Later, Claire catches William trying to leave without saying goodbye. And when he is a giant stinkface to her, Dr. Claire Beauchamp “I’ve time-traveled multiple times so don’t mess with me” Fraser WILL NOT HAVE IT. He’s immediately chagrined and asks her forgiveness, which she grants. She’s like, dude, we all know you were here to see Jamie. And given that we’re in the middle of a war, who knows how many more chances he’ll have? “Before you leave here,” she says, “I want you to think, I mean really think, about if this morning was the last time you ever see your father.”
Just then, William sees Jamie leading Mandy around on a pony and has a flashback to when Jamie did the same for him at Helwater… and how devastated he was when Jamie left. So he seeks out Jamie, who’s training his men in the woods. They’re met with Mr. Whitaker and some other free Black men, who want to fight at Jamie’s side. He welcomes the reinforcements.
Jamie is about to walk away with Whitaker when William blurts out that he wants to hunt with Jamie. Jamie is surprised, but eager, so they make plans to go out the following morning. “In the woods,” Jamie says, gently teasing his son for the nervous way he went about asking.
During the outing, William apologizes for what he said while they were fishing. Jamie gladly accepts and bends to clean the carcass of the buck they’ve just dropped, unaware that William has decided it’s Feelings Day. He talks about how much he looked up to Jamie, whom he knew then as “Mac,” at Helwater. “You were the one person in my life i wanted to emulate when I grew up. I worshipped you like a hero, as only a young boy truly can. I loved you,” he says, getting all mad again when he thinks about the way Jamie took off. “How could you leave me?”
“I loved you, too, but I had nothing to give you,” Jamie says, eyes teary. William’s verklempt, too. Jamie reasons that he was a Jacobite and he didn’t want William tainted by the association, but it took everything in him not to look back as he left, lest it “shatter my reserve.” He acknowledges how much pain William has gone through because of him, and asks if he can forgive him. William launches himself at Jamie and sobs into his shoulder while Jamie hugs him back.
OK, my thoughts: I know that writing and acting are full of choices, and those choices may not always align with what I — an Oldlander book reader and general fan of Men Showing Emotion — think should happen. That’s cool! And I think both Sam Heughan and Charles Vandervaart did a great job with such a weighty interaction. But I feel similarly about this scene to the way I felt about Jamie’s response to Fergus’ suicide attempt in Season 6: Given that he’s deep in fresh grief over the death of one son, I think Big Red would’ve been more undone by the long-awaited reconciliation with another.
The last time I talked about this kind of thing, half of you agreed and half told me I was too attached to the books. I look forward to hearing what you thought this time around in the comments!
