“The Droughtlander is over,” as Starz’ silly marketing campaign describes the return of “Outlander.”
But the sexy, action-packed new episodes of this time-traveling Scottish drama reinforce what a singular delight it really is.
Last fall’s midseason finale ended with a swashbuckling cliffhanger as pistol-brandishing Highlander Jamie (Sam Heughan) swung into a castle window, apprehending the villainous Captain Jack Randall (Tobias Menzies) mid-assault of heroine Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and barking, “I’ll thank you to take your hands off my wife!”
In Saturday’s return episode, “The Reckoning,” we join Jamie pre-rescue and follow him through the day’s events, but the real fun starts after he and Claire are safely back at the Highlander camp. Jamie demands an apology from Claire for wandering off after “I ordered you to stay put”; she, a gal who seems a lot more modern than her 1940s origins, tells her husband just where he can stick his orders.
One of the book’s most famous scenes follows, tweaked deftly to reflect the show’s slightly more egalitarian bent: “Outlander” goes all “Fifty Shades” as Claire gets spanked as punishment for endangering the group (but not before doing some damage herself).
After they’ve made up, she grabs a dagger mid-tryst and describes what she’ll do if he ever tries it again.
A perfect blend of edgy, hot and funny, the two complementary scenes are a perfect demonstration of why the show — and the books — have amassed such a huge female fan base.
Showrunner Ronald D. Moore (“Battlestar Galactica”) continues to bring Diana Gabaldon’s best-selling series to glorious life onscreen, cutting out the cheesier elements of the dialogue and playing up the zesty chemistry between Balfe and Heughan.
In its next few episodes, “Outlander” really hits its stride; one of the few imperfections in the first half of the season was its tendency to get bogged down in historical details at the expense of action and the simmering romance between the two leads.
Here, though, Moore delves back into politics with a perfect dash of camp, as British character actor Simon Callow shows up to play Jamie’s potential pardoner, the Duke of Sandringham, in “By the Pricking of My Thumbs,” while “The Devil’s Mark” sees Claire’s only friend, Geillis Duncan, in hot water over accusations of witchcraft — and Claire herself caught up in it, thanks to the jealousy of a young woman spurned by Jamie.
(The harrowing trial in the village makes an interesting, if easily far-superior, contrast to the histrionic “Salem,” due back in a few days on WGN.)
“Lallybroch,” in which Jamie takes Claire to his ancestral home, slows down the pace of the show a bit as the couple settles into domestic life, but don’t fret, ladies: you can look forward to a good lingering shot of stark-naked Jamie shivering in a creek as he hides from the redcoats.
Good riddance to “Droughtlander,” indeed!