Recap of Outlander
Season 5, Episode 12:
Never My Love
Jamie and his men go searching for Claire while she desperately tries to escape her captors. Roger and Brianna's attempt to return to the 20th century yields surprising results
Tropes
- Anachronistic Clue: Several scenes appear to take place in the 1960s. However, the characters themselves are the clue that it's not a real event as all of the characters depicted except Claire (Jamie, Jocasta, Ian, etc.) are confined to the 1770s.
- Asshole Victim: After all he's done, Lionel begins demanding food and pain relief and complaining about women.
- Awesome Anachronistic Apparel: Despite imagining Jamie in the safety of the 20th century, Claire does not mentally change his clothes. In fact, she regresses him to his highlander shirt from season 1, when he repeatedly came to her rescue.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Marsali refuses to let Lionel get away with hurting Claire and dispatches him herself after the man gloats about knowing he won't be hurt because his brother will protect him.
- Big Damn Heroes: Jamie and his men ride in like avenging angels. Ian is particularly fearsome, having learned how to use tomahawks during his time with the Mohawk.
- Break the Cutie: Invoked by Claire. With everything she's been through, she refuses to let this be what breaks her.Claire: I have lived through a fucking World War. I have lost a child. I lost two husbands. I've been starved with an army and I've been beaten and I've been betrayed and I've... I've been imprisoned and I did not... I survived. And this... I'm supposed to be shattered by this? Well, I won't be. Never.
- Broken Tears: After facing Lionel Brown for the first time after he had her kidnapped and raped, Claire holds it together long enough to get out of earshot then collapses and begins sobbing.
- But You Were There, and You, and You: Claire envisions herself living happily with Jamie in the 20th century and surrounded by family, with Ian, Fergus, Marsali, Germain, Jocasta and Murtagh all coming over for dinner and wearing "modern" clothes. (Ian is a private in the army visiting home on leave, and Fergus and Marsali appear to be hippies.) The exceptions are Brianna, Roger and Jemmy, who are said to be taking a long time to show up and eventually Claire is informed that they've died in a car crash, symbolizing how she doesn't expect to ever see them again after they departed for the standing stones in the real world.
- Bystander Syndrome: Neither Wendigo Donner nor Tibby are interested in hurting Claire, but they're too afraid of Lionel and his men to actually step in and help her.Jamie: Did he harm you?Claire: He didn't help me.
- Call-Back: Jamie wraps Claire in his plaid, picks her up, and carries her to safety. This is the exact same thing Murtagh did for Jamie when he was raped in season 1.
- Cassandra Truth: Claire warns Lionel's men that if they harm her they won't live to see the morning. They decide to teach her a lesson about threatening men by raping her. Jamie and his men show up in the middle of the night and kill everyone of them, save Lionel himself. Long before dawn, just as Claire warned.
- Commonality Connection: Claire, Jamie, and Brianna all share the unfortunate distinction of being rape survivors.
- Continuity Nod: Claire's dissociative mental landscape contains a number of nods to the past including the blue vase she wanted to buy in the series' premiere, the orange she received for sleeping with King Louis, and a blurry picture of the Big House at Fraser's Ridge on fire, reflecting her fear and uncertainty regarding the obituary Brianna brought to them.
- Corruption of a Minor: Lionel encourages his young nephew to join in on raping Claire.
- Despair Event Horizon: Claire is so emotionally overwhelmed, she goes catatonic and dissociates, dreaming of being safe with all of her love ones, celebrating Thanksgiving in the 20th century.
- Downfall by Sex: Lionel's posse's decision to rape Claire is what seals their fate, leading to them all being executed.
- Due to the Dead: Jamie takes Lionel's body back to Brownsville so that Richard can bury him properly.
- The Future Will Be Better: When Claire needs a mental safe space, she imagines all of her friends and family safe and sound in the 20th century.
- Gang of Bullies: Lionel and his men went out of their way to avoid the men of Fraser's Ridge but enjoy acting tough when it's just them against one single woman. When the Fraser men show up for the rescue, Lionel and his men are quickly running, hiding, cowering, and crying.
- Gondor Calls for Aid: Early in the season, Jamie swears an oath to serve the tenants of Fraser's Ridge and in turn they swear fealty to him. He builds a large Celtic cross and places it at the highest peak, promising he will not light it unless there is dire need. The rest of the season progresses, Jamie and Claire work to keep the residents safe and healthy. When Claire is kidnapped by a rival encampment, Jamie lights the cross. Within hours, all available fighting men on the Ridge have reported, ready help him recover his wife.
- Hope Spot: For a moment it looks like Tibby might help Claire escape only for Hodgepile to intervene and keep her from getting away.
- Inconvenient Hippocratic Oath: Because of her beliefs as a healer and the oath she swore to preserve life, Claire can't bring herself to kill Lionel in spite of a the Trauma Conga Line he put her through. Luckily for Claire, none of the rest of her family is bound by that oath and they make sure no one walks away from what was done to her.
- In Medias Res: The story begins with Claire restrained and already having been beaten and sexually assaulted, it then jumps between flashbacks of how she got there, her mental landscape, and Jamie's attempts to rescue her.
