I must start this recap with a question. Does that Outlander season three title card where Claire is drilling into a man’s skull give anyone else the full body shivers and a massive headache besides me? But, I digress…

Season three episode two is simply titled “Surrender” and, as with last week’s inference, both Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and Jamie (Sam Heughan) must do some emotional and physical surrendering to their situations. The main concepts of what occurs to each are reasonably in line with the book account in Voyager. Some of the applications of the plotlines do have a level of invention to them. I’ll explain as we go.

At the end of the last episode, Jamie was delivered to Lallybroch, far closer to death’s door than the beloved physical door to his home. The books do explain a bit about what occurred in his physical recovery, but the show breaks the story up a bit and jumps right to what happens six years later. Over that time, Jamie has had to outsmart the British and fade into the Scottish lands around his home. He has turned into a hunter, hermit, and recluse, both physically and emotionally.

In the book, we get to see Jamie’s story in more of a straight timeline, but that’s not so easy to do in a TV show. There is a certain rhythm to a TV program that a book doesn’t have to fit within. AAAHHHH the freedom of the written word between the front and back flaps… Yes, focus on the story at hand, sorry!

The show opens at Lallybroch and three of the lads – Fergus (Romann Berrux), wee Jamie (Rhys Lambert), and Rabbie MacNab (Stuart Campbell) – hunting something in the pigeon loft. You’ll remember in the first season they took in Rabbie because his father was beating him. In this episode, and in the book, his mother comes to work in the kitchen at Lallybroch as well.

In the book, the abusive father got angry after Jamie gave him a taste of his own medicine with his fists. Jamie was turned in to the Watch, which is how he ended up at Wentworth near the end of the first season. In the show, in the episode “The Watch,” they came on their own and events happened that led to Jamie’s capture. In the book, the tenants who live on Lallybroch lands killed Rabbie’s father, so they took in Rabbie’s mother, Mary MacNab (Emma Campbell-Jones), as a kitchen maid for the family.

Back to the boys’ mischief… They’re in the pigeon loft hunting for something and they find it: a pistol. All weapons were outlawed after the rising failed, so it was hidden for a good reason. Fergus gets to bragging about his fighting at Prestonpans to wee Jamie. How quickly he forgets about how shook up he was after he killed that soldier. Naturally, he didn’t tell that part. They hear soldiers coming up to the house and run to see what’s going on.

The Redcoats hunting for the Dun Bonnet in 1752 are very harsh in their treatment of Ian (Steven Cree) as the boys run up. You might get a slight shock to hear a Scottish accent come out of the Redcoat manhandling Ian. He’s the harshest of the lot and I think he’s doing a bit of overcompensating to prove his loyalty to the crown, but that’s just my opinion. His name is Corporal MacGregor (Ryan Fletcher). A very pregnant Jenny (Laura Donnelly) comes out the door to speak with the soldiers. Jenny and Ian both assure the officers that Red Jamie is not and has not been there. They try to convince the soldiers that no traitors to the Crown have been anywhere about the Lallybroch lands. They take Ian anyway, just for good measure.

As they ride away with Ian in the carriage, you see the Dun Bonnet hidden way back in the trees. Jamie is watching over things on the Lallybroch lands, for his tenants and his family. Jamie hunts for meat to feed them through the famine that gripped the Highlands after the rising. Lallybroch people fared better than most of the other estates, in no small part to Claire telling them to plant potatoes and Jamie being around to hunt and supply meat when he could.

After Jamie takes down a stag with an arrow, he shows up at Lallybroch with it draped over his shoulders. As he enters the main courtyard, he sees a woman picking herbs from the herb garden. As she turns, Jamie sees Claire smiling at him. Then suddenly it becomes Jenny, very swollen with her latest bairn. Jamie’s shaken but attempts to hide it. With it being six years since Culloden, he still cannot move on without Claire’s presence. He’s retreated deep within himself, partially due to his solitude in a cave in the hills, but also because of his pain and inability to fully move past the loss of Claire.

We also pick up with flashes of Claire’s existence in 1948 after she had wee Brianna. Claire is a sensual woman, and in the books she speaks of how alone she feels at various times without the touch of her husband. Before she and Jamie were married in the first book, she spoke of the longing for Frank’s touch. Now that she’s more in love with Jamie than she was with Frank, she’s desperately longing for Jamie’s touch. We see her laying in bed next to Frank (Tobias Menzies) while fantasizing about Jamie, and applying a little personal attention to appease the flesh that longs for him. This scene you will need to see for yourself…just a word to the wise… SEE IT! You get naked Jamie as a treat. (Fodder for us all to play a little fantasy game.) He gives a steel blue look of “ready or not here I come” that will get the blood churning everywhere but the brain, if you catch my meaning.

