Episode 512: "Never My Love" (SPOILERS!)

Here are my reactions to Episode 512 of the OUTLANDER TV series, titled "Never My Love".

*** SPOILER WARNING!! ***

There are SPOILERS below! If you don't want to know yet, stop reading now.

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The episode opens without the usual "Previously" voiceover. The recap of last week's episode consists of a montage of moments, punctuated by drumbeats, ratcheting up the tension without a single spoken word. I thought that was very effective.

On a related note, I think this was the first episode we've ever had without the usual opening credit sequence. (Leaving the credits for the end instead.) I thought that was an interesting decision. It made the whole first part of the episode seem more immersive somehow, more suspenseful, as though to tell the audience, "No, you're not getting a break from this just because we have to show the opening credits!"

As the episode begins, we see a 1960's record player, playing the song "Never My Love" by The Association. We're in a house we've never seen before, with 1960's architecture and furnishings.

Claire is sitting on a couch with her back to the camera, staring at the wall. Suddenly we see a closeup of an orange. This is a reference to the orange King Louis gave Claire in Episode 207, "Faith," and it's just the first of many, many subtle "Easter egg" references to previous scenes and events from earlier in the series. The blue vase on the table is another one, going all the way back to Episode 101, "Sassenach". There are lots of these throughout the episode, and I'm not going to try to note all of them! It's an interesting and creative approach, and I thought it worked really well.

Finally we get a look at Claire. She's sitting with an oddly blank expression on her face, and she looks almost catatonic, not like her normal self at all. Notice the painting on the wall, which appears to be depicting the Big House on Fraser's Ridge.

Suddenly we get a flash of the real Claire, lying on the ground with her nose bloodied and evidently broken, a gag in her mouth, looking terrified and absolutely alone. And gradually it becomes clear, this is Claire's way of willing herself to be "elsewhere".

I lay rigid, eyes shut, recalling various nasty experiences of my past and wishing I were in fact in attendance at one of those events, instead of here.

(From A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 28, "Curses". Copyright© 2005 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

Claire sees Jamie, looking very much as he did when she first met him. I liked that. It makes sense to me that Claire, in desperate need, would conjure up an image of Jamie as he was when she fell in love with him.

Suddenly Claire hears Arvin Hodgepile's voice: "I say we kill her. Leave her for the beasts." (Book-readers will remember Hodgepile as the leader of the gang who abducted Claire.) This is a flashback to an earlier part of the ordeal after she was abducted.

Lionel Brown sneers at her. "Well, aren't you the clever one? Dr. Rawlings. You never thought anyone'd find out about your little newspaper column, did you?"

Claire tries to protest that she was "only trying to help", but Lionel Brown isn't listening. He says he's going to take her to Brownsville, so the women there will "see you for the charlatan you are".

Frankly, this seems like a flimsy reason for abducting Claire. But then, Lionel Brown isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, here or in the book. Still, he's extremely dangerous, and Claire would do well to bear that in mind.

Back in the 1960's "dream-house", the doorbell rings. The family is starting to gather. We see Germain being dangled upside down, Young Ian dressed in a military uniform. Ian greets Jamie with a hug. "Happy Thanksgiving, Uncle."

Another memory intrudes: Claire running from her captors, only to be caught and thrown to the ground before she gets very far. As punishment, Hodgepile cuts her breast with his knife, just as in the book. In the confrontation that follows, I loved Claire's reactions.

Without the slightest notion as to what moved me to do it, I dropped the rock, ran the fingers of my right hand across the cut, and in one swift motion, reached out and drew them down the thin man’s cheek. I repeated the nasty laugh.

“Curse, is it?” I said. “How’s this? Touch me again, and you’ll die within twenty-four hours.”

The streaks of blood showed dark on the white of his face. He was close enough that I could smell the sourness of his breath, and see the fury gather on his face. What on earth do you think you are doing, Beauchamp? I thought, utterly surprised at myself.

(From A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 28, "Curses". Copyright© 2005 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

We haven't seen her this furious in a long time, and I thought Cait was absolutely channeling Claire through this whole scene.

Now we get our first good look at Donner, the man with long curly hair we saw briefly during the attack on the house in last week's episode.

"Do you have clear night skies where you come from?" he asks, in an unmistakably American accent.

But Claire has more urgent things to worry about than this man's peculiar speech. As night falls, she hears the other men laughing, saying, "Her legs aren't tied."

