Caitriona Balfe’s Top 10 Best Moments as Claire Fraser on Outlander

The video and description below moment contain discussions about sexual assault and violence. Please view and read at your own discretion.

1. Episode 512, “Never My Love”: Claire endures a traumatic and violent assault 

We’ve arrived at the final Claire Fraser moment, one that is heartbreaking, difficult, and gut-wrenching to watch. Before I proceed any further, please look to the warning above before reading this section or watching the video, as it discusses sexual assault and violence.

Watching Brianna’s (Sophie Skelton) arc unfold after she was raped by Stephen Bonnet was tough, and throughout the course of season 5, we see her trying to push forward however she can. Perhaps the strength and courage she developed after experiencing such a traumatic ordeal allowed her to be for her mother when Claire went through something similar.

I won’t go into the details of the episode because it’s a rough one, but I simply couldn’t skip this moment because Caitriona Balfe is superb; it may be her defining moment on the show as a performer. I never envisioned the depths to which Balfe could go to display Claire’s trauma. She pulls you into Claire’s pain.

In this episode, Claire is sexually assaulted by a group of men simply because they don’t like her providing medical advice. Claire escapes the horror for fleeting moments by detaching herself from her situation and imagining a future that couldn’t exist. But there is peace in that vision, at least until the very end of it.

I’ve mentioned this already, but in times of trauma, Balfe has a technique where she adopts a vacant, distant look on her face, something she employs again here. Claire is somewhere else during this horrendous act, and Balfe takes us along with her. We’re there in the vision with Claire, trying to protect her from whatever is going on in her reality.

When Claire is eventually rescued by Jamie, her healing process begins. Those final moments of season 5 are so profound and hypnotizing because Claire looks straight into the eyes of her trauma and essentially says, “You don’t define me.” And with the help of Brianna and Jamie, who have both been through their own traumatic experiences involving rape, Claire will rise again. And as a viewer, Balfe genuinely makes you feel that hope for Claire.

Once again, Caitriona Balfe leaves us in awe of the truth she can convey as an actor, something she manages to do without fail fail whenever she’s on our screens.

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