Outlander: Blood Of My Blood Premiere Recap: Jamie's And Claire's Folks Fall In Love In Sexy Prequel — Plus, Grade It!
"Ye are blood of my blood, and bone of my bone. I give ye my body, that we two might be one. I give ye my spirit, 'til our life shall be done."
Remember those words, Outlander faithful? As if we could forget Jamie and Claire's wedding vows, aka the incantation that formalized the greatest time-travel-assisted love story ever known. But now we've got a couple more contenders for that title, courtesy of the Starz series' new prequel, Blood of My Blood.
The new series follows the romances of Jamie's and Claire's parents. If you're new to the Outlanderverse and you're like, "Jamie who? Claire what? And what in the world is a sassenach?," don't worry. I've got you covered. And if you're an Oldlander who's been watching the original show with me for years, welcome! We'll have a braw time, starting with a recap of the prequel series' two-episode premiere, which aired/started streaming Friday.
MEET THE MACKENZIES | The show begins immediately after the death of "Red" Jacob MacKenzie, head of his clan and father of daughters Ellen (played by Harriet Slater, Pennyworth), Jocasta (Sadhbh Malin) and Janet (Ailsa Davidson) and sons Colum (Seamus McLean Ross, Rebus) and Dougal (Sam Retford, Channel 4's Ackley Bridge). Ellen is the oldest but, as she is repeatedly reminded, not the oldest son — and therefore has little say in the future of both the clan and her own prospects. And that's too bad, because she's verra canny, a strategic thinker who's better suited for clan leadership than the bellicose Dougal or the physically limited Colum.
Everyone gathers for the funeral at the family home, Castle Leoch, which Outlander viewers will recognize as the place Jamie, Dougal and the men brough Claire after they found her wandering in the wood in Season 1. Ellen truly is undone by her grief; yes, she fears her loss of agency, but she also deeply misses her father, who treated her as an equal. And in case you haven't realized it by now, Ellen is also the woman who eventually will become mother to James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser.
As life returns to normal and the family goes about its daily life, we learn a few things. Simon Fraser of Lovat is a neighbor who had a mutual grudge with Jacob. The Grants are another family who might be looking to assume power now that there's a vacuum. Though Dougal makes noise about fighting them all, he should probably shut his trap: Jacob "wasn't a beloved man in these parts," warns the family's legal advisor Ned Gowan (Conor MacNeil, Industry. What he means: At the upcoming clan gathering, the attendees might not back one of Jacob's sons as his successor, which will mean chaos.
MEET THE FRASERS | Next we move to Castle Leathers, seat of Clan Fraser of Lovat, where Brian Fraser — aka Jamie's future father (Jamie Roy, Condor's Nest) — and his cousin Murtagh (Rory Alexander, Call the Midwife) are discussing whether or not to attend the upcoming MacKenzie Gathering.
(I must bring these proceedings to a momentary halt so we can discuss something very important: how the universe Ctrl+V'd Sam Heughan's face onto Jamie Roy's skull. It's uncanny! OK, back to the plot.)
When the young men have dinner with Brian's father, Simon (Tony Curran, Your Honor), we learn that he's kind of a jerk. He gloats over Jacob's death and subtly threatens to whip Brian for daring to challenge his father's ill-will. Simon also reminds Brian that he's a bastard; his mother, we later find out, is the housemaid Davina. There's another young, female servant who catches Simon's lecherous attention — and if she looks familiar, it's probably because you've seen the poster for this show. We'll talk more about it later. All you need to know now is that Davina quickly hustles her outta the dining room and chastises her never to be in the laird's gross presence alone, and the young woman says she understands.
Anway, Murtagh wants to go to the Gathering because he fancies a lady who'll be there. Simon tells his nephew to spy on the MacKenzies for him while he's there. Simon then decides it's a good idea for Brian to go, too — all the better to move around incognito, since none of the MacKenzies have met young Fraser.
AT FIRST SIGHT | The Gathering gets underway. Feats of strength! Meat roasted on spits! Colum and Dougal demanding that each bend the knee to the other, and both refusing! Murtagh and Brian arrive and quickly split up; after Brian moves along, we see that Ellen is the MacKenzie lass Murtagh is crushing on. But Brian doesn't know this — so when he has a meet-cute with Ellen in the paddock where the horses and cows are tied up, he's unaware that the red-haired beauty with whom he has instant sparks is the same person his cousin likes.
The pair steal glances at each other from opposite sides of a stall. It's like Baz Lurhmann's Romeo + Juliet if the aquarium were the rustic slats of a barn and "Did my heart love 'til now? Forswear it, sight' For I ne'er saw true beauty 'til this night" were a conversation about talking horses and chickens.
She quickly ascertains that he's hiding from some men that were giving him grief, and she co-signs his instinct to run. But first: "I ken this may be forward, but will you meet me in a more suitable place?" he asks. "Aye," she agrees. Goodness, these two are precious. They hastily make plans to meet on a bridge at the edge of the property later, and then Brian scurries away before someone can beat his bonny skull in.
