![]() ![]() Ian has two very interesting conversations while settling in at Fraser’s Ridge. But it becomes clear it is much, much more than that. Part of it is surely the transition between living amongst the Mohawk and then moving into the Big House at Fraser’s Ridge. It’s not just his appearance, either - his entire demeanor is different. Jamie and Claire are beyond excited to see him, but Ian has changed. Jamie is pretty quick with his knife, but he doesn’t need to be: An arrow comes flying through the air and takes that boar down. She just wants her husband back.īut wait! Who is this Third Sad Man, you ask? Well, one day, while Jamie and Claire are out in the woods playing with Jemmy and just being the hottest grandparents you’ve ever seen, a wild boar jumps out of the brush. When Lord John Grey arrives with a “sorry I hanged your son-in-law, my bad” letter (and an astrolabe!) for Jamie from Tryon, Bree doesn’t care about the five acres of land the governor gifts her and Roger for his little whoopsie-daisy. But she gets nothing out of him except for the one time he screams “don’t!” when Jemmy almost touches a hot tea kettle. But she knew she had to fight for her son and her husband and she needs Roger to do that for her. She tries to remind him that she, too, has been through something so unspeakable that she “wanted to crawl into a hole and die.” That sometimes she still does. ![]() ![]() She knows he has lost his voice, “his gift” (and now we know why Outlander had Roger singing so much this season). I get that we’re supposed to be inside Roger’s pain, but wow show, once was more than enough.Įveryone is worried about Roger, but none more than Bree, who has to watch her husband zombie it up day in and day out. In true “ Outlander loves to hammer home the trauma” fashion, we have to watch his hanging repeatedly. He keeps replaying what happened over and over. But that’s what is wrong with Roger, he’s suffering from PTSD. Claire and Bree have an interesting conversation about shell shock - Claire knows it from her time in War World II, Bree knows vets from Vietnam - since in neither of their times has the term PTSD started being used. Three months after Claire saves Roger’s life, Roger is physically fine, but he still hasn’t spoken one word since it happened and is extremely withdrawn. It seems wholly unnecessary and distracts from the intensity of what’s being depicted, but sure. Every time Roger flashes back to that awful day at Alamance, it’s done like a silent film. The episode has a “silent movie” theme to tie into a flash to Oxford in 1969, when Roger and Bree would see silent movies and teach history classes about famous last words because our words define us. As many people surmised (and book readers knew), Roger survived his hanging at the hands of Governor Tryon, who wanted to make an example out of Regulator prisoners, not knowing Roger was amongst them. Jamie isn’t the Sad Man we’re most concerned about at the moment, though. Jamie’s so deep in his sadness that he even asks Claire if there’s a medicine he could take that would eat away at his grief. Aunt Jocasta is at the Ridge to visit Murtagh’s grave (he’s still watching over Jamie, I am a human shell) and destroy all of us emotionally with a line so devastating I’m honestly mad at it: “How careful we’d be if we kent which good-byes were our last,” she lovingly says to her nephew before leaving for River Run. Of course Jamie is still a complete mess over losing Murtagh - we all are. It’s been three months since the tragedies that befell the Frasers at the Battle of Alamance. So, what are the Sad Adult Men sad about? Let’s talk about it. But that rage is for me to take out on my TV by myself. Unfortunately, Claire’s been mostly sidelined this season even though she is literally keeping Fraser’s Ridge alive with her DIY penicillin. ![]() Listen, I’m not trying to belittle or make fun of the reasons the three Sad Boys are so sad in “Famous Last Words,” but there did come a point in this episode when I desperately wanted War Nurse Claire to walk out and be like “give it a rest, we’re all sad!” As we all know, the English are great about all that “keep calm and carry on” stuff. Fear not! Outlander has us covered in that regard. It’s all revolution and tossing tea into harbors and having rap battles about national debt - but not much about all the brooding going on. History books fail to mention just how many Sad Adult Men were wandering around in Colonial America. ![]()
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