Recap / Outlander S 3 E 2 Surrender

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Recap of Outlander
Season 3, Episode 2:

Surrender

Six years after the terrible events of Culloden, Jamie has resigned himself to a lonely life, refuging in a hidden cave on his family's land to avoid capture, until the threat to Lallybroch by Redcoats pursuing the elusive Jacobite traitor known as "Red Jamie" reaches a breaking point. Back in Boston, Claire tries to make good on her promise of a fresh start, but she and Frank struggle to coexist in a marriage haunted by the ghost of Jamie's love.

Tropes

• An Arm and a Leg: Fergus loses his left hand at the wrist when he gets into a fight with Scottish soldiers of the Crown.
• Armor-Piercing Response: Frank and Claire rarely have sex. When they do, Claire is slow to allow kisses and keeps her eyes closed the entire time. Finally, Frank asks her to open her eyes, stopping when she refuses to do so. It's the last time they attempt to have sex.
  Frank: Why can't you look at me?
  Claire: Christ, Frank. If you're not in the mood, you just had to say.
  Frank: Claire, when I'm with you... I'm with you... but you're with him.
• Bittersweet Ending: For Jamie. While his actions protect Lallybroch from the redcoats, he is sent to prison in shackles, with a deadened look in his eyes.
• Broken Ace: Once the proud Laird of Lallybroch, a husband, an expectant father, and the revered and feared commander of a fighting unit, Jamie is forced into exile, an unkempt and lonely fugitive who can barely make contact with civilization for fear of capture. Not that he wants to socialize, nearly crippled with grief for the wife he'll never see again and the unborn child he'll never meet.
• The Bus Came Back: Minor characters, but Fergus, Rabbie McNabb, and Wee Jamie were all featured in early season plots, Fergus as Jamie's accomplice in France, Rabbie McNabb in Jamie's disastrous attempts to be Laird, and Wee Jamie as a source of contention between Jamie and Jenny when Jamie thought the boy the bastard son of Black Jack Randall.
• Call-Back: Fergus talks with the boys about fighting at Prestonpans. Of course, he makes himself sound more like a courageous berserker, savaging the enemy lines, than a young boy nearly mute with shock after having to kill a man to save his own life.
• Career-Ending Injury: Once Fergus' hand is cut off, he can no longer work as a pickpocket. In addition to making it too difficult to do the sleight of hand required, a missing hand is the commonly known punishment of a thief who has been caught, which would make people pay more attention to what Fergus is doing.
• Category Traitor: The Scottish redcoat, MacGregor is the most vicious of the soldiers. He kicks Young Jamie, threatens to hang the women and children, sneers that he's glad of it when told that Jenny's baby was born stillborn, and cuts off Fergus' hand when Fergus tells him the English will never consider MacGregor their equal. Jenny even points out that some of MacGregor's family fought in the previous uprising, making them no better than the rest of the Highlanders even if they had switched to King George's for the most recent clash.
• Celibate Hero: Jamie has not slept with anyone since Claire went back through the stones six years prior.
• Chekhov's Gun: The gun Fergus finds in the beginning of the episode is later used to shoot down a raven, which leads to the English soldiers invading Lallybroch.
• Comforting The Widower: It's an unspoken fact at Lallybroch that Jamie has not been with another woman since being separated from Claire. While Jamie knows that Claire is still alive and he's simply keeping to his vows, everyone else believes she's dead and attempts to pair him with women who might be able to provide him physical comfort. Mary McNabb finally convinces him to have sex as an act of physical comfort and connection before turning himself in to the Redcoats to be imprisoned, possibly for the rest of his life.
• Commonality Connection: Ian discusses what life will be like for Fergus without his hand, using his own missing leg as a point of reference. He comments that Jamie probably understands the concept of phantom limb, even though his loss is not physical, but rather emotional having lost Claire, his heart.
• Disproportionate Retribution: MacGregor chops off Fergus' hand because Fergus insulted him.
• Early-Bird Cameo: This episodes features the birth of Young Ian, Jamie's nephew who will become a part of the regular cast as an adult after Season 3's Time Skip is complete.
• Elective Mute: Jamie has become very withdrawn with little to say to anyone. Most of his scenes are people talking at him with little to no response.
• End of an Age: The era of the Highlander Clans has come to an end. Following Culloden, outward displays of Highland culture are outlawed and most of the warriors have been killed. Those who have not are either exiled or imprisoned.
• Exact Words: Frank is surprised when Claire initiates intimate contact. Claire explains by saying "I miss my husband". But her behavior throughout the episode makes it clear to the viewer that she's referring to Jamie, with whom she had a verra healthy sex life, rather than Frank.
• Excessive Mourning: Following Claire's retreat through the rocks, Jamie is nearly crippled with grief, rejecting any and all attempts to make him feel better. It is not until Fergus is maimed that he finally snaps out of it and remembers that he still has family that loves him and cares for him and needs his protection.
• Eyes Never Lie:
  • Frank demands that Claire open her eyes and actually look at him while they're having sex. Her refusal puts an end to their activities as Frank does not want to have sex with Claire, knowing full well that she's imagining it to be with Jamie.
  • Jamie choses to close his eyes while with Mary MacNab
• Fearless Fool: Despite having witnessed the horrors of war first hand, Fergus is anxious to throw himself into the rebellion. He's particularly enamored with the idea of shooting guns, which are outlawed in the Highlands, and calling out the one Scottish redcoat officer. His reckless behavior brings the redcoats down on Lallybroch after he shoots a gun, his teasing ends with his hand being cut off, and Jamie allows himself to be captured in order to keep things from escalating any further.

