Outlander Wraps Up a Weak Season with an Unexpected Landfall

Outlander is everything. It’s a romance, a time travel tale, a fantasy series, a hospital procedural, a bodice ripping erotic novel, a historical study, and a war story, to name just a few. While at times this is exciting and creates a dynamic, intense world of wonder, this season has struggled to reconcile the many genres and themes into a cohesive narrative experience. The season felt scattered and without focus. It moved too fast, which diluted the narrative effect of events like death (Elias, Jamie’s baby momma), Claire’s separation from her daughter, and the final dramatic scene with Geillis Duncan.

The finale episode was a roller coaster. Claire makes her way to Geillis/Mrs. Abernathy’s plantation on Jamaica. She wanders through the slave quarters attempting to find Young Ian. Instead, she finds the body of another young white male. His throat is slit, but before Claire can be horrified, she is whisked away from the scene by a giant man.

This giant man, Hercules, takes her to Geillis. They meet in the same room where Geillis emerged from a blood bath a few episodes ago, but here she looks smaller, less majestic, almost old. Her red hair is faded and her dressing gown hangs loosely on her body, but her eyes are alight with manic expression. She smoothly manipulates Claire, making the protagonist feel as though she has somehow wronged this female friendship.

Geillis wants to know what happened to Claire and feels she’s owed it given her sacrifice at the witch trials. Claire reveals the truth of her journey, but Geillis refuses to believe that Claire could have survived travel so many times. Claire has the evidence in her pocket, photos of her daughter, who Geillis met prior to her 1968 journey through the stones. Little does Claire know that Geillis will use this as evidence of her 200-year-old baby prophecy and try to travel to the future.

Luckily, this plays out very quickly. Jamie escapes his capture with the help of Lord John and makes it to Geillis’ house to save Claire from a locked room. They run through the plantation to find young Ian, but are stopped by ritualistic dancing. They watch from behind tall grass and are briefly mesmerized by the drum beat and lanterns. Claire has a flashback to the druids dancing at Craigh na Dun. The ritual has to be performed on the night of time travel.

The ritual is interrupted and Claire and Jamie continue their chase into a cave called “Abandawe.” Inside the cave, Geillis is about to travel through the humming pool into the future to find Brianna (the 200 year old baby of prophecy); she is also going to use Ian as a sacrifice. The action plays out quickly with Jamie battling Hercules and Claire taking on Geillis. To protect her young nephew, Claire swings a machete with violent force decapitating Geillis. After the ritualistic blood is spilt, Claire feels drawn to the pool. She remembers the skeleton Joe Abernathy examined earlier in the season. The future seems to pull her closer to the luminescent blue water, but Jamie pulls her back to the present.

All of this brings me back to talking about fate. In Outlander, the future is immovable and unavoidable. Time cannot be fully understood and therefore the progression of events is inescapable. We saw this is Claire and Jamie’s futile attempts to prevent Culloden. In this season, we saw the Gaelis’ skeleton before we saw how she got there. Additionally, we know that the characters we meet more are destined to come back into Claire and Jamie’s lives. These are some ground rules for what we can expect to come next season.

After the events of the cave, they leave the island aboard the Artemis and have a blissful sexual reunion in the captain quarters. But as always, their bliss is short lived and a raging storm throws Claire overboard. She is floating through the water completely at peace when Jamie swims towards her and pulls her into his arms. They kiss and the world seems alive again. The camera pans out into the clouds and Claire and Jamie are in the calm eye of a hurricane. The storm has literally stopped for their love.

Claire and Jamie are washed ashore on the coast of Georgia where their new adventure will unfold in Season Four.

Prophecies and Fate:

It seems like Outlander is telling us to believe in Margaret Campbell’s prophecies at least having some basis in fact (if not explicitly telling us that they will come true.) I’m starting this corner for next season, so we can keep track of outstanding prophecies and projected fates in Outlander.

• Margaret predicts that in order for a new Scottish king to rise, a 200-year old baby will have to die on the day of its birth. Geillis predicts this means Claire’s child, Brianna, and tries to travel to the future to kill her. Claire kills Geillis. — Possibly the end of the prophecy. But I suppose it’s possible that there was another way to interpret it?
• Margaret interacts with Claire and Jamie as their daughter Brianna. Maybe they will see their daughter in the future?
• Margaret predicts that Claire will go to Abandawe —TRUE, but it did not devour her as promised.

Stray Observations:

• The whole plotline about Willoughby falling for Margaret Campbell is kind of out of left field. But I hope they live happily ever after.
• Archibald Campbell is killed during the Druid ritual. I say good riddance since in the book series he was also a serial killer.
• Claire’s journey came full circle in this season, since she’s now back in the USA. But if you are following the timeline (like me), they have another war in their future with the American Revolution right around the corner.
• I love Fergus and Marsali as a couple. I found them tiresome in the books, but love them on the show.
• Where is Murtaugh? If Outlander is all about fate, then I think we are going to see him in America!
• I guess they won’t be getting Young Ian back to his mom.
• What happened to the treasure?

Thanks for reading my Outlander reviews this season! Stay tuned for an essay on the treatment of race in Season Three of Outlander.

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