Stephanie: Hi Catherine. This is the episode I’ve been dreading for awhile now: Wentworth Prison, where Jamie is physically and emotionally tortured by Captain Black Jack Randall. Reading something that is graphically disturbing is a very different experience than seeing it on screen. I had this same dilemma with whether to see the movie version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I enjoyed the book, and believe Lisbeth Salander’s sexual assault is pertinent to the story and to her character, but I didn’t want to see that scene played out in a theater. I still haven’t seen it. You can skim with a book, or sort of self-censor where you let your mind go, but with TV and movies, you either look away and miss things, or you face it head on. With this Outlander episode, I admit I watched a bit passively as a way to protect myself, until I got through it, and then went back to revisit a few scenes. In some ways it was just as horrifying as expected, but definitely more psychologically grotesque.
Catherine: It was a difficult episode to watch, no doubt about it. The hanging scene was hard to watch particularly when MacQuarrie’s neck didn’t break when he fell from the gibbet. He choked slowly to death and without someone pulling down as his legs (as horrifying as that was), it could have taken him a half an hour or so to die. Getting shot by soldiers, like Jamie proposed, ended life with fight instead of a miserable hanging. It was tough to watch and nothing got better because then there was Jack torturing Jamie. The strangest part of this episode is how Jack regarded Jamie with such a gentle inquisitive look on his face. Jack’s face visibly softens whenever he catches sight of Jamie and it adds an unusual element to all the horror. Jamie is a toy to Black Jack. A wondrous toy that never disappoints but still must be chastised and punished for its failure to comply with Jack’s wishes and that punishment is part of the charm. Captain Jack is an abuser amongst abusers, the shadow version of a Prince among Princes. No one checks his powerful hand and he uses all the means at his disposal to shred his victim’s soul to shreds. His only wonder with Jamie is the means it will take to break his spirit. And with Black Jack, the longer it takes to break someone, the better.
Stephanie: Black Jack Randall has been steadily set up as a sadist through his own speech to Claire when she was first captured by him, and in the flashbacks to Jenny’s near assault, and Jamie’s brutal whipping. This sadism is illustrated most clearly here when Randall saves Jamie from the noose purely for his own enjoyment to tear Jamie apart. Personally, I may have been just as disturbed, if not more, by the midseason scene when Randall has Claire half-stripped and bent over on the table. Maybe as a woman, that fear is more visceral to me since it’s such a core fear women have to be physically victimized by a man. For men, surely it’s just as visceral to see that play out on screen, but that fear of assault is typically not an everyday fear most men face. Not to minimize any men who have been victimized, but I think part of why it’s so shocking to see a strong warrior like Jamie being forced to grope and be kissed by a domineering man is this is rarely shown on screen, particularly in the mainstream.
Catherine: The attempted rape assault on Claire was bad but this episode…there were a few times I considered turning it off. The only thing that made it endurable for me was looking at how much time was left till the end. I also kept in the back of my head that violence like this does happen to people in real life and I need to recognize this and not turn away or deny it. The worst part was Claire’s hopeless sobbing as Jack nailed Jamie’s hand to the table and then kissed him. Jamie has proven he can take physical pain but trying to remain strong while Claire is groaning and weeping over him? He must carry his pain but hers as well. That’s unendurable. So there was that but I relished that Claire would likely save him. Claire! A tiny woman in this stone world of masculine violence! Saving her man! But it was not to be. Not this time.
Stephanie: Claire showed so much strength in this episode. It struck me first at the start when she played the part of a concerned family friend checking in on wayward Jamie at the prison. Playing up English ladyship with Christian virtues showed her cunning, and she seemed almost an entirely different person. She only broke that facade when the door closed, leaving she and Murtagh time to ruffle through papers in the prison warden’s office, looking for clues to help Jamie. What’s so heartbreaking, is how close Claire got to saving Jamie. Even in the dank cell, she found a moment to push back Captain Randall’s henchman, and then shove Randall himself into the wall, giving Jamie a moment to catch up. But Randall is devious, and immediately plays to Jamie’s one weakness: Claire. It’s most devastating when Randall kisses Jamie violently because it’s in the face of Jamie’s strongest bond of love-Claire. It’s not even really sexual, it’s just a power play that’s a giant F-U to Claire, a victory cry. (And THIS is what’s touted as the most romantic book series?!) Claire being a fighter gets a last power move of her own. I loved when she owned up to being a witch, and used her knowledge of the future to tell Randall the date of his death, after much theatrical lead-up. If he’s playing the psychological game, she can too. A small victory in the face of the torture Jamie still faces.
Catherine: Claire telling Jack his date of death was a stroke of genius! There’s something for that devil to stew over. When he pushed her down that hole, I thought for sure he had thrown her into an oubliette, a hole in a castle where they’d leave people to starve and die in the darkness. But phew! It was only a pit full of corpses that she could crawl out of and run off to find her allies. Trust Randall to fulfill his promise in a nasty way. I was pretty stunned he kept his word and let her out. He does play a strange game with Jamie, full of violence and teeny tiny moments of honor. Wentworth Castle is a brutal and unsympathetic place; it’s a wonder that there’s any refuge to be had. And yet there was and at the nearby house of one of Jamie’s mother’s former suitors, Sir Marcus MacRannoc. He offered his home as shelter but refused to sacrifice his family’s welfare for Jamie’s and I didn’t blame him.
Stephanie: Much to my disappointment, it looks like Claire’s escape did not involve punching a wolf in the face. It’s one of my favorite WTF moments from the book. She did at least hear the wolves, but alas, no wolf punching. I believe in the books it’s also Claire’s idea to let the cows loose, though I do like the idea that she has support and allies for another rescue attempt. There’s hope yet to get Jamie out of Wentworth. See you in TWO weeks, May 30, when the season finale airs.
Catherine Eaton is a contributor to The Stake. Catherine is a writer living in a western suburb of Chicago. She blogs over at sparrowpost.com and enjoys foraging around the neighborhood in her spare time.
Stephanie Scott is a Young Adult writer living in the western Chicago suburbs. Library superfan, award-winning TV-binger, and she just might be your cat’s new best friend. She tweets at @StephScottYA.