Claire comes back from her fantasy and sees Frank laying there. With eyes wide open, you can see in her face she realizes she cannot just live in fantasies. She’s going to have to embrace her life as mother and wife in the present day in 1949.

Claire comes bobbing into the living room in the morning with wee Brianna, several months older now. She sits down after putting the baby in the playpen to look at the paper. She’s reading an article on Ireland winning their freedom and she isn’t paying attention to what Bree is doing. Suddenly, she hears the baby making a bit more noise than a second ago and looks to see that she has turned over for the very first time, a baby milestone parents always wait for. Frank comes downstairs just then in a towel because the water turned cold so he was going to check the boiler. He encounters Claire’s exciting praise of Brianna, they both share a moment of joy, and then Claire gives him a look. Those who have read the books know exactly what the look means. She does still have feelings for Frank, they are just not as strong as what she felt for Jamie. But, she must resign herself to the present; there is no way to get to Jamie. He’s dead for all intents and purposes.

The Dun Bonnet skulks back to his cave after leaving Lallybroch. The cave is very difficult to find, and that’s just the way it should be. Jamie is cutting a fish he caught when he hears a brief whistle attempting to be a bird. He whistles back and it’s Fergus coming to see him. Fergus brought the gun they found in the pigeon loft and wants Jamie to teach him how to shoot. Jamie and Fergus fight about fighting…or that is to say Fergus wants Jamie to teach him to fight, but Jamie refuses. Fergus calls Jamie a coward and Jamie tells him to take the weapon back and not touch it again.

Jamie comes back to the house a short time later, maybe the next day or so, to look at the ledgers while Ian is still away and hears Jenny giving birth. In the book, Fergus didn’t find any weapon or argue with Jamie about it, but he did go up to the cave regularly to take food and supplies. Jamie was insistent he would be there when Jenny gave birth, and Jamie doing the ledgers was a reasonable excuse for him to show up at the delivery in the show. In the book, Jamie is outside doing Ian’s work while Jenny delivers the newest Murray.

The boys see a raven and it’s a superstitious bad omen in the Highlands to have a raven around while a woman gives birth. In the book, Jamie fires the shot that brings the Redcoats. In the show, Fergus retrieves the weapon from the pigeon loft and kills the raven dead. Either way, the Redcoats tear through the house looking for it after they hear the report from the shot.

Jamie’s upstairs holding the baby with Jenny sitting up in bed by the time the Redcoats show up. Jenny says they were to call the new bairn after his Da, Ian. Jamie’s heading out of the room with the baby because his sister’s nagging about him needing a new wife gets on his nerves when the soldiers burst into the house. He runs into a nearby room with the baby and Jenny is left to confront the soldiers on her own, and just after giving birth. Women are strong and capable, and Jenny is a perfect example of that.

The damn Scottish Redcoat soldier, MacGregor, yanks the blanket off Jenny to look for the weapon. They realize she just gave birth and start asking about the baby. In the book, this is the time wee Jamie bursts in and starts making a scene at the Redcoats because Jenny says the baby died, which of course is a lie because Jamie’s holding him. In the show, Mary MacNab comes in with the weapon so they’ll stop their searching of the house. She could have gotten in very serious trouble, but the soldiers let it go. The residents of Lallybroch have dodged a figurative bullet this time.

In 1949, Claire wakes up in the middle of the night in the bed she and Frank share. She gently touches his face and it wakes him. She says she misses her husband, and they have sex. The encounter is different from before Claire went through the stones. Frank can tell that Claire is not solely thinking of him.

The British bring Ian back. Ian is smart and does nothing to further provoke the soldiers. Fergus is not so wise. After the Redcoats leave, Fergus heads out to the cave. The Redcoats are not so covert in following him. You can’t exactly be camouflaged in a red coat in the green woods. Fergus encounters the soldiers, one of the two is the horrible MacGregor, and they chase Fergus. Jamie does see some of this activity from high on a nearby hill. The soldiers eventually catch Fergus and MacGregor chops off Fergus’ hand. Jamie is left to stand by and watch. If he had done anything, they would capture him and kill everyone at Lallybroch. One hand for the life of many…that is Jamie’s choice. In the book, Fergus is caught taking Jamie some food and wine. The result is the same. Jamie takes off his belt and makes a tourniquet like Claire would have done, and it saves Fergus’ life.

