‘Outlander’ season 2, episode 2 review: The many haunts of Black Jack Randall
Through most of the first two episodes of “Outlander” season 2, we have seen what we would say is a singular depiction of Black Jack Randall as a ghost. He haunts the dreams of Jamie Fraser, and he keeps Claire consistently worried about his physical and mental state. While they may be far away from Scotland in France, it is the idea of the man’s very presence on this Earth that sends a chill down our heroes’ spine.
And yet, this is the position that we now find ourselves in coming out of Saturday’s new episode “Not in Scotland” anymore. While Jamie and Claire found themselves free of Jack’s torment and focused on orchestrating the Jacobite Rebellion in Versailles, that relative peace was short-lived. Jonathan’s brother Alex Randall revealed this news to them while serving under the employ of the Duke of Sandringham, yet another person who Claire was probably not looking forward to seeing.
Now, our heroine is facing the terrible idea of having to tell Jamie the truth regarding this revelation, or risk him learning via some other means. Yet, this is only one issue that the couple likely faces while firmly entrenched in France.
Take, for example, the idealistic viewpoint of the great revolutionary Prince Charles, a man desperate to bring the great clans of Scotland together without any true idea for how they run. Instead, he seems more of an expert of ways of the brother. Or, take a look at the already-complicated relations between the Frasers and the king, in particular with Jamie jettisoning a certain minister into the water over getting a little close to Claire and her red dress.
Is there also a personal struggle ahead for our heroes? It’s certainly possible with the arrival of Annalise de Marillac, a one-time target of Jamie’s affections back when he was previously in France. Given the way hearts work sometimes, it is certainly feasible that she could want Jamie more now that she seems him happy with someone else in Claire. This is certainly a dynamic worth watching out for as the story progresses.
The first element of this episode worth significant praise comes via the costume department, as the entire look and feel of the French court and politics were presented beautifully. There may not be another period show on TV presented with both magic and authenticity. Meanwhile, the performances were once again outstanding, with Duncan Lacroix being somewhat of an unsung hero for his at-times-bumbling Murtagh, who is really our fish out of water more so than Jamie and Claire.
Story-wise, we will admit that there were some frustrations with this episode, with some of them stemming from the amount of time we spent hearing about the French standard of feminine hygiene as opposed to seeing and understand more of the Jacobite mission, or even getting more scenes regarding Jamie and Claire becoming adjusted to life in Paris running Jared’s estate. We did get a nice scene between Claire and one of her maids in terms of how she is handling the adjustment, but this is something the show could expounded up both in terms of character development and giving us a sense of their place within the world. We do know that there is a lot of ground to cover this season, so the show has to pick and choose some of its battles. With that, we would argue that the opening scene with Jamie seeing Jack, while jarring, may not have been necessary since we got a similar sense from his sex scene with Claire later.
Still, we will not spend too much time complaining about allocation of time in the midst of what is still an outstanding show, and what was a very strong episode. While it may not have had the complete spark of the premiere, it continues to set the table for some delicious drama to come. Grade: B+.
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