- I Owe You My Life: The men who go with Jamie to rescue Claire give this as their reason, most having either been helped or saved by one or both of the Frasers.
- Jerk Justifications: Lionel and his men kidnap Claire because they believe she deserves to be punished for telling women to avoid sex during certain times of the month to avoid pregnancy, thereby denying them their "god-given" husbandly right to sex whenever they want it.
- Karmic Death: Richard Brown says that Lionel earned the death that he received.
- Knight in Shining Armor: Through her ordeal, Claire keeps imagining Jamie in his Highland kilt, wrapping her up safe and warm.
- Lack of Empathy: When Wendigo learns that Claire is a fellow time traveler, he tells her that she should learn to be more submissive to men and leaves her to be raped.
- Leave No Survivors: When Claire is unable to identify the specific men who raped her, Jamie orders all the men who helped abduct her be killed so that no guilty party escapes justice.
- Lock-and-Load Montage: Features Ian shaving his hair and donning Mohawk war paint, the men distributing and readying rifles, and saddling the horses.
- Madden Into Misanthropy: Invoked. Claire says she's glad Jamie and the other killed all of Lionel's men, but she hates that she feels that way because she's sworn herself to the preservation of life, even at cost to self.
- Meaningful Echo:
- When Jamie finds Claire, he tells her she is alive and she's whole. This is the same thing he told Roger after they rescued him from his hanging.
- In an attempt to feel safe within her mind, Claire imagines being safe in a house with Jamie. Dream Jamie wraps a blanket around Claire's shoulder and repeats the same line real Jamie said to Claire the first day they met when he wrapped his plaid around her to keep her safe and warm.Dream Jamie: You're shaking so hard, you're making my teeth rattle.
- My God, What Have I Done?: After poisoning Lionel Brown, Marsali falls into a Heroic BSoD, afraid that Brown's ghost will haunt her or that she'll go to hell for having killed him.
- Now, Let Me Carry You:
- Claire is the healer for Fraser's Ridge and has helped many of the residents recover from illnesses. When she is kidnapped, the men do not hesitate to join Jamie in searching for her. When they find her and discover she has been brutally gang raped, they don't hesitate when Jamie commands them to kill all of the men in the camp.
- Jamie and Brianna, who Claire supported after they were raped, let her know that she has their full support and they are willing to help her in any way she needs.
- Oh, Crap!: Brianna and Roger's reaction when they see the "For Emergencies Only" cross on fire.
- Physical Scars, Psychological Scars: As Jamie and Claire hold hands, the camera pans over his hand and her face which bear the physical reminders of their rapes. Jamie has had time to heal but Claire is just beginning her recovery journey
- P.O.V. Cam: Claire's rescue is shown rotated 90 degrees to the right because it's seen from Claire's point of view as she lays on the ground.
- Rape as Drama: Angry with Claire for distributing medical advice about how to avoid pregnancy, Lionel Brown and his men kidnap Claire and decide to rape her to "put her in her place". The episode focuses on Claire's mental efforts to cope and Jamie's efforts to first rescue her and the avenge her once he learns what's happened.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: When Claire indicates that so many of Lionel's men have raped her that she can't even identify them all, Jamie orders them all killed. Together, Fergus, Ian, John Quincy Meyers, and the others line up all of Lionel's men and execute them one by one.
- Sex for Solace: Jamie and Claire are shown cuddling post coitus. Jamie tells her she is brave, knowing how long it took him to recover enough to be able to have sex again following his own rape.
- A subtle divergence from the book, in which shortly after they arrive home from her rescue, Jamie has to delicately suggest to Claire that they have sex as soon as possible so that if she ends up pregnant, it will at least be plausible the baby is Jamie's rather than that of her rapist. Once they've done so, Jamie admires her bravery and her refusal to be broken by what was done to her.
- Shower of Angst: Claire bathes as soon as she gets home. She continually scrubs at her skin until she gets frustrated and gives up.
- Significant Wardrobe Shift: When Jamie goes to rescue Claire, he puts on his tartan kilt indicating that he's done being Colonel Fraser and the Browns are about to meet Red Jamie.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: Claire mentally plays a song about unconditional love while trying to dissociate while being raped.
- Tempting Fate: Lionel tells Marsali that he knows nothing will happen to him because the Frasers won't risk pissing off Lionel's older brother. He then spews misogynistic stuff about wanting women to serve him food with a smile. Marsali doesn't smile. Instead, she injects him with the poison that kills him.
- Trauma Button: Rape is particularly triggering for the Fraser men, with Jamie, Fergus, and Ian having been raped themselves. When they discover what Lionel and his men have done to Claire, the order is issued to kill them all.
- Traveling at the Speed of Plot: It takes Roger, Brianna, and Ian over two weeks to get to the stone circle, but they are able to get back to Fraser's Ridge in the time it takes Jamie to light the cross and gather men for Claire's rescue.
- Vagueness Is Coming: Richard Brown warns Jamie that they're not done yet.Richard Brown: Lionel, he reaped what he sowed. And you did what you must. As will I, when the time comes.
- Wham Line:Jamie: Kill them all.
- Would Hit a Girl: Lionel and his men have no problem punching Claire or cutting her.
