Jamie, Jamie, Jamie. You’d think you had learned something after being married to Claire. Like not to assume you know what’s going on with the woman of the house. Or to, I don’t know, listen to her about the state of the estate she’s run for the past four years.
But no! Supposedly diplomatic Jamie turns into a dumb, egotistical boy the second he gets home to Lallybroch–just like how I revert back to being my 12-year-old self as soon as I walk through the doors of the house I grew up in.
But now Jamie is an adult, and he is the laird (which he keeps reminding everyone), and the stakes are much higher than they were when he snuck into his father’s room to play with swords.
Claire, Claire, Claire. You’d think you’d have learned something after choosing to stay in the 1700s. Like that even if you don’t agree with certain social rules, that doesn’t make them go away. And that maybe you don’t understand the entirety of the situation based on 30 seconds of your own observation in a place and time completely new to you.
But, no. Claire still assumes she knows best and speaks without thinking of the consequences, telling both Jamie and his sister Jenny how they should operate.
But both Claire and Jamie grow a little in their time at Lallybroch–thank goodness. When Jamie asked Claire to listen and to trust him on how to talk to his family, Claire finally begins to realize that she might be able to get more of what she wants if she knows the rules of the game–and knows when it’s best to break them.
Jenny’s husband Ian also helps Claire see this, as they bond over loving the hard-headed Frasers. Their conversation rang so true to in-laws discussing the family they love, but are outsiders to. Ian seems to really love Jenny. He lets her be herself, and when Jamie came back and effectively kicks Ian out of his position of power, not to mention his own bedroom, he doesn’t argue or fight. He respects Jenny’s family and the way they choose to do things, and he does his best to support the Frasers–not just Jenny, but Jamie and Claire, too. When Claire sharply asks why Ian married Jenny, he sweetly speaks of when they met, and how she made him whole. This does not sound like a man who married for opportunity or power once Jamie was out of the picture, it sounds like a man in love.
In fact both Ian and Jenny don’t seem to hold on to resentment toward Jamie for coming home and assuming role as laird–their (legit) resentment instead is for his boorish behavior while doing it.
But Jamie, like Claire, starts to listen in this episode, and after a harsh talk from his wife, Jamie gets it together. He apologizes to Jenny, and the two reconnect and discuss their roles in their father’s death and the guilt they’ve held onto for so many years.
Laura Donnelly as Jenny is fantastic in this episode, displaying a complex character juggling family issues, trauma, and essentially running a business. When Jamie first sees his sister after four years of being assumed dead and accuses her of having two bastard children and punishing him by naming one Jamie (uhhhh Jamie, bro, this isn’t actually all about you), she fights back and stands up for herself and her family.
In a powerful scene, Jenny tells what really did happen with Captain Randall. After Jamie is knocked unconscious, Randall took Jenny upstairs to assault her. As he attempted to rape her, Jenny laughed at him. Rape scenes on TV have become a cliched shorthand to show women’s trauma, but this scene is like nothing I’ve seen before on television.
This story, like so much of what happens at Lallybroch, shows Claire and Jamie that things aren’t always what they look like at first glance, and that the both of them should stop to think and listen before they do things they can’t take back. (Though I’m going to go on record and say that even if Jenny was raped and did have two bastard children, Jamie still owed her an apology and shouldn’t have acted that way.)
Hopefully Jamie and Claire remember the lessons they learned this week because next week it looks like they will be back to fighting for their lives, and the consequences will be much higher than a familial spat.
Yessssss!!
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