BWW Recap: Tonight's OUTLANDER Takes Us Inside 'Wentworth Prison'

Is it possible that only last week we watched Claire deliver a Scotch-ified 'Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy' while dressed in drag? Do I have that right? I find that so hard to believe after sitting through 'Wentworth Prison,' the season's penultimate episode, and a different beast altogether. For fans of the book who already knew exactly what would go down at Wentworth, I'm sure this was something of a highly-anticipated episode. It was for me, anyway, and even though I knew what to expect, it's one thing to read it on a page and another to see it played out on screen. Tonight's episode was, in a word, heavy. Ha, and only one week ago I called 'The Search' 'kooky.' Take me back to simpler times. Alright, I'm being dramatic. In all seriousness though, 'Wentworth Prison', if you look past the obvious--which I will certainly be getting to--was a very good episode.

The tone is set in the opening scene, which has Jamie and MacQuarrie at the gallows watching prisoners get called up one by one to meet their maker. It's tough to watch. Necks snapping, bodies swinging in the breeze, and a lingering shot of the noose being pulled up for the next victim with a sickening squeak. Finally, it's MacQuarrie's turn, and he manages to get in one last jab at the British before hanging. Jamie's name is called next-what?! Jamie?! But he can't die,can he?! No, of course he can't, sillies. And how exactly do you make a scene like this so tense when we totally know he survives? I don't know, but tense it was, until who should come galloping in on his valiant steed? If you guessed anyone other than Black Jack Randall, you'd be wrong, shockingly. Also, not that I'm condoning it, per se, but if there were to be an OUTLANDER drinking game for tonight's episode alone, I'd say take a swig of your favorite whiskey every time someone dramatically yells, "STOPPPPPPP!", because I think it happens enough times to get you a nice buzz, anyway. So yup, Randall, of all people, saves Jamie at the last possible second-from the noose, that is. He gets sent to the dungeons instead, where Randall is nice enough to send him some food. And mark that as the last time I ever use "Randall" and "nice" in the same sentence, jokingly or not.

Meanwhile, Thelma and Louise--er, Claire and Murtagh--arrive at Wentworth and meet with the warden, Fletcher, who actually doesn't seem like a horrible guy, if you can imagine. Claire pretends she wishes to visit Jamie, a common criminal, um, out of the kindness of her, uh, good Christian heart. She just, y'know, happened to be in the area, soooo... Fletcher buys it, but can't allow her to actually see Jamie in person, and instead sends her off with a box of his personal effects. Not quite the same thing, but the guy tried. Claire takes the box and stumbles out of the prison, vomiting the second she meets fresh air-a shot that almost immediately jumps to a very drunk Rupert and Angus laughing it up at the pub. Talk about juxtaposition. But, huzzah! The pair were actually chatting up a couple of Wentworth jailers, and in fact, they got some intel on Warden Fletcher: turns out he leaves his office every day at the same time for one full hour. Nice work, boys, have another pint, on the house. So back Claire and Murtagh go, at the assigned hour, tearing Fletcher's office apart for keys and a map the second they are left alone.

Back in the dungeons, Randall visits Jamie's cell, and confronts him about the petition of complaint Jamie had filed against him. He got it from the Duke of Sandringham, who apparently enjoys the drink as much as a Scotsman. The complaint would tarnish Randall's already pristine reputation, and we simply can't have that, can we, so, naturally, he burns it. Welp. There goes that. Things in the cell get progressively creepier, which is just inevitable whenever Randall's involved. At one point, he flat out asks Jamie, "Do I make you uncomfortable?" Um, yeah, dude, you make quite literally everyone uncomfortable. He wants Jamie to admit to being afraid of him, in exchange for a clean, honorable death of Jamie's own choosing. What a bargain. Of course Jamie refuses to surrender, and Randall argues that any man can be broken. And then he wants to see the scars on Jamie's back and goes to take his shirt off for him-and it's so hard to watch, even though it lasts like 10 seconds before Jamie attacks him mid-removal. Chaos ensues, ending with Randall kicking the jailer in the face for trying to strangle Jamie.

Things only get worse, with Randall forcing down Jamie's hand and smashing it over and over again with a mallet--and on a personal note, there is nothing I hate more than watching exactlythat. Blech. Anyway, Claire finally finds Jamie, conveniently during the, like, five minutes Randall decides to vacate the cell. But he catches Claire trying to free Jamie of his chains, and I'm not saying that I laughed, but when Claire goes from calling him, "you beast" to "you fing sadistic piece of s," I truly got a real kick out of it, because I'm pretty sure she was channeling every single one of us in that exact moment. Another fight breaks out, ending with Jamie offering...himself...to Randall. As a test, Randall takes Jamie's already mangled hand, nails it to the table--again, nothing I hate more--and then starts macking on him right in front of Claire. Jamie begs him to send Claire away, and Randall at least has the decency to do that. While showing her out, he casually mentions, "Oh, hey, heard about your trial, by the way," as if he's chatting with her about the weather, it's so ridiculous, and she turns to face him with such a steely look, it honestly gave me goosebumps. She tells him that she's a witch and that she curses him, whispering the date of his death into his ear before Randall pushes her down the, um, garbage shoot. She lands in a bed of corpses, right next to MacQuarrie's, in fact, then frantically wanders alone in the woods until she finds Murtagh.

Going back to Jamie and Randall...Obviously Black Jack is completely despicable. And the last scene with him and Jamie is so painful to watch, with Randall cutting off Jamie's shirt and running his hands over the scars on his back, clearly getting turned on. We don't actually see what happens after that, but we all know. And as awful as he is, I once again have to applaud Tobias Menzies, who, I think, has been crafting a character that will go down as one of the most vile villains in TV history. He could be the nicest guy in the world, but if I ever saw him in public, I genuinely think I would run away. He just is Black Jack-and all of this is a credit to his talent as an actor, because there is no greater compliment I can give. As for the character itself...I always find myself drawn more to villains and less to heroes. It's more interesting to me to analyze what makes someone bad than what makes someone good. And the scariest villains, to me, are the ones who are evil without any real reason. With Randall, we know nothing about his past, but a whole lot about his future. He has no tragic backstory; he simply exists, just this entity of bad. And Menzies nails it.

Next week, OUTLANDER goes on a very brief hiatus, so it'll take us a little bit longer to see what becomes of Jamie, but with this approach to the season finale, I'm guessing it'll be worth the wait.

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Photo Credit: Starz

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