why. It sounds like the TV show is staying true to the book for the most part, but if anything they have toned down the creep factors. One, I don’t know if it happened in the show and just didn’t make it into the review, but when Black Jack has Claire bent over the table she suddenly goes off on a thought tangent about how much he looks like her husband and how his sexual magnetism makes her kinda want to let him rape her. Ew. Two, in the book it isn’t spanking. Jaime plants his knee in her back and wallops the shit out of her with a leather strap. She’s all welted and bleeding when he’s done. And the book barely talks about how this makes her feel emotionally/physically, so her coldness seems more like just being in a snit.
This scene is also when the book really lost me. I’d actually heard there was a spanking scene – but I thought it’d be a sexy (and at least partially consensual) spanking scene. When I got to it and it was just brutal and completely non-consensual, it forever ruined the attraction of Jamie for me.
i know all tv shows are problematic about the damsel in distress motif, but this show has more almost-rapes than anything i’ve ever seen in my life. she gets almost raped nearly EVERY SINGLE EPISODE, but luckily he saves her only after she’s been nearly- raped not entirely-raped. i watched the entire last season but it was still WAY too much rape danger. reading your recap has made me realize that i will probably skip this season even though omg jamie can get it.
she gets almost raped nearly EVERY SINGLE EPISODE
Yesss it’s absolutely ridiculous and I am 100% done with that trope.
So much of Outlander is just AWKWARD as hell. The only improvement the show made on this whole spanking brouhaha over the book was that the book went on for like 80 pages after the fact with Jamie describing all of his childhood beatings in great detail in order to justify himself/Highland life to Claire. So tedious.
Nor can the constant specter of rape be blamed on TV writers, either. I enjoyed the first Outlander book, but she just keeps going back to that sexual violence well in the later books, and it gets real old.
It was the lengthy descriptions of all the childhood beatings (plus all the other actual beatings) that made me believe that the author is just really fetishizes beatings. Which is fair enough, but as was pointed out above, its hard to root for Jamie getting off on beating Claire, as opposed to doing it solely because the clan demanded it.
Right? She lost me there, too. Ok, maybe he has to beat her for clan cohesion or whatever, but the enjoying it is weird and unforgivable. And fetishizing beatings is ok, generally, but pretty icky when it’s in a context where he literally owns her and it’s totally not sexual for her? ugh ugh ugh
I do appreciate that it highlights the cultural issues of marrying someone from 200+ years ago, I guess? I guess.
Ugh yes I found the chapter that followed the beating in the book to be almost as offensive as the beating itself. Just endless pages of justification for an act he should have been smart or compassionate enough to realize was unnecessary. And then at the end of it all, she just sortof shrugs and says “oh well i guess I understand”. Very upsetting. And am I wrong in thinking the first time they have sex after the beating he forces her? It’s awful. I’m all for BDSM in historical romance but nobody has ever gotten into BDSM because they got punished by their husband for a perceived trespass with a violent beating. Not sexy.
*Not only* is Claire nearly raped every 40 pages in the book, but it’s the only way Claire and Jamie resolve any of their conflicts. So many of my friends loved these books that I honestly read the first four, hoping each one would get better, and that I would finally feel the attraction between the two of them. Just groan and bone. Which is fine, but I get that in other places without the belabored writing.
HATE THEM ALL.
Yeah, I had forgotten about the flogging scene (which is in the books), and WAS NOT HAPPY that they played it for laughs. Though I am glad she kicked him in the face. It kind of baffles me all the “Outlander is the feminist Game of Thrones” pieces came out about this when the season started back in September, because I think in a lot of ways the show (and the book ESPECIALLY, and especially the second one, which I obvs read over the MONTHS FUCKING LONG HIATUS like why would you do that when people can just go out and buy the books and find out what happens?) IS MORE fucked up about rape than GoT is. Or at least equally.
I think some people justify it like “oh well it’s written by a woman so it’s ~empowering~”
Nothing empowering about domestic violence and almost getting raped like every other episode.
Yeah, even before you got to this episode it was all “Claire is kidnapped! Claire is threatened with rape! Claire is kidnapped and threatened with rape then Claire is threatened with rape and kidnapped!”
Super feminist. Absolutely.
It happened like TWICE at Castle Leoch too, she doesn’t even need to be kidnapped first. Although I guess she was KIND OF kidnapped, as she was basically being held there against her will.
Conflicted. That’s exactly how I felt reading bodice rippers in the late 80s/ early 90s – on the one hand, abuse is NOT OK, on the other hand, some of those non-con spanking scenes were really hot (I’m looking at you Whitney, My Love (first edition, not the watered down 2nd ed)). I was so happy when I discovered consensual erotica.
I could not get into Outlander when I tried reading it ages ago – I finally gave up only a few chapters in. And this re-cap is making me feel pretty good about my decision not to watch the show.
WHITNEY, MY LOVE
Oh, how I have Feelings about this book. The kind that had me crying in the middle of the night, making my boyfriend come over to hold me while I finished it, totally convinced they would never end up together because he was SO HORRIBLE and they just had to end up together and did I mention it’s a romance novel that I was RE-READING.
So many feelings.