And just when the terror threatens to overwhelm her, the music starts up again. Jamie wraps a blanket around her from behind, saying, "You're shakin' so hard it's making my teeth rattle," just as he did on the night he first met her, in Episode 101, "Sassenach."  I loved that! It makes total sense to me that she would reach instinctively to him for comfort, as she's always done.

In the next scene, Claire is riding in a wagon. One of her captors, a man named Tebbe, gives her a chunk of bread.

The scene at the creek is taken straight from the book.

“The water is my friend,” I said, trying for an air of mystery suitable to a conjure woman. I was not a good liar, but I was lying for my life. “When we go into the river, let go your hold. A water horse will rise up to carry me away.”

His eyes couldn’t get any wider. Evidently, he’d heard of kelpies, or something like them. Even this far from the cataract, the roar of the water had voices in it--if one chose to listen.

“I am not going away with a water horse,” he said with conviction. “I know about them. They take you down, drown you, and eat you.”

“It won’t eat me,” I assured him. “You needn’t go near it. Just stand clear, once we’re in the water. Keep well away.”

And if he did, I’d be under the water and swimming for my life before he could say Jack Robinson.

(From A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 28, "Curses". Copyright© 2005 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

Unfortunately, Hodgepile grabs her arm before she can put this plan into action, and Claire's mind retreats back to the relative safety of the dream.

In the "dream-house", with "Never My Love" still playing in the background, the family reunion is in full swing. Jocasta and Murtagh are there, and Marsali and Fergus (all of them dressed in 1960's clothing and hairstyles).

Back at the stream, Claire is shouting at the top of her lungs, as Tebbe and Hodgepile drag her in opposite directions, and she comes closer to the creek with every step. "Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ!" she yells, and we see that Donner heard that loud and clear.

Lionel Brown settles the dispute by stuffing a rag into Claire's mouth and tying another cloth tightly around her head, gagging her.

Irritated with the way Claire is glaring at him behind the gag, Lionel Brown ties her to a tree some distance away from the others.

At the "dream-house", the conversation over dinner turns to baby names for Marsali and Fergus's latest child. James, Ian, or maybe Ringo, if it's a boy?  Or perhaps Jocasta, if it's a girl?  Jamie ignores the talk. He is completely focused on Claire, and I got the distinct sense of her holding on to that image of his face (exactly as he looked when she first fell in love with him) as a lifeline.

Suddenly we're back in Claire's present time, and she's lying on the ground with her nose smashed, struggling to breathe. The bunny rabbit is another of those "Easter egg" references, going back to the early episodes of Season 3. You may recall that Jamie saw a rabbit when he woke on the field at Culloden in Episode 301.

My nose was puffed from cheekbone to cheekbone, and swelling fast. I clenched my teeth on the gag and blew outward through my nose, trying to clear it, if only for a moment. Blood tinged with bile sprayed warm across my chin and splattered on my chest—and I sucked air fast, getting a bit.

Blow, inhale. Blow, inhale. Blow … but my nasal passages were almost swollen shut by now, and I nearly sobbed in panic and frustration, as no air came.

Christ, don’t cry! You’re dead if you cry, for God’s sake don’t cry!

Blow … blow … I snorted with the last reserve of stale air in my lungs, and got a hair of clearance, enough to fill them once more.

I held my breath, trying to stay conscious long enough to discover a way to breathe—there had to be a way to breathe.

(From A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 28, "Curses". Copyright© 2005 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

I thought they did an excellent job of portraying this! It's riveting and terrifying, just as it was the first time I read it in the book. Cait managed to convey the terror and desperation of that moment extremely well.

Fortunately, Donner shows up just in the nick of time, and removes the gag so Claire can breathe again.

"Does the name Ringo Starr mean anything to you?" Even though I knew this was coming, I still felt an excited little shiver up my spine at these words. Another time-traveler!

"I need gemstones."
"I have gemstones." She's lying, of course, but under these circumstances, naturally she'll tell him whatever he wants to hear.

"You ought to act more afraid." And with that, he replaces the gag and walks away.

The next scene is very hard to watch. Lionel Brown brings his nephew Cuddy over and basically goads him into raping Claire. The whole time the boy is assaulting her, Claire is back in the "dream-house", trying desperately to be elsewhere.

In the book, it's clear that the teenage boy didn't actually penetrate her, but I'm glad they didn't bother with that distinction here. It was certainly sexual assault, by anyone's definition.

And then Lionel Brown climbs on top of her, and this time it's very clearly rape. <shudder>

In the "dream-house", the table is set for a festive Thanksgiving dinner. Claire notices water beginning to drip from the ceiling. The roof is leaking.

