‘Outlander’ Season Three Explores the Pain of Absence [Review]

The Starz drama “Outlander” is classified as a fantasy for more than just its time travel elements; it’s wish fulfillment for an audience craving swoon-worthy romance on their screens, complete with a handsome Scot in a kilt. (Sigh.) But the show is more than just a romance novel brought to life – not that there’d be anything wrong with it if it weren’t. As “Outlander” enters its third season, it remains an ambitious series intent on period perfection and emotional authenticity in its story of a 20th-century woman in love with an 18-century highlander.

The season three premiere, “The Battle Joined,” finds Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and Jamie (Sam Heughan) living in different centuries and different continents. Shortly before the historical Battle of Culloden in 1746, Claire returned to her time in 1948, both convinced that Jamie would die in Scotland’s impending loss to the British and that modern medicine was the best chance for the child she is pregnant with. She and 20th-century husband Frank (Tobias Menzies) struggle to navigate their marriage after her absence and “affair,” with the birth of their daughter Brianna bringing them together. A move to Boston gives Claire new opportunities, but she finds even modern society lacking in its treatment of women and their independence.

Once Brianna (Sophie Skelton, still the weak link in a strong cast, but showing improvement since last season) is a grown-up herself, a trip to Scotland and research with Roger Wakefield (Richard Rankin) reveals that Jamie survived at least Culloden, causing Claire to decide if she should return to her true love despite the risks. Meanwhile, in the 18th century, Jamie attempts to rebuild a life after Scotland’s defeat and his beloved’s disappearance, with a figure from the past emerging to become a pillar of his new existence.

Showrunner Ronald D. Moore and the writers room tasked themselves with turning the season’s source material – Diana Gabaldon‘s 1,072-page novel “Voyager” – into a single season of television, and it’s a challenge nearly as weighty as the print version of the book. In the first six episodes available to press, the show condenses years into minutes, speeding through time while other shows waste it plotblocking. “Outlander” simply wants to reunite Jamie and Claire as quickly as possible, though the show has to plow through time to get to that point. Non-book-readers may question why the show moves at a pace rarely seen on television, and Moore and his team are perhaps too slavishly devoted to the author’s world and sticking to the plot outlined in it. But somehow individual scenes don’t feel rushed; “Outlander” isn’t afraid to dwell in a moment, revealing more about the characters that the show’s fans and the book’s readers adore.

Though their reunion is inevitable and promised by season promos, the series is at its best when Claire and Jamie are together, making these early episodes painful even when they’re fine otherwise. Impatient readers might have been tempted to page ahead and viewers to fast-forward, but there’s value in Claire and Jamie’s interactions with others and their growth as characters when they’re apart. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself. When they share a screen, Balfe and Heughan display some of TV’s most heated chemistry, and the show has previously offered some of premium cable’s best sex scenes.

“Outlander” still reigns as queen with the best female gaze on TV, and it continues to offer women characters with agency in their sexual relationships. These efforts are both echoed and driven by the talent behind the camera, with Jennifer Getzinger and Norma Bailey responsible for directing two episodes and Toni Graphia and Anne Kenney earning writing credits. Female desire isn’t an afterthought as it is elsewhere on television, and it fuels a variety of encounters on this show. But as heart-poundingly sexy as it can be (and my pulse monitor confirms that this isn’t merely a metaphor), the drama is ultimately focused on love. It isn’t just Claire and Jamie’s physical relationship that unites them; there’s a deeper connection that links the couple. While the first season was about bringing them together and the second was about testing their bond, the third season’s episodes emphasize the permanence of true love, as well as the endurance of the grief in its absence.

This season is best binged, allowing fans to get to the promised reunion between Claire and Jamie as quickly as possible. “Outlander” has always been achingly romantic, and that feeling isn’t lost even when the couple is separated by a seemingly impassable gap of time and space. Their time apart feels as palpable as separation from people we actually know and every moment before it feels like prologue. [B]