I had a feeling I was not the only Toastie who’d read this crazysauce book.
I had the opposite experience – I mostly hate read it. I really, really hated the hero, I hated the heroine, I hated the sexism, I hated everything about it. But I couldn’t put it down. The sex scenes were really hot, and my younger self kept reading them and thinking about them and hating myself for going back to them, because even then I knew they were pretty abusive, but did I mention that they were hawt?
Oh, it was a total hate-read and yet somehow something I was really invested in? I’d be reading it going, “No, this is straight-up abuse, this is awful, what the hell is he doing to her?” and then somehow had to finish it. I then apparently purged it from my memory because I had no idea I was re-reading it until my then-bf said something along the lines of, “Baby, you realise you’ve read that before…right?”
I loved Whitney My Love, even though Clay is a straight-up creeper and somewhat abusive.
Every time, I hope she’ll come to her senses and marry Nicky.
Jumping in to say that I am STILL mad about Whitney My Love. CLAYTON IS HORRIBLE.
Also, why did Judith McNaught name her children Whitney and Clay? Why why why.
Wait. What?! Did she name her children after her characters or her characters after her children? Either way is a little creepy.
From some interviews, it LOOKS like she named the characters after her children. (See here though it may be full of internetty lies).
It’s definitely not *less* creepy that way.
Full disclosure: I love the books and I love the show even with all its flaws, but this recap is genius and I can’t wait for the rest of the season now.
No conflict here. The beating and morning after scene in the book were disgusting. I put it down and never read another sentence and do not watch the show. I was wondering how they were going to handle this. Domestic violence isn’t romantic or sexy in any century.
Well I’m pretty pissed.
I waited FIVE MONTHS for this episode, and you mean to tell me you couldn’t give me five minutes of Geillis Duncan smirking merrily about?
Inexcusable.
More Geillis and her merry husband-murdering, please and thank you.
Edit: I mean, no WAY would anyone get away with spanking her.
I am particularly displeased with the music they had for the scene. Apparently RDM wanted it to be light so the audience would know things were going to be okay, but I am VERY disappointed in that choice. The audience and Claire know that what is happening is not okay, and that’s what the music should have reflected.
I AM FROWNING IN YOUR GENERAL DIRECTION, RDM.
Jaunty shenanigans music goes with teasing and light-hearted capers and playful struggling. Unless you’re deliberately trying to make a super fucked up scene, it does not go with a scene where a woman is kicking her husband in the face to stop him from beating her against her will.
I admit I only watched about 10 minutes last night, in order to get the code word for Showcase’s contest. Free trip to Scotland? Yes please.
This scene is also when the book really lost me. I'd actually heard there was a spanking scene – but I thought it'd be a sexy (and at least partially consensual) spanking scene. When I got to it and it was just brutal and completely non-consensual, it forever ruined the attraction of Jamie for me.
Enjoyed this very much. I feel that I am perhaps not alone in enduring the unspeakable pain of my frontal lobes being fed through the grinder that is romance fiction/TV. You’re lucky you got away *just* conflicted.
I’d love to read your recap of “Black Sails.” Now that I’ve watched it, I need to find some dignity.
She smiles because the term "sadist" is derived from the name of the Marquis de Sade, who wouldn't be born until the middle of the next century. And it's not necessarily a slur: Sadism is a sexual predilection like any other–rather a common one, actually–and like most kinks, is amoral in and of itself, capable of being expressed in ethical ways as well as unethical ones.
As uncomfortable as this scene of historical fiction may be for audiences, it deserves less attention than the modern-day reality of men treating young women similarly–and legally–under the banner of discipline.
For some victims, it may be a stepfather or even Mom’s boyfriend acting “in loco parentis.” For others, it’s a school teacher or administrator. (For illustration, see the federal court case Serafin v. School of Excellence in Education.)
…a more egalitarian way would have been for BOTH Claire and Jamie to have walked downstairs the morning after, BOTH sore in their booties, b/c Claire would have gotten a few strikes in herself…and both of them being laughed at by Jamie’s clansmen…that’s how I would have written it anyway–a woman who can give as good as she gets…or will later…and or, she manages to land a blow or two to his groin, as he’s trying to spank her…which of course, would also have explained why they were each walking funny, and blatantly NOT riding horses for a few days…
I went back onto vulture and they were all, weren’t we relieved that the spanking worked out ok and isn’t everything OK now. I thought roxanne gay had just given up in anger!! Thank you for expressing my discomfort here. The spanking scene was handled Terribly and I was hoping that they wouldn’t go there at all. But they did and I’m still watching it, more fool me.
Nice post. I agree that the spanking scene was weird because it was shown as amusing in some way. And I really didn’t like it when Claire apologized to Jamie after their fight.
But I’m not really mad at Jamie, because I think the show does a decent job of portraying the strong cultural differences between 1946 and 1743. Jamie is expected to “discipline” his wife (the whole gang waits for him to do it). Whilst it is disgusting from a modern view, Jamie did only do what society told him that all men are supposed to do. I loved it when he realized that their relationship could be different and I LOVED it when Claire threatened him during sex.
However I wish Claire never accepted any of the sexist shit men throw at her, at all. Yes, it is hard to be a feminist.