DOUGAL DRUMS UP TROUBLE | While those two are flirting, another family — the Grants — arrive and pay their respects to Colum and Dougal. Malcolm is the Grant's son; Henry, a Brit, is their spokesperson and bladier (and another familiar face from the trailers, if you've been paying attention. Again, more later.) Dougal doesn't like the Grants — "Hell will come to Leoch before I ally with the Grants," he growls to Colum — and he soon gets an incredibly flimsy reason to act on that distaste.
Malcolm Grant sees Ellen heading back to the castle; she says she doesn't feel great and wants to lie down. He accompanies her (because he likes her), and is bummed when she goes inside. As we know, the excuse about feeling ill was a ruse so she could go meet Brian — an objective she achieves by sneaking out a hidden tunnel. Unfortunately, Malcolm happens to see her skipping away from the house and gets all sulky about it.
But Ellen doesn't care, hopping on a horse and showing up as she announces that it's improper for a lady to meet a man without a chaperone. "Maybe today, the bridge could be our chaperone," a quick-thinking Brian replies, promising that they'll each stay on their own side. He asks her name, his face falling when he realizes that she's part of the clan his father wants to see obliterated off the face of the planet. "I'm Brian Fraser, bastard son of Simon Fraser, formerly Lord Lovat of Beauford, presently of Leathers," he responds. "That is unfortunate," she says, edging ever closer to him (and he to her). Then, they just get ridiculously schmoopy in the best way.
"I must admit, ever since our encounter, I've tried to forget you," she says. "Strange," he counters. "I could do nothing but think of you. You've haunted my every thought." Poor puppy. He's already wrecked, and they've known each other for a total of five minutes, spread over hours! "I didn't say I succeeded," she admits, also highly affected, and I'm starting to see where JAMMF got his smoldering powers, everyone.
Ellen and Brian end up standing directly in front of each other, where he gently takes her hand and asks her to forgive his boldness. "My brothers surely will not allow it, allow us. And surely your father will be of like mind," she points out — and those are just the IMMEDIATE obstacles. He agrees, and yet... no one's moving away from anyone anytime soon.
'MY FATHER IS DEAD, AND SO IS HIS WORD' | Ellen's not back by dinner. And when a worried Mrs. Fitz informs Ellen's brothers that she was seen going off with Malcolm Grant, it's all the reason Dougal needs to rally his men and charge after the Grants as they return home. Dougal knocks Malcolm off his horse and bloodies him a bit before realizing that Ellen isn't with them, and Malcolm has no idea where she is.
She returns to the castle and refuses to tell her brothers where she was. They threaten her in various ways, but she won't back down. Back in her room, she cries and flashes back to a night she and her father discussed succession. "Ye ken your brothers and how to influence them," he told her, punting the choice to another day. "You have more of me in you than both your brothers put together," he said, a little sauced from the whisky they'd been drinking. "If only you had a c—k." Charming.
In the study, Ned correctly surmises that Colum riled Dougal up into beating Malcolm so that Colum could be seen as the cooler head/better leader. And to smooth things over between the families after the whole ugly incident? "Give Ellen to Malcolm Grant," Colum orders. Ned reminds him that Jacob promised Ellen she'd never have to marry for the sake of the clan. "My father is dead, and so is his word," Colum declares.
MEET THE BEAUCHAMPS| Next thing we know, we're in another time, watching a couple have sex under a tree. And wait... isn't that Simon Fraser's young maid and the Grants' bladier? What is going on?! (We know what's going on. But play along! It's fun!) The pair is Henry and Julia Beauchamp, Claire's parents, and they're out for a bit of air during a vacation in Scotland. As they drive back, they talk about how Claire is staying with Henry's brother, Lamb, while they're away. "You're worried how she'll react when we tell her?" Julia intuits, and Henry says she's right, but she soothes him by reminding him that she won't be showing for a few months: Yep, she's pregnant with Claire's little sibling. He's a bit distracted as they talk, so he doesn't see the stag that walks into the road until it's too late. Their car careens off the road, hits a rock and dumps them into a river. They both get carried quite a ways down before they're able to make it to the shore. But they're fine, if rattled, and they start walking back in the direction of the car. While Henry stops to take a rock out of his shoe, Julie climbs a nearby hill to get the lay of the land. He hears her scream and comes running up the hill, finding only the Craig na Dun circle of stones and a fierce buzzing noise surrounding him: Julia is gone.
LETTERS FROM THE FRONT| Episode 2, "S.W.A.K. (Sealed With a Kiss)" begins on the Western Front of World War I, at the Battle of Passchendaele in Belgium. It's 1917. Henry is a lieutenant in the British army, and he disobeys orders to run back out into the fighting and retrieve one of his injured men. Henry carries the private back to the trench without either of them taking any more fire, but the younger man's belly wound is very bad; he dies in the muck at Henry's feet. Later, when things have died down, a traumatized Henry puts his conflicted feelings into an open letter to the London Times. Among the topics covered: "What is there to live for?"
