It really does take your breath away, this episode. On the one hand I think the events are fitting. In a world of lies and deceit, it is often the innocent that end up paying the price, suffering for the sins of the guilty. On the other hand, feel like this episode deserves a 1/10, with all of the gut wrenching pain invokes, but everything about it is too good, and Caitriona Balfe, I mean this woman should win every award for the rest of time for her performance. Never have I seen in an hour span one actress display such a range of emotions in a both compelling and believable manner. Her performance is enthralling, never feeling out of place, or forced, or acted. She brings Claire Fraser to life, and makes you live every harrowing moment with her. She, Sam and Tobias have always been the anchor for this series, always making every moment so enthralling, every scene they are in so vibrant and real, but Caitriona takes over the series in this performance, sets herself apart in another class. This episode is in that Pantheon of Outlander episodes, in a class with the best installments of the series, and Caitriona Balfe is the reason why.
Honestly, I hate the first third of this episode. It's as if the writers, or the gods themselves have decided to punish poor Claire for every single sin that has been committed by the Frasers since their arrival in Paris. The amount of punishment Claire takes in this episode is so incredibly overwhelming, its difficult to watch. Claire has her guts ripped apart in the opening scene, as she weakly asks about her baby. Then, Claire loses her child, absolutely devastating. Her frantic cries of wanting her baby and her sheer look of despair when it finally sets in that her child is dead are enough to make you want to turn off the TV. But if you thought it was over, oh are you mistaken. Then Claire falls ill with fever and receives her last rights. While its beautiful to see her decision to warn Master Raymond paid back in his saving of her life, we get to see more pain as Claire is forced to expel the placenta stuck in her womb. If that's not enough misery Claire also is notified that her husband is in the Bastille and is essentially imprisoned until the King decides to let him out, with no guarantee that will happen. So, unlike Jaime when recovering from his traumatic experience with Randall, Claire gets to lie in the hospital, broken, shattered, and alone for weeks, until by the grace of God Fergus gets her to come home. Of course, if you were expecting her return home to be anything resembling joy, guess again. Not only is she physically drained for the ordeal, needing Fergus's help to make it to the house, you can see on her face the sheer broken state that Claire is in. For a heroine who has always been so strong and fierce in the face of overwhelming odds, it just hurts to see her in this way, so vulnerable, and hurt. Honestly, I might have stopped watching had it not been for Caitriona's enthralling performance. She takes herself and her character to such emotional depths, it is impossible to take your eyes off her, impossible to turn away and stop watching. And, let's not forget, that if Claire's suffering wasn't enough to turn your stomach, the show also serves you with a healthy heaping of a Fergus rape story in the first third.
It's almost too overwhelming to push on but the second third of the episode is why Claire has become my favorite character in the series. She is literally in the emotional abyss at the point in the story when Fergus tragically recounts his abuse by Randall. But what you have to love about Claire in the second half of this episode is her selflessness, resilience and sheer force of will in the face of unspeakable trauma. The fact that she is able to comfort Fergus when she is emotionally shattered herself is one of the most moving scenes of the entire series.
But the scene that steals the show in this episode is the meeting with the King of France. I think it's easy to lose sight of just how remarkable it is because we've seen Claire engage with powerful men before. I think the difference here is the true extent of the disparity in this meeting. When Claire has faced the likes of Randall and Sandringham, she's always had some edge, some way to try to balance the meeting in her favor, or has had Jaime present to assist her. In her meeting with the King, she truly is at her most powerless. The King of France is an absolute monarch. She has no rights as an English subject, no secrets to barter nor any assets to bargain with, even her own body. As the narration states, the King could have Jaime killed with a snap of his fingers, he could violate Claire anytime he wants; she is completely at his mercy. The scene is so well acted, the mix of confidence and terror as Claire snatches glances of the bed. The way it feels like her soul is being ripped from her body as the King inspects her.
But nothing beats the sheer ferocity of her judgment of the Comte and Raymond as La Dame Blanche. It's amazing that the woman so confidently giving instructions to the King of France and confront her enemy the Comte St. Germain is the same woman who twenty minutes ago was sobbing hysterically at the loss of her child. Even when she is forced to lie with the King, Claire expresses such bone-chilling tenacity, such grace, that you forget how powerless she was at the start of the meeting. And all credit to the writers having her take the orange as she leaves, symbolic for her retaining her dignity and leaving the meeting with it intact. It's amazing to think that she went into the meeting with the King with absolutely nothing, and leaves with a pardon for husband.
The final third of the episode is so poignant and really wraps up the Paris Arc so beautifully. You can visually see how Claire has changed since the start of the episode, the anger seething on her face, the relative calm as she recounts holding her dead baby, her expressions when recounting the story a stark contrast to the absolute devastation she was feeling in the moment. But then, the episode ends on such a mature note, on such a big step for the development of the characters. Claire realizes that the death of Faith was her fault, and while its hard to say she's right, since I don't think it's possible to blame a mother for miscarrying her child, she does have point and displays a self-awareness that was lacking earlier in the season. She understands that it was wrong of her to expect so much from Jaime, that she made him make promises he couldn't keep, and that she was wrong to put Frank before her family when he wasn't there. Remember in the season finale of Season 1, when Claire confesses that she has been selfish, that she wanted it all and in doing so hurt her two husbands. Here is the payoff, the realization that she's been wrong this whole time.
Yet she is not the only one who has grown from the harrowing events of the Paris Arc. You finally see Jaime come to grips with his own trauma and come to the realization that the damage that has been done to he and Claire are too much for any one of them to carry alone. He finally realizes that the only way to deal with the trauma is to carry it and face up to it. Remember, for the second half of the season, he seemingly believed that the only way he was ever going to recover from what Randall did was to kill him, that his death would somehow make all the pain go away. Through it all he comes to the realization that anyone who has dealt with trauma comes to, that the only way to move forward is to carry the pain, embrace it, and try to move forward.
Faith is a harrowing episode, but serves as such a strong end to the Paris Arc. It's tragic because our heroes sacrificed so much of themselves in Paris to try to stop the Rising, yet we know all of their pain and efforts will ultimate come to nothing. Yet, in a way it is triumphant and marks a serious point of development for the characters moving forward.
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