Jamie's toast at the dinner table is taken almost verbatim from the last chapter of OUTLANDER:

“I meant it, Claire,” he said quietly. “My life is yours. And it’s yours to decide what we shall do, where we go next. To France, to Italy, even back to Scotland. My heart has been yours since first I saw ye, and you’ve held my soul and body between your two hands here, and kept them safe. We shall go as ye say.”

(From OUTLANDER by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 41, "From the Womb of the Earth". Copyright© 1991 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

As I was trying to recall why the words seemed so familiar, I caught sight of Lionel Brown sitting at the dinner table. Wow, I really wasn't expecting that!

Back in the present day, Claire lies still after Brown is finished with her. He calls, "Who's next for a go with the hedge-whore?" That made me want to throw up.

Two more men approach Claire out of the darkness, and suddenly we're back in the "dream-house", with babies and little kids and hugs and smiles all round. "Dinna fash," says Jamie, looking down at Claire from an odd angle. "I'm sure Roger and Bree will be here soon." But a few moments later, the doorbell rings.

Claire answers the door to find a pair of policemen (strongly resembling Hodgepile and Brown), telling her that Roger, Bree, and Jemmy have been killed in a car accident.

The next scene finally switches away from Claire's point of view, to pick up the MacKenzies' storyline where we left off in Episode 511, "Journeycake". We see them recovering from their trip through the stones, and suddenly Jemmy runs toward something he recognizes....

....which turns out to be Ian. So the stones evidently spat them out, and they never left the 18th century.

"I was thinking about home."
"So was I."

I'm really disappointed with the way this turned out! I saw it coming a mile away, and in fact was quite upset last week when it occurred to me that this was a distinct possibility. Putting the viewers through all those emotional goodbye scenes that we saw in Episode 511, only to say, in effect, "Never mind! Just kidding, we didn't mean it, we're back!" makes me feel manipulated, as though the whole long sequence of emotional farewells was not only pointless, but that I must have been an idiot to fall for it.

Spending all that screen time and that long emotional buildup to give the characters and the viewers time to adjust to the idea of the MacKenzies' departure, only to reveal it was all for nothing, seems to me like a cheap trick, and I don't like that At All. I suspect the whole thing was planned on purpose to set up the dramatic sequence we see later in this episode, where Roger and Ian arrive just in time to join in the rescue. And while the characters may be OK with that -- they can pick up where they left off and dive right into Season 6 -- I am left feeling that my emotions have been toyed with for no other purpose than to create a cliffhanger that will drive up ratings for the season finale.

I keep reminding myself it's only a TV show, but this really bothers me. Diana Gabaldon says this plot twist was NOT something she came up with, but the way they resolved the situation in this episode is inevitably going to make me view the events of Episode 511 in a more negative light. I think that's unfortunate.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm glad they came back! But I think they never should have left in the first place.

Moving on....

Bree, Roger, Jemmy, and Ian arrive back at the Ridge a few days later, in time to see the fiery cross blazing on the mountaintop, where Jamie lit it at the end of Episode 511. They hurry back, to find Jamie gathering his men, preparing to leave in pursuit of Claire's abductors.

I love that Jamie is wearing his kilt! <g>

The exchange between Roger and Jamie comes straight from the book, and I thought it was really well done:

“Ye called me,” he said at last, still looking up into the blazing dark. “At the Gathering, at the fire.”

“Seas vi mo lâmh, Roger an t’oranaiche, mac Jeremiah mac Choinneich,” Jamie said quietly. “Aye, I did. Stand by my side, Roger the singer, son of Jeremiah.”

“Seas vi mo lâmh, a mhic mo thaighe,” Roger said. “Stand by my side—son of my house. Did ye mean that?”

“Ye know that I did.”

“Then I mean it, too.” He reached out and rested his hand on Jamie’s shoulder, and I saw the knuckles whiten as he squeezed.

“I will stand by you. We will stay.”

Beside me, Brianna let out the breath she had been holding, in a sigh like the twilight wind.

(From THE FIERY CROSS by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 110, "Man of Blood". Copyright© 2001 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

Ian puts on his war paint, preparing for battle, and the men ride out.

In the next scene, we're back in the "dream-house", just Claire and Jamie, and it feels oddly peaceful, with just the two of them there. Gradually Claire comes awake, to the sound of gunfire and a blaze of firelight.

