Article first published as OUTLANDER Review Season 1 Episode 7 The Wedding on Seat42F.
This week’s installment of Starz’s OUTLANDER
is called “The Wedding.” It begins with a parallel look at both of
Claire’s (Caitriona Balfe) big days – a courthouse quickie with Frank
(Tobias Menzies), and a more traditional ceremony involving Jamie (Sam
Heughen). But the majority of the hour is focused on what comes
immediately after the wedding, and being that the audience of OUTLANDER
is made up of adults, I think we all know what that means. I’m talking
about S-E-X.
Claire doesn’t fall into
bed with Jamie immediately. This all happens quite quickly, and she’s
still wrestling with the notion that she’s cheating on Frank. He may not
be alive in this time, but he very much exists in the era Claire
belongs to. Her goal is to get back to him. She doesn’t want to be
spoiled when she does so, and she sees wedding Jamie as making her a
bigamist.
It’s a shame Claire feels
this way. Jamie is extremely earnest and sincere. Through flashback,
Jamie tells Claire of the trouble he went to in arranging the perfect
ceremony. Claire admits to drinking heavily in the hours leading up to
the marriage. This is not a perfectly balanced couple, the affection
being given in a very one-sided fashion. He gifts Claire his mother’s
cherished pearls, and she gives him nothing, not even giving up Frank’s
ring. Jamie is a good man and he doesn’t deserve a spouse who is not
fully committed to him.
Yet, is
Claire’s hesitation really her fault? She definitely cares for Jamie,
and she enjoys their three love-making sessions in “The Wedding.” If she
didn’t marry Frank, she’d be free to love Jamie, and it’s easy to
imagine her doing so with all her heart. Her hesitance is not about
Jamie himself. A night of talking and being together (and imbibing even
more alcohol) is plenty enough to lower her defenses and allow her to
give in to the feelings she harbors. It’s just a crappy situation.
The
reason Claire goes through with “The Wedding” is to protect herself
from Black Jack Randall (also Menzies), who is determined to learn her
secrets, even through violent means, if necessary. Claire marries Jamie
for protection, and he willingly steps forward to offer a safe haven.
This does demonstrate some level of love between them, whether it’s
fully sexual or not, and the wedding has to happen.
All
of this begs the question, who will Claire choose: Frank and Jamie? If
she has the opportunity to return to her time, will she? “The Wedding”
certainly seems to indicate so. Even after coupling with Jamie, she
still refuses to let go of Frank’s ring. Her gaze at both hands bearing a
band does show a bit of conflict, but all of Claire’s actions in
OUTLANDER point to her going back to Frank. This will mean abandoning
Jamie and hurting him deeply.
Might
there be a time when Claire’s allegiances shift? Will she stay in the
past long enough to get to a point where she values Jamie ahead of
Frank? I haven’t read the books, so have no prior knowledge of what’s to
come. But it seems to me that, given time, she might not want to go
home so desperately, though that time is not now.
Marrying
Jamie does make Claire more valuable and accepted by the other Scots.
We see several of them make efforts to prove their loyalty to her, and
while they may be acting because of what Jamie means to them, it’s clear
this community now extends to Claire as well. Nothing else she has done
up to this point will ingrain her in with the MacKenzies as much as
marrying Jamie does.
Dougal (Graham
McTavish) remains the enigma, though. He seems sort of happy for the
bride and groom, offering Jamie uncle-ly advice. But he makes a serious
pass at Claire later. The drunken assault a few weeks ago is clearly not
a one-time thing, and Dougal harbors some sort of attraction towards
Claire. Since Claire keeps shutting down his advances, will he give up,
or will he go to a darker place to get what he wants, which seems to be
Claire’s body?
Fans of the romance
element of OUTLANDER, and it’s a major part of the show, will surely
love “The Wedding” because there is lots of sex and some real intimacy
between Jamie and Claire. Fans of character development should also be
happy with this entry. People who watch for the action or the time
travel might be disappointed, but those are lesser things as far as
OUTLANDER is concerned, so this week serves the majority of the
viewership pretty well.
Only one episode left before the hiatus! OUTLANDER’s mid-season finale airs next Saturday at 9 p.m. ET on Starz.
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