After Jenny gets Fergus settled in bed, she is downstairs talking with Jamie. For the first time, he withers into tears and drops to the floor. Jenny wraps her arms around him to give him her strength. This is the first crack in the internal wall he has built for himself. The stages of grief are obvious as we watch Jamie. He goes up to Fergus’ room to check on him, and Fergus is surprisingly upbeat. He reminds his Lord of the bargain they struck in France should Fergus be injured in his Lord’s service. Jamie said he remembers perfectly and will take care of Fergus for the rest of his life. Fergus ends up making Jamie smile for the first time in a very long time.

Back in 1949, Frank and Claire are entertaining a neighbor couple. For a moment, you get a glimpse of how the couple were prior to Claire’s disappearance for three years. Claire instigates a sexual interlude right in the middle of the living room after their company has left for the evening. In the middle of everything, Frank stops and demands that Claire open her eyes. He accuses her of fantasizing that he is Jamie. I would imagine this is a thought that has hit anyone who’s been on the receiving end of a partner’s infidelity, or at least Frank feels it as infidelity, wondering if their partner is truly thinking of someone else.

Ian and Jamie talk about Fergus losing his hand, and Ian obviously has a unique understanding since he lost his leg below the knee in France. Ian also makes a highly astute point about Jamie also missing something. It wasn’t a limb like he and Fergus; Jamie lost his heart, also known as Claire.

Jamie realizes the soldiers are not going to stop, so he tells his sister to turn him in for the reward money. In the book, he does the same thing but has another tenant on the property turn him in. The estate needs the money because the hunting has become scarce after several years and the crops have dried up since they had a drought. (They don’t really go into that in the show.) Jamie is done running, and he can provide this one last service for his tenants. His sister is scared they’ll hang him, but Ian said they’re not hanging Jacobites anymore. He will only be imprisoned, as if that’s any better. Sheesh…men!

Jamie returns to his cave and prepares to have his sister turn him in to the soldiers. Mary MacNab brings him some food and helps to cut his very long hair and beard. We have our much less hairy and devastatingly handsome Jamie back on the outside at least! Mary ends up offering herself to Jamie for physical pleasure. She tells him they both need the physical touch of someone again. She has been without a man’s touch for a long time as well. She feels it is the only service she could do for her Laird. Jamie surrenders to her touch, but not without one of his tears that just breaks your heart.

Claire reads the front page of the paper in the 1950s where Truman appointed the first female Treasury Secretary and decides she wants to return to medicine. She realizes it’s what will help her to feel closer to whole again. She had thrown herself into the life of wife and mother but knew she was not complete. She enrolls in Harvard Medical School. She encounters the typical male distaste for her presence in such activities, but she also discovers she has a partner in the shunning by the other male students. There is a black male student also new to the school. She and Joe Abernathy (Wil Johnson) become fast friends.

That night as Claire and Frank go to bed, we’re presented with the double beds in their bedroom which is reminiscent of The Dick Van Dyke Show. I guess they found a solution to their challenges with intimacy.

Jamie arrives to the front courtyard of Lallybroch to be captured by Redcoats, just as they had planned. Everyone played their part well in making it look like Jenny turned her brother in for the money. The Redcoats take him away and give her the bag of money for the capture. (I think I’m down half a box of Kleenex at this point.) So, Jamie physically surrenders and has finally emotionally surrendered to his situation. He has survived and must survive to find a different future.

Claire passes a Scottish piper as she’s headed into the college for her next class. She stops, and you can clearly see what is on her mind – Jamie. She gives the piper money and continues with her new life as well. She has physically and emotionally surrendered to her present and is determined to become a doctor. Being one of the few females in the profession at the time, she certainly will need the focus and determination to succeed. But, of course, we know she has it. Claire will do anything she sets her mind upon. Tulach Ard!

More on Outlander:
– Outlander Season 3 Episode 1 “The Battle Joined” Recap
– Outlander Season 3 Episode 3 “All Debts Paid” Recap
– Outlander Season 3 Episode 4 “Of Lost Things” Recap
– Outlander Season 3 Episode 5 “Freedom & Whisky” Recap
– Outlander Season 3 Episode 6 “A. Malcolm” Recap
– Outlander Season 3 Episode 7 “Crème De Menthe” Recap
– Outlander Season 3 Episode 8 “First Wife” Recap
– Outlander Season 3 Episode 9 “The Doldrums” Recap
– Outlander Season 3 Episode 10 “Heaven and Earth” Recap

– Exclusive Interview on Season 3 with Executive Producer Ronald D. Moore
– One-on-One with Sophie Skelton
– Richard Rankin Interview on Outlander Season 3 and Playing Roger
– Caitriona Balfe, Sam Heughan and Tobias Menzies Q&A