Jamie to the rescue, finally!! In the book, this is what I always think of as the "cavalry-coming-over-the-hill" moment, and usually it's the first chance I have to take a deep breath in quite some time.

In the ensuing melee, watch Roger. He's just killed a man in battle. I'm not sure which man it was, but it doesn't really matter. It's a huge moment for him personally. As Diana put it in the Prologue to THE SCOTTISH PRISONER, "It marks you, killing. No matter why it's done."

In the "dream-house", when Jamie said, "Dinna be afraid. There's the two of us now," I actually started to cry, from relief.

Jamie's reaction to the sight of Claire was very well done. He stares at first, as if not believing what he's seeing, but then he cuts her bonds and says quietly, "You are alive, you are whole, mo nighean donn," in echo of what he said to Roger after the hanging.

I'm very glad they included the bit with the knife and Jamie's, "It is myself who kills for her." I've always loved that in the book.

"Kill them all." I liked the way Sam said that, but the execution scene was still shocking! Notice Ian walking up to them with a tomahawk in one hand and an Iroquois war club in the other.

When Jamie bent to pick Claire up, I thought at once of this line:

He’d led her through the morning light in that clearing, a blood-soaked Adam, a battered Eve, looking upon the knowledge of good and evil. And then he had wrapped her in his plaid, picked her up, and walked away to his horse.

(From A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 29, "Perfectly Fine". Copyright© 2005 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

The next morning, by the stream, Claire looks almost like a completely different person, wrapped in Jamie's plaid with her hair hanging down over her face. She seems to force herself to take an interest in the others, asking about Marsali, telling Jamie about Donner. But all the time, she speaks in a monotone, and she won't even look at Jamie. (Contrast that with her excitement in Season 4 when she discovered the fillings in Otter-Tooth's skull.)

"Did he harm you?" Jamie asks, referring to Donner.
"He didn't help me."

Interesting. But again, there's no emotion in her voice. Does she resent the fact that Donner didn't help? Is she angry? She seems to be completely numb.

Jamie tells her that the MacKenzies have come home. He reaches out very gently to touch her shoulder, and she doesn't flinch away at his touch.

Home at last! Bree comes out to meet them, and my heart broke for her, seeing the look on her face.

"I thought I'd never see you again," Claire says. Again, I blame whoever had the idea to send them away in the first place! The thought that Bree's absence added to Claire's distress during the ordeal, and it was all so unnecessary, makes me mad.

Here comes Marsali, looking MUCH more pregnant than when last seen. From the point of view of the people on the Ridge, only a few days have passed, probably less than a week, from the abduction to Claire's return home. How did Marsali grow a baby bump that size in such a short time? (Particularly if she's carrying Henri-Christian, who presumably wouldn't weigh as much as an average fetus.) That doesn't make sense to me.

The next scene, where Bree helps Claire take a bath, is quiet but poignant. Claire appears to be scraping dirt or bloodstains from her fingernails. Bree is silent, but I can imagine her thinking that it would have been nice for someone to tend to her this way, after she was raped by Stephen Bonnet.

"You have my hand, Mama. And my ear, if you need it." This line is a deliberate echo of what Lizzie told Bree after her rape in Season 4.

The scene between Jamie and Claire was well done, but in my opinion they can't compete with the book version, which is one of my all-time favorite chapters in the whole series.

"I'm glad the others are dead," Claire says. "I'm sorry that I am." What?!?  I'm not sure how to interpret that line. Does she mean she feels dead inside?

“I have lived through a fucking world war,” I said, my voice low and venomous. “I have lost a child. I have lost two husbands. I have starved with an army, been beaten and wounded, been patronized, betrayed, imprisoned, and attacked. And I have fucking survived!” My voice was rising, but I was helpless to stop it. “And now should I be shattered because some wretched, pathetic excuses for men stuck their nasty little appendages between my legs and wiggled them?!” I stood up, seized the edge of the washstand and heaved it over, sending everything flying with a crash—basin, ewer, and lighted candlestick, which promptly went out.

“Well, I won’t,” I said quite calmly.

“Nasty little appendages?” he said, looking rather stunned.

“Not yours,” I said. “I didn’t mean yours. I’m rather fond of yours.” Then I sat down and burst into tears.

His arms came round me, slowly and gently. I didn’t startle or jerk away, and he pressed my head against him, smoothing my damp, tangled hair, his fingers catching in the mass of it.

“Christ, ye are a brave wee thing,” he murmured.

“Not,” I said, eyes closed. “I’m not.”

