Sam Heughan has always been good at putting things across without speech and really knocks it out of the park here. Naturally this isn’t an easy task as Jamie lies in bed almost catatonic as Claire does everything she can to help him. As I said, it was very difficult to watch.Ĭlaire has the task of trying to get Jamie through this mess and help him recover both physically and mentally.
Everything about this episode makes softness out to be a terrible thing as it causes the most damage. There’s a real sense that he is being torn apart and Heughan manages to portray that very powerfully.Ĭouple this with the excellent writing and direction and the drama is carried through the tenderness of the actions. Menzies playing Jack with a tenderness and soft toned voice makes what Randall is doing even more sickening and Sam Heughan manages to keep Jamie strong but shows his resolve waver subtly over time. Sam Heughan and Tobias Menzies turn in excellent performances throughout this whole ordeal. Their connection has always been a strong one and Randall definitely resents that for his own reasons so to be the cause of their relationship being destroyed is absolutely a massive victory for him. Turning him against Claire by having him associate these acts with her on a subconscious level is the perfect way to drive them apart in the way that Randall has always wanted. Logically the only way to really do permanent damage to Jamie -short of killing him but there’s no pleasure in that- is to stain his soul in a way that will be difficult to come back from.
The most prominent example being when Randall inflicted his scars on him in the first place. Throughout this season Jamie as always been depicted as a strong man who could bounce back from most physical injuries. This shows that Randall is truly an expert in this sort of treatment and knows his opponent well when turning his skills on Jamie. Arguably the most heinous of these is when he pretends to be Claire in order to plant seeds of hate and mistrust for when he is returned to her. His tactics range from physical to psychological acts of torture. Randall proves himself to be a truly evil character as he does whatever he can to tear Jamie apart on a personal level. Randall puts Jamie through some very horrific things I appreciated the execution but as I said it was all a bit much for me to look at. It was constantly depicted as brutal and demeaning as it should be. Nothing about this was even the least bit sensationalised.
I appreciated the cutting back and forth to it as well as it provided a welcome break from the intensity of it all. “To Ransom a Man’s Soul” proves to be an appropriate title as Jame’s soul has been irreparably stained by this idea. The episode structures Randall’s treatment of Jamie as a traumatic event that is being relived as Jamie lies in bed trying to recover.
OUTLANDER SEASON 1 EPISODE 16 TV
There will be those that are able to handle that a lot better than I can and I say more power to them.Ī lot of similar violent abuse depictions in film or TV seem to be just for shock value rather than serving any real story purpose but that certainly isn’t the case here. I won’t count that against the episode at large because that’s my personal issue and not the fault of the show that I can barely stomach it.
What was depicted here was incredibly unsettling to watch and probably means that I won’t be able to sit through this episode again. The previous episode was really graphic in the portrayal of torture that Jamie was experiencing at the hands of “Black Jack” Randall but this episode made that episode look tame by comparison. Outlander season 1 comes to an end and brings with it a massive level of intensity that holds the audience attention throughout.
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