The dream Claire (Caitriona Balfe) escapes into given precise focus; the reality of an aggravated assault by a gang of men blurred so Claire distanced from us into a ghost-like nightmare presence
You ask me if there’ll come a time
When I grow tired of you
Never my love
Never my love
You wonder if this heart of mine
Will lose its desire for you
Never my love
Never my love
What makes you think love will end
When you know that my whole life depends
On you (on you)
Never my love
Never my love
You say you fear I’ll change my mind
And I won’t require you
Never my love
Never my love
How can you think love will end
When I’ve asked you to spend your whole life
With me (with me, with me)
— Don and Dick Addrisi
Dear friends and readers,
This is the toughest episode in all five seasons but one, the rape and aggravated assault of Jamie (Sam Heughan) by Black Jack Randall, evil doppelganger for Frank Randall (both played by Tobias Menzies). The earlier profoundly distressing episode (S1;E15 and 16) differs from this last of Claire (S5:E12): Jamie is raped by one man who seeks to shatter his personality and make Jamie subject to him, be willing to be made love to and the writer and director shot the scene in graphic (revolting) detail; Claire raped but also beaten, brutalized, cut by a gang of men led by Lionel Browne (Ned Dennehy) who loathes and wants to take revenge on Claire for her ways of helping women socially (by advice) as well as medically (contraceptive means), and the detail of what is done to her is kept just out of sight; we see the effects on her body and face only. But I was, if possible, more grieved for Claire because she overtly suffers much so much more physically and emotionally while it is happening & seems to remain more consciously aware of things around her (she tries to persuade individuals to enable her to escape) — and she grieves afterwards for a time so much more despairingly.
Far shot of Brianna helping Claire to bathe turns to close-ups of Claire dealing with her sore wounded body in the denouement of the episode
In any case, in neither configuration is the rape treated lightly; in both the incident is found in the book. A regular criticism of any frequency of rape in a series (and this is true for Outlander as well as as well as Games of Thrones) is that it’s not taken seriously, there for titillation, suggests that women don’t suffer that much or want this; is not integrated into the film story; e.g., Jennifer Phillips, “Confrontational Content, Gendered Gazes and the Ethics of Adaptation,” from Adoring Outlander, ed. Valerie Frankel. None of these things are true of Outlander: in both cases and the other cases, e.g, Black Jack Randall’s attempt on Jenny Fraser Murray (Laura Donnelly); the hired assassin/thug of Mary Hawkins (Rosie Day), Stephen Bonnet (Ed Speleers) of Brianna Randall Mackenzie (Sophie Skelton), the incidents have a profound effect on the victim or her friends, or the story. The assault on Jamie was part of the assault on Scotland by England, turning it into a savagely put-down exploited colony. The rape of Claire is part of the raging fury igniting the coming revolutionary war, which we see the first effects of in this season in the burnt house Jamie, Claire, Brianna and Roger (Richard Rankin) come across (Episode 11). What happens to Jamie in the first season and Claire in this fifth goes beyond such parallels to provide an ethical outlook that speaks to our own time. We are in political hostage territory, traumatized woman treated as hated thing; with a modern resonance of violation of the soul never quite brought back to what he or she was.
Jamie has wrapped Claire in the same tartan he did in the first season’s first episode
Paradoxically artistically the use of a dream setting and images conjured up by Claire’s mind as she lays on the ground being violated makes the episode into an anguished, agonized lyric. We know that Roger first and then Brianna have longed to return to the safety and modern occupations of the 20th century, and tried to return, but found their home is now with Claire and Jamie in 18th century North Carolina, Fraser’s Ridge; Claire’s dream reveals she too longs to return, but with Jamie, who appears in the scenes except unlike the other 18th century characters who appear in 20th century dress (e.g., Jocasta (Maria Doyle Kennedy) as a modern upper class lady; Ian (John Bell) as a marine, Marsali (Lauren Lyle), Jamie is dressed in an 18th century dress. It recurs as frequently as the supposed real scenes of the 18th century, is thoroughly intertwined, alternated so the rape/assault action becomes almost ritualized). This has the effect of distancing us from the horror (for Jamie takes an unforgiving revenge and orders everyone lined up and shot), except again in the dream we see Lionel at the table and then as a police officer come to tell Claire and Jamie that Roger, Brianna, and Jemmy won’t make this Thanksgiving dinner (Jamie speaks of a turkey) because they’ve been killed in an auto accident.
