‘Outlander’ recap: The one where no one’s ready

There is never enough time.

There are always errands to run and places to be, there are meals to prepare and emails to return, there are dishes to wash and bills to pay.

The same is true on “Outlander,” no matter the era the show inhabits. There will always be famines to prepare for and wars to fight and a future to change. But there never will be enough time.

That’s what makes “Je Suis Prest” (the family motto of the Frasers; medieval French for “I am ready”) such a precious episode of “Outlander.” There is finally time enough for nothing to happen. And, as so often happens in real life, it’s when you stop to take a breath that the weight of the world descends upon you.

What has been easy to forget in watching the adventures of Claire Randall Fraser over the past two seasons is that this is a woman who has, had, faced so much in such a short amount of time. When first we meet Claire, she is newly free from the active horrors of World War II and beginning to navigate the tricky waters of matrimony, before suddenly being transported through time to 1700s Scotland and, eventually, into the heart and life of a passionate Highlander.

Since then, there have been threats of rape, acts of violence, witch trials, poisonings, whippings, births and deaths and every imaginable horror in between but only now, as Jamie prepares his troops for war, does Claire have time.

And with that time, within those preparations for war, Claire finds herself transported to a moment in her life that she had closed off, hoping to never deal with again and forced to work through something that has haunted her for years.

As it happens, during the waning days of the war, after D-day even, Claire was nearly killed during a transport and spent a single night laying in a trench, curled in the fetal position, listening to a dying friend cry for his mother.

Something I’ve dinged “Outlander” on time and again is that there is rarely enough space to see the fallout of the trauma the characters suffer. By showing Claire’s flashbacks to the war, the series provides not just the catalyst of a traumatic event, but the catharsis of watching the character work through the aftermath.

When Claire violently reacts to the idea of going back into a war zone, she’s reacting not just to what she experienced in her past, but what she’s experienced every day since. Though she’s gained so much since she slipped through the stones, the amount she’s lost is truly staggering. She’s lost Geillis and, for now at least, Master Raymond and Louise. She’s lost Faith. But more than even any of that, she lost the life she left behind.

While Claire may not want to go back to Frank or her old life, there is still a need to mourn the life she once knew, just as there’s a need to mourn the soldiers she watched die and the child she cradled in her arms before placing it in the ground.

“Outlander” has done a phenomenal job of allowing Jamie to process the trauma he experienced in Season One but has never been able to afford the same luxury for Claire. With “Faith,” and now “Je Suis Prest,” we’re reminded that Claire’s ability to constantly move forward after a loss comes at a price and that, eventually, all debts must be paid in full.

“Je Suis Prest” won’t be an episode for everyone. It’s an hour dedicated to the tediousness of war and the idea that no one, not even Claire, is fully prepared for the future to arrive. It brings Dougal and Rupert and Angus back into the fold and it allows plenty of time for Jamie and Murtagh to show off their military prowess.

But most importantly it’s an episode about Claire and Jamie both fully committing to the battle to come.

Claire wants to run, understands that she doesn’t have the stomach for another war, particularly one that’s not hers to fight, but even in this moment she understands that the way she failed the men she watched die was not in living, but in not bearing witness to their sacrifice.

As much as she tells herself that she closed the door on that night and never thought of it again, her affectations suggest otherwise. Her trademark muttering of “Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ” was a phrase gleaned from her American soldier friend.

Claire doesn’t want to stand by and watch the people she loves die, but she realizes the solution isn’t in running away, it’s in standing by their side, no matter what the outcome. You cannot hide from death and you can’t outrun it. The only thing you can do is accept that it will come for us all.

When she tells Jamie about her night spent in the trench, Claire speaks of feeling trapped like “a dragonfly in amber,” a reference to the book the series adapts for its second season. With “Je Suis Prest,” Claire finally comes to terms with her past and her pain and, in doing so, comes to realize that she is ready.

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