His missive winds up at the War Office's postal and telegraph censorship department in London. Julia is working there, and short order we learn that she: is a suffragette, likes to study biochemistry in her spare time, hopes to attend university once they allow women to do so, and has a photographic memory. Henry's letter winds up on her desk — she and her coworkers redact details that may compromise the Allied Powers' war efforts — and it stands out. She tucks it in her book and smuggles it home, then writes him back. She introduces herself (she's an orphan, she paused her studies to help with the war effort) and tries to offer him hope. "When all else fails, take a deep breath and remember: England is still here. Do not give up, Lieutenant." She adds that if he needs to confide in someone, he can write back and confide in her.
So he does. They go back and forth, getting more familiar as the letters pile up. They talk about how she loves Scotland — she even tells him about the Scottish legend of a man who steps into a fairie ring and returns 200 yers later. "That's how our letters feel to me," she writes. "I could spend an eternity in the dance of our words." Their messages to each other get increasingly intimate; Henry is bold and says he's sealing one with a kiss. In another, he lets her know he'll be on leave in London soon.
When more than two weeks go between his letters, though, Julia starts to fear the worst. She's leaving work one day and passes him on some stairs. He notices her and says, "Hope springs eternal." (Side note: I know we are deep in the ROMANCE OF IT ALL here, but dude. You know her name. Just say, "Julia?") She instantly knows it's him, then they're kissing, then he's backhandedly proposing to her as they rip each other's clothes off in her apartment and fall into bed. They get married soon after.
Later, Julia fixes a watch while Henry sleeps in. The peace is shattered, though, when he has a nightmare about being stuck in the trenches during a poison-gas attack. Henry screams and thrashes, terrified, and nothing Julia does or says can calm him until she starts reciting from her first letter to him. As he comes down from the terror and she spoons him, they both look very worried indeed.
HENRY AND JULIA'S NEW ROLES | Next we go to Craig na Dun, where Julia comes to on the ground in front of the stones and realizes the gem from her wedding ring is missing. She yells for Henry, but no one answers, and eventually she scratches "SWAK –>" on a a rock and takes off in the direction indicated. She runs into some people in a cart who seem like they want to help her but wind up throwing a bag over her head, knocking her out and selling her into servitude. And that timing is really too bad, because Henry comes through the stones not long after.
Turns out, the people who kidnapped Julia owed Simon Fraser a huge debt, and they offered Mrs. Beauchamp as payment. So she wakes up at Castle Leathers, where Brian looks on, horrified, as his father informs Julia that she's now his property. Davina, who's in charge of the house staff, doesn't care that Julia doesn't seem to know what year it is — though she's the one who ultimately confirms that Julia is now living in the 1700s — and she tells her to suck it up, because she's part and parcel of Castle Leathers now.
Meanwhile, Henry winds up in a tavern where he thinks it's a perfectly good idea to mutter in passing some business advice to Malcolm Grant, which irks many of the men involved. Malcolm stops the men from throwing Henry in a well, instead bringing him to tell to Papa Grant what he's advised. Henry explains what was off about the deal, and more importantly, that the Grants' bladier was "misrepresenting" the Grants in exchange for a sack of coins. Papa Grant has his bladier searched, beaten and ultimately beheaded for the betrayal. Then Henry is hired as the Grants' new adviser, a job that will help him safely travel Scotland in search of Julia. (He also doesn't really have a choice. That Papa Grant is quite intimidating.)
BRIAN TAKES THE BLAME | After finding some maps in the study — and after withstanding another near-miss with the lecherous Simon — Julia makes a break for it one evening. Brian runs into her, and she begs his mercy. "I'm trying to find my husband. Please, let me go," she pleads. He understands, but informs her that a storm is coming in. And even if she runs, Simon will send his thug, Balloch, after her. Too late: Balloch suddenly appears and hauls her back into the house, where Simon socks her in the stomach and orders her whipped. Brian steps forward and lies that he convinced her to leave, so Simon decrees that his son will take the punishment instead. "Dinna fash, Ma. 'Tis only a few lashes," Brian tells a worried Davina as she hustles Julia out of the room. (Do you think that, when Jamie took a beating for Laoghaire in Season 1 of Outlander, he knew he was keeping up a family tradition?)
RETURN TO SENDER | A month after all of this, we're at The Gathering from the previous episode. Ned Gowan puts forth Ellen as Malcolm's potential wife/a peace offering, and promises to help Henry find the woman he's looking for as a way to sweeten the deal. Henry agrees.
At the end of the hour, we see that Julia and Henry have resorted to writing letters to each other as a way to not lose their minds. (And also to make the dramatic voiceovers not seem too dramatic.) They both mark their letters S.W.A.K.
Otherwise of note in this episode:
* Outlander fans, do you love seeing little Rupert and Angus? And does it make you mourn them all over again?
* Jocasta tries catching Murtagh's eye, realizes he likes Ellen, and pines in silence. Patience, girl.
* We meet Arch Bug as a young man in the employ of the Grants, and he's kind of a jerk, which tracks.
* Julia and Henry running off to the moors to have sex away from the nosy woman running the inn where they're staying — remember when Claire and Frank pretended to have loud sex in their room at the inn in order to mess around with the innkeeper?
Now it's your turn. Grade the premiere via the poll below, then hit the comments with your thoughts!