Outlander Mid-Season Finale Review: The Honeymoon Is Over

Outlander S01E08: "Both Sides Now"

I hope y'all savored all the flavors this episode, because Outlander is taking a bit of a hiatus after "Both Sides Now" and won't be coming back until APRIL FECKING FOURTH, 2015!!! How nuts is that?! BUH-LIEVE it, I'm sort of frantic. Is this a giant ploy to encourage fans who haven't read the books yet to run out, buy them, and get started? If so, it's a stroke of evil genius!

The follow-up to last week's magical wedding episode, "Both Sides Now" made it perfectly clear that the honeymoon is over for Claire and Jamie and it's back to the unrelenting terror of Jacobite life in the 18th century. We witnessed two attempted sexual assaults, a shiv between the ribs, and a nipple held at knifepoint. It was a surprisingly upsetting episode, guys!

The honeymoon is also very, very over for poor old Frank, who's spent the last seven weeks desperately searching for a woman who vanished into thin air. "Both Sides Now" opened with a scene in which Frank was hassling the Inverness police, who figured that Claire ran off with some Scot hottie anyway. Frank and the preacher had been speculating as to how Claire might've gotten lost during a hike to the point where she'd lost all touch with civilization (and survived by eating fish and frogs!), and Frank had put up signs offering a whopping 1,500-pound reward for Claire's recovery, but as we all know she's fallen through time so... sucks to be you, Frank.

Still, it was sort of interesting to see Frank's struggle, as it's certainly never explored in the Outlander novels, which are written from Claire's perspective. A local told Frank that he knew where Frank could find the Highlander as part of an attempt to knock him out and take the reward money, and Frank turned the attempted mugging into a fierce fistfight. Frank is drinking all the time. Frank is being something of a dick to the police. Frank is openly sneering at Scottish folklore. His preacher buddy is now comparing Frank to the Nazis. He's having a tough time.

Meanwhile Claire and Jamie started the episode marveling at how arousing it is just to hold hands during a very damp-looking picnic, and then a tongue-less wanderer shot an arrow at them as a prank (bro culture, rough as can be, apparently used to be a hell of a lot worse) and later Claire received some instruction in how to kill a man with a shiv.

The knife lesson was basically a PSA on how to shiv someone. Did we all take notes? Either way, it happened not a moment too soon, because in practically the next scene, Claire and Jamie's impromptu love-making session was interrupted by two horrifying English deserters. They were getting ready to kill Jamie and ravage Claire when her combined medical knowledge, shiv teachings, and quick thinking led to her killing her own would-be rapist.

Then someone behind the camera made a bold editing choice by using jerky, digitized slow-motion shots to signal that Claire was in shock after the ordeal. Yikes! Sort of jarring, honestly, but maybe I was just secretly irked because I just wanted to see our lovers have one last hurrah without peril breathing down their necks.

Moments after this scarring encounter, Jamie and the rest of the boys were supposed to meet up with a man who claimed he could clear Jamie of his murder charge/outlaw status. Claire, still in something of a fog, turned around and saw Craigh Na Dun and started sprinting for it.

This moment was very different in the book; Claire only headed in the direction of the rocks. The screen version heightened the drama by having Frank be amongst the Standing Stones in 1945 as Claire raced toward them in 1743, both of them yelling each other's names in a very Jane Eyre fashion. However, Claire was intercepted just as her hands landed on one of the time-traveling pillars, and she was hauled back to Fort William, where Blackjack Randall was waiting with his rope and his knives and his weird vibes.

As a piece of filmmaking in and of itself, I actually liked the cinematic moment where Claire was racing toward the Standing Stones, and Frank was there, 200 years later, waiting for her. However in the larger story, I'd rather not think about Frank's struggle? If Frank is a whole character, then we have to feel bad for him, and that interferes with wholesale rooting for Jamie and Claire, and let's face it, that's what we're here to do. In my interpretation, Outlander is not about a woman choosing between two deep loves, it's about a woman who didn't know what love was 'til she fell through time and basically landed on the hottest Highlander who ever wore tartan. I sort of don't want to feel guilty for/distracted from rooting for Claire and Jamie, not ever, even a little bit? But these are my druthers, feel free to have your own.

The question we're left to ponder for, well, the rest of the year and winter and on into spring 2015, is Jamie arriving to rescue Claire just as she realizes she's in completely over her head with Captain Randall. A nail-biting-enough cliffhanger for a week's wait, but half a year's?! Great Scot.

QUESTIONS...

... THE NEXT EPISODE ISN'T UNTIL APRIL?!?!

... Did you like checking in with Frank, or would you rather the screen time had been spent on the newlyweds?

... Was Claire running to the Standing Stones representative of her "choosing" Frank over Jamie, or of choosing a life not constantly marred by violence and civil unrest?

... Do you feel more confident in your skills at handling a shiv after watching this episode?