• Freeze-Frame Bonus: The wanted poster for Dunbonnet (Jamie)
  Wanted by the Lords Justices, Offering a reward to any person who shall seize and secure the infamous outlaw known in these parts as the Dunbonnet
• A Friend in Need: Mary offers Jamie Sex for Solace to give them both something to hold onto during the bleak times ahead of them.
• Heroic BSoD: Jamie has been in one for nearly seven years by the time the episode starts. He refuses to talk to Jenny and is so numb that he doesn't appear to care about anything.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Jamie makes his family "betray him" and have him arrested by the English so that Lallybroch will be safe from the redcoats.
• Jerkass: When told that Jenny's baby was stillborn, Corporal MacGregor says that's a good thing as it's one less Highlander for them to deal with. He's being such a jerk, even the British Captain, who's not exactly a nice guy, tells him to rein it in. MacGregor is visibly disappointed that he's not allowed to arrest Jenny or the Midwife and drag them to jail mere hours after giving birth.
• Misery Trigger: Although sad, Jamie seems to be enjoying spending time with his new nephew. However, when Jenny begins to suggest that he should remarry and that it's a high shame that he's never had the chance to bring a child into the world. Jamie sharply shuts down the conversation and walks away, knowing that he's actually fathered two children, one that was born stillborn and one that is living with Claire in the distant future.
• The Mourning After: Jamie is in a perpetual state of grief over being separated from Claire and their unborn child.
• Police Brutality: The Redcoats are relentless and brutal in their harassment, manhandling Ian who has difficulty walking with a peg leg, repeatedly arresting him simply because they can, threatening to hang the children, harassing Jenny who has clearly just given birth, and eventually maiming Fergus out of frustration of being unable to locate Jamie.
• Refusal of the Second Call: Jamie absolutely refuses to entertain Fergus' starry eyed notions of the "Next Rebellion." This is even more prominent in the Lord John Grey books where Jamie is repeatedly offered chances to escape to France and be part of an Irish Jacobite plot. Free Jacobites are very willing to take risks for the chance to have Red Jamie back in play.
• Sex for Solace: Jamie and Mary MacNab engage in this, to bolster themselves in the midst of the bleakness and suffering they are enduring.
• Single Tear: Jamie silently cries when Mary speaks of Claire just before their dalliance.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Despite their unending love for one another, Claire and Jamie are separated by two hundred years and the fact that Claire is unaware that Jamie survived Culloden. It will be twenty years before they are able to reunite.
• Stepford Smiler: Claire puts on a brave face when interacting with Frank or strangers, but in her more private moments it's clear that it's just a facade and she is still grieving for Jamie and the life they had together.
• Time Skip: Jamie's plot in this episode takes place six years after the previous one; Claire's takes place after only a few months.
• Trauma Conga Line: This episode continues Jamie's.
• Unfocused During Intimacy: More than once Claire is shown to be closing her eyes while having sex with Frank, something he said she never did before her time away. During their last time together, Frank stops mid-act when she refuses to open her eyes, knowing that she is mentally imagining being with Jamie.
• Wham Line: "Jamie Fraser hasna been here for a long time."
• Wham Shot: The camera pans to reveal that while Claire and Frank still share a bedroom, they now sleep in separate twin beds, signifying that their physical relationship is completely dead.
• Would Hurt a Child: MacGregor doesn't hesitate to slice off Fergus's hand with his sword after Fergus insults him. He also doesn't have any moral qualms about hurting anyone at Lallybroch, including the women and children, if they are suspected of hiding Red Jamie.