(From A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 29, "Perfectly Fine". Copyright© 2005 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

Cait did a wonderful job with the show's version of this speech. This episode has shown some of her best work since Episode 207, "Faith", in my opinion. Jamie's reaction was much more subdued than I expected. No shouting, no smashing of furniture, no overt indication of the depth of his own rage, or guilt. I wish they'd taken a little time to let us see the impact of all this on Jamie, as well.

I liked the scene between Roger and Bree, especially the last part, which comes straight from the book. I'm glad they took the time to acknowledge the toll the rescue took on Roger.

The next scene takes place in Claire's surgery, where Claire and Marsali are tending to the injured Lionel Brown, tied down on the surgery table. I thought the substitution of Marsali for Mrs. Bug in this scene worked very well. Marsali obviously has a personal stake in this -- she was attacked, after all -- and it's plausible that she would be in the surgery, tending to Brown.

Claire starts to pick up a scalpel, and suddenly we see her in the "dream-house", examining the orange we saw near the beginning of the episode. I'm not quite sure what they intended to convey with this. A reminder of the encounter with King Louis? That doesn't seem to fit here.

"I will do you no harm," Claire says, and walks out of the room. She makes it almost to the top of the stairs, then collapses, sobbing.

I was glad to see her finally let out some of what she's been feeling, though I'm sure this barely scratched the surface.

Marsali has her own plans for Lionel Brown, as it turns out.

"If I'm not well-treated," he taunts her, "my brother will come with his men, and he will slaughter you, and burn the houses over your heads while you sleep."

Marsali is unmoved. She fills a syringe with an extract of poisonous water hemlock root, and injects Lionel Brown in the neck, killing him almost instantly.

"[Claire] took an oath to do no harm. I have taken no such oath. You hurt me. You hurt my family. You hurt my ma. I'll watch you burn in hell before I let you harm another soul in this house."

Go Marsali!

Jamie finds her a little while later. He doesn't reproach her for killing Brown. In fact he's gentle with her. When she worries that she may be going to hell, he says, "Nothing to fear, lass."

The next scene shows Jamie riding into Brownsville alone, bringing the body of Lionel Brown home to his family. Most of the dialogue in this scene comes from ABOSAA chapter 34, "The Exhibits in the Case."

Richard Brown takes the news more calmly than I expected. "Lionel, he reaped what he sowed. And you did what you must." And then he adds, in an ominous tone, "As will I, when the time comes."

Jamie's voiceover on the ride home is taken from the Prologue to THE FIERY CROSS. I loved hearing it spoken out loud.

I have lived through war, and lost much. I know what’s worth the fight, and what is not. Honor and courage are matters of the bone, and what a man will kill for, he will sometimes die for, too.

And that, O kinsman, is why a woman has broad hips; that bony basin will harbor a man and his child alike. A man’s life springs from his woman’s bones, and in her blood is his honor christened.

For the sake of love alone, would I walk through fire again.

(From THE FIERY CROSS by Diana Gabaldon, "Prologue". Copyright© 2001 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

I didn't really care for the final scene between Roger and Bree. Much as I love Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken", I think the writer was trying too hard to make the point.

"We wanted the stones to take us home, and they did." OK, we get the idea! Is it really necessary to spell it out again?

The next scene, with Jamie and Claire, is very good. Claire looks battered, bruised, but happy to be alive, enjoying the pleasures of "an ordinary day" and Jamie's company. She's not yet fully recovered, but getting there.

Thunder rumbles ominously in the distance. There will be troubles yet to come, the Revolution, for one thing. But there's time enough to worry about that later.

I'm so glad they included the classic final line of THE FIERY CROSS, though they surely knew the book-fans were counting on hearing it:

“When the day shall come, that we do part,” he said softly, and turned to look at me, “if my last words are not ‘I love you’--ye’ll ken it was because I didna have time.”

(From THE FIERY CROSS by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 111, "And Yet Go Out To Meet It". Copyright© 2001 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

And I let out an involuntary "Awwwwww!!" at the words, as I always do.

The final scene shows Jamie and Claire in bed, naked, obviously having just had sex.

"Ye are a brave wee thing," Jamie says.
"Am I?"
"Aye. How do you feel?"
"Safe," she says, and relaxes, safe in his arms.

I really enjoyed the a capella version of the OUTLANDER theme music that accompanied the credits at the end of the episode.

This was a terrific season finale, a great way to wrap up Season 5!
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I hope you enjoyed this recap. Look here for my recaps of all of the OUTLANDER episodes.

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