The denouement did not have the escape dream in it but traces Claire’s difficult beginning inner journey not to remain shattered by this, but as she has done in other dire situations before, put herself together again, calm, control, stoic endurance slowly the way – with Jamie hovering in the background, Brianna offering to listen.
The closing shots as Jamie and Claire accept the future will hold further harsh experience, which may bring the death they have read in the obituary for them Roger located in the 20th century Scottish library
The background music was not background but foreground in feel and played over and over, “Never my love,” one of the most popular songs of the 20th century, is a key epitaph for the entire series of films and books: Jamie and Claire have built their life together across centuries, and drawn to them, all the couples and people of Fraser’s Ridge, because of this unbreakable unending love. I feel it speaks for the way I feel about Jim and prefer to believe he felt about me. It’s haunting rhythms and instruments riveted me.
A woman’s hands in mid-20th century garb putting on a long-playing record is among the first stills of the episode
The episode could not have been more perfect nor had more appropriate closing vignettes: Jocasta’s song remembering Murtagh (Duncan Lacroix). Ian’s traditional heroic behavior; Marsali killing Lionel Brown through injection when instead of showing gratitude for having been kept alive, he treats her with utter contempt reminded me of Mary Hawkins killing her rapist (second season). The playfulness of the characters who turn up in Claire’s twentieth century home. Brianna and Roger settling down to live the life of an 18th century couple on this family estate.
As they came to the Ridge from the scene of high violence, Jamie speaks the beautiful over-voice meant to encapsulate his code of life, and as he is giving his life to these people so they are all willing to accede to, form themselves around his identity too:
I have lived through war and lost much.
I know what’s worth a fight and what’s not
Honor and courage are matters of the bone
And what a man will kill for
he’ll sometimes die for too.
A man’s life springs from his woman’s bones
And in her blood is his honor christened.
For the sake of love alone
will I walk through fire again.
Ellen And Jim Have A Blog, Two 
I forgot to say the first and second time I watched the episode I cried and cried. When Jamie finally comes upon Claire and the camera looks full on her beaten distressed face and body, I just burst into tears, and cried and cried during the sequence when he picked her up and carried her off, and the ones where we see her suffering so badly from nervous distress. I don’t think I ever once cried in all the Poldark movies or these Outlanders before. I have been very moved now and again by the books — mostly the second and parts of the third (Dragonfly in Amber and Voyager) during long subjective diary like entries by Claire. The scene of him carrying her did not seem at all a cliché either. E.M.
On crying: I cried when she cried in the hallway, after not killing Lionel. I cried when Jamie told Brianna that his Gaelic enderments meant “My darling” and “my blessing.” I believe I cried in the scene where J & C camped and made elegiac love after Haye’s hanging. He tells her their love will continue after death only transmute. She says “that’s the second law of thermo-dynamics”.
He replies “No, it’s faith.”
I remember someone I know saying (of a girl who had been raped) that “she will get over it”. I believe this episode shows the horror of being raped and being in fear for your life and shows you do not “just get over it”.
I agree. On the DVD there is a feature where the writers, director and Caitriona Balfe discuss the episode and make the point they aimed at being respectful of all women who have endured such an experience, at (in short) of taking it seriously. The director said he was concerned not to be voyeuristic, and he was not.
[…] Outlander, Season 5: Episode 12: The Rape of Claire […]
To your point of modern resonance, violation of soul and never the same again. As Jamie’s rape pertains to the eradication of Highland culture* and Claire’s to the internecine rage of the American Revolution, so too, our American soul has been violated by the Thug Regime and its 70 million plus adherents(as indeed they feel violated and violate our social-cultural compact) . Also, Black Lives and Souls continually violated, never let to be as they are/once might have been born.
