This episode of Outlander was thinner on Claire and Jamie content, but they felt very present to me all the same.
Last week’s Jamie and Claire scenes brought back Season 2 for me, and this one did it in other ways by showing how things have *changed.* In S2, Jamie and Claire only had each other and Murtagh. And a very wee Fergus.
In the decades since, Jamie and Claire’s vows to each other have led them to build a bigger family, from choice and love, and that family is here to fight with them and support them. And the members of that family claim each other when Jamie and Claire are absent: Bree acknowledges she and Fergus share a mother, that she has two brothers and loves both of them.
This episode made Claire and Jamie even more present through Fergus and Marsali. Marsali knows every detail of the family business, including its perils. Because Jamie taught Fergus by example that when you find the love of your life, that person is part of your *entire* life. Fergus is reluctant to claim his biological parentage, much as Jamie hates acknowledging his relationship with Lord Lovat in S2. Marsali understands Fergus when he uses French, just like Claire picks up some Gaelic. Jamie knows that it was Brian who was the great man, and Fergus knows he is already the son of one. Young Ian feels the same about Jamie, and takes his father’s place on Jamie’s left.
Fergus is still quietly and matter-of-factly furious that St. Germain tried to harm Claire, because she is his family, his Milady. In this episode it makes sense why he doesn’t call her maman—children in the brothel did that for anyone who fed them. Claire has been more than that to Fergus, has given him more than that, and so she gets her own name.
Bree joked last week about calling John “Da” but this week she acknowledges that they are family to each other through William, much as Claire is still grateful to John for saving her life.
And though it’s not explicit, Claire’s manner and care for Fanny reflects various aspects of her own identity. Not just her thought Fanny might be her granddaughter, either. From the first, before the locket reveal, Claire was tender and solicitous with her, and remains so, especially about Fanny’s memories. This feels rooted in Claire’s own childhood: she was orphaned young with few memories of her own parents. Now her family is larger, and she clearly sees Rachel as her daughter much as she does Marsali.
I said last week Outlander was about choices, and this week it still is: about who you choose to claim, who you choose to love, and who you choose to call family.
