Battle was joined the latest episode of Outlander, "Written in My Own's Heart's Blood," specifically the Battle of Monmouth, a Revolutionary War battle that place on June 28, 1778 in New Jersey. And not everyone escaped unscathed. At the end, once Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan) and his men had helped repel the British, Jamie's wife Claire (Caitriona Balfe) was shot while she attended to dying men.
Jamie has crossed heaven and earth to help his wife before, and he's determined to do it again. Diana Gabaldon, the author of the Outlander books, talked to Parade about the TV version of events different from her novel; naturally, the events of this episode are adapted directly from the book Written In My Own Heart's Blood.
“Well, here (again) we run into the limitations of TV—time, in this case,” Gabaldon said. “In the book version, we get to see both Jamie’s and Claire’s POV’s, and also see Jamie’s absolute desperation when faced with something he can’t overpower, or even fight. But fight he will, because there’s nothing else to do. He gets Denzell Hunter, in the process brushing off the call of duty (in the form of General Lee’s command), because to him, there’s no duty stronger than his to Claire. He’s risking both his liberty and his neck—he could be hanged for desertion in the face of the enemy, and he’s foreswearing his oath to the Army. And if Claire dies, that sacrifice (of reputation and probably his life) will have been in vain, but he makes it without hesitation.”
Denzell Hunter is fighting for the opposite side, but Claire personally trained him in modern medical techniques, so he offers Jamie the best chance of saving the love of his life. It's quite a predicament.
There were predicaments aplenty is this latest episode. Lord John Grey (David Berry) and Young Ian (John Bell) put their efforts into saving Lord John's adoptive son William (Charles Vandervaart), who had just found out that Jamie Fraser is his biological father. William had been taken in by a band of Hessian soldiers who were going to kill him or use him as a pawn. Lord John and Young Ian manage to save William, who forgives Lord John for lying to him all these years. But he's not there yet with Jamie.
But Lord John defends Jamie, which is impressive given that Jamie beat him to a pulp just a couple episodes back. “It’s sort of classic John,” Gabaldon said. “He’s not only being selfless, he’s being concerned for both William and Jamie. His sense of fairness (plus what he knows that William doesn’t…) makes him defend Jamie, but he’s also not wanting William to think badly of his (unsuspected) father.”
And then there's Young Ian, who faces down a pair of Hessians and lets one of them live, part of an attempt to be the man that Rachel (Izzy Meikle-Small) wants him to be. But later, he tracks down the surviving Hessian and kills him, tying up loose ends.
“Again, somewhat different than the book,” Gabaldon said. “Per the book, Rachel never tries to make him be what he’s not; she knows who he is, and takes him on his own terms, though she regrets the spiritual damage he may do to himself."
"Also, per book, it isn’t a Hessian soldier that he kills; it’s an Abenaki warrior (employed by the British Army) who (with a comrade) has been playing a savage game of chicken with Ian throughout the battle (which the show also can’t show). By the time the battle is over, the two Abenaki have tried to kill him numerous times, and in fact, by this time, he’s been shot with an arrow, and goes around with it embedded in his shoulder for some time. (Naturally, the show hasn’t time or expense to spare in order to show this, so they changed the character (since they already had Hessians to spare) and the circumstance.)"
As usual, the show changed plenty of details adapting the books, but they tried to get across the general thrust of Gabaldon's work. “Bottom line is that this whole segment of the book (and to some extent, the show) is a meditation on Duty," the author said. "What each person involved considers to be their duty, and how far they’ll go to fulfill it. We see it close up with regard to Claire (who stays at her post under fire, in order to care for the wounded) and Jamie (who’s forced to choose between his duty to his men and the army, and his duty to Claire)—and to a much lesser extent, with Ian’s conflict between his duty to Rachel and his duty to his own sense of right.”
New episodes of Outlander air Fridays on Starz. The next episode, "A Hundred Thousand Angels," is the last of this current seventh season. Then there's one more Droughtlander to get through before the eighth and final season comes along!
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