I’ve noticed that most of the graphic violence in seasons 4 and 5 have been stylized pieces of cinema.The musical slo-mo of Stephen Bonnet’s attack during
their first trip on the Cape Fear River, slow-motion slitting of Lesley’s throat. the silent film treatment of Roger’s hanging. And the coup de grace, retro fantasy “Never My Love” for Claire’s gang-rape. I notice that this use of music and slow motion, and heightened or muted colors, makes it less difficult to watch than some of the earlier graphic violence, in particular Jamie’s torture and rape at Wentworth. It was still really appalling, but I’m curious what others make of this change in the aesthetics of violence. On a panel, I remember Moore saying he did not want to present stylized violence but wanted violence to be felt and depicted as what it truly costs. Balfe and Heughan were made executive producers with say in the story line and productions for these last two seasons, not for first three; might this have something to do with both the excellence of the pacing and depth of drama and stillness that you so finely encapsulate? And perhaps they wanted to take a different tack with the violence as well?
I like the choices they make in these violent scenes but I am still curious to understand the distinction between that and say, Angus’ death or Sandringham’s beheading.
[ Boys and young men of starving homeless Highlanders then conscripted as canon fodder for British Army, where they died in much higher proportions than did their fellow (British) soldiers; eventually Highland Regiments and officers distinguished themselves as loyal and ferocious subjects, burning and killing Cherokee in 7 Years War. ]
I did notice that Balfe and Heughan were made executive producers for these last two seasons. The parallels between Jamie’s experience in prison (where he was in effect enslaved), as a Highlander under the oppression harassment of the British as a colony, and between Scots
and Native Americans are made explicit in Seasons 4 and 5. Jamie has lines to this effect.
I felt Season 5 to be quite different from all the other seasons and put it down to Roger Moore being more distant from what was going on. The slower pace, the careful limitation of violence (and the choice not to stylize) and how it was treated with real seriousness every time, a number of things. Toni Graphia and Matthew Roberts are more in charge.
Hmm. I think it the violence is distinctly framed, in both the Moore-influenced and 4 and 5 in a manner that could be called stylized. But the aim, in all versions, I think is not violence-as-amusement.
And yes,Jamie, acknowledges that the American Dream Claire explains to him can be somebody else’s nightmare. And JQMeyer alludes to the disappearance of the Tuscarora Villages. However, during the time Jamie was enslaved at Hellwater, there were real Highlanders burning and killing Tuscarora and Cherokee out in North Carolina in the most horrendous massacres. Certain Scottish officers actually objected to the absolute brutality of policy and suggested it could be otherwise, although they carried it out.
The lKing’s and Jamie and Claire receive is perhaps land gained this way and that isn’t really emphasized in the TV series.
*The King’s land Jamie and Claire receive
But I was, if possible, more grieved for Claire because she overtly suffers much so much more physically and emotionally while it is happening & seems to remain more consciously aware of things around her (she tries to persuade individuals to enable her to escape) — and she grieves afterwards for a time so much more despairingly.
I have a confession. I found the above comment to be just a little disturbing. I cannot grieve for one victim of rape more than another or the others. I feel that all of them – Jamie, Ian, Brianna and Claire – all suffered from physical, sexual and emotional violation. Even the thought of what all of them had suffered – including Roger’s hanging – is disturbing to me.
Well I felt the treatment of the gang-rape (they beat, knife, and humiliate her) and her distraught suffering afterwards was much more massive than the treatment of violations and rapes of most of the other characters. It’s how the rape is represented because we are watching artful fiction. So, for example, when she is raped by French king in Season 2, she seems to barely register what happened and it is done in such a rapid stylized fashion. I grant the violation, rape and torture of Jamie at the end of Season 1 is similarly massive, and he becomes suicidal. But the moments afterwards in the monastery lacked the poignancy in the way Claire was represented in this fifth season.
[…] Outlander — poster for 6th season, a key sentiment for me for my love of the series: they will be together forever come what may (as in the haunting song, Never My Love) […]
[…] Brianna (Sophia Skelton) helping Claire (Caitriona Balfe) to bathe — after she is brought back to Fraser’s Ridge from gang-rape (Season 5, Episode 12: Never My Love) […]