An obsessive deep dive into the 'Outlander' Season 3 trailer
The first teaser trailer for Outlander Season 3 is here, and we're still crying.
It may only be 30 seconds of footage, but the new teaser says a lot with a little -- especially since it features one of Jamie Fraser's (Sam Heughan) most iconic monologues:
"I have lied, killed, and broken trust, but when I stand before God, I’ll have one thing to say to weigh against all the rest... Lord, you gave me a rare woman; God, I loved her well."
Swoon.
We first heard those words in the Season 2 finale, right before Jamie sent his wife Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and their unborn child back through the Standing Stones at Craigh na Dun to return to her own time and her first husband, Frank Randall (Tobias Menzies), ensuring a safer life for them.
Claire and Jamie spent most of Season 2 trying to avert the Battle of Culloden, knowing that Jamie's men -- and the Highland way of life -- were doomed to die in that fatal clash, but last year's finale didn't show us the event itself.
Thankfully (or sadly?), the wait is almost over: the first new scenes in the trailer give us a sense of just how devastating the battle must've been, with Jamie waking up amongst the bodies of his fallen comrades on Culloden Moor.
We then get a shot of Jamie in the midst of the bloody skirmish, before the action cuts back to the future, where we see Claire -- now a doctor -- living her life and raising their daughter Brianna (Sophie Skelton) with Frank.
The teaser also offers our first look at Claire's close friend Joe Abernathy (Wil Johnson), a fellow doctor who meets Claire during their internship at medical school. Judging by their serious expressions and focus, the staff are watching something troubling on TV -- given the time period (sometime during the '50s or '60s), perhaps it's coverage of JFK's assassination or the Vietnam War?
While Bree's real father is busy shooting at bewigged noblemen and wandering the moors looking bedraggled, we see Bree growing up happily oblivious with Claire and Frank, including scenes from her graduation ceremony and 16th birthday.
But it's obvious from Claire's pained expression here that Jamie is still on her mind -- she's clutching his mother's pearls, the gift that Jamie gave her on their wedding day.
Since every shot in a promo is carefully chosen, it's probably significant that the teaser cuts from Bree's birthday party to Jamie hugging a child -- it's hard to imagine how painful it must be for him, believing that he'll never get to meet his own son or daughter, and that his soulmate is growing old with another man instead of him.
Another neat inversion: Claire running to (or from) an operating room while Jamie is taking a life -- and fans who've read Diana Gabaldon's books should have a good idea who's at the wrong end of his pistol.
But the most intriguing shot from the trailer is one that (at least if memory serves) isn't a direct adaptation from Diana Gabaldon's Voyager -- a soggy Jamie crying out for Claire in what looks like the ruin of an old castle (or tower -- perhaps Ellen's?).
Is it a dream sequence? We know that Season 3 will be employing that device at least once, since we've seen a photo of Claire wandering over Culloden Moor in the aftermath of the battle. Perhaps Jamie's hallucinating and simply having visions of his missing wife? Or maybe he heard a rumor that made him believe Claire had somehow returned to his time? (Prophecies and rumors abound in Outlander, after all.)
Whatever the reason, it's likely that we're seeing Jamie exploring a place referred to in the books as the silkies' island -- or at least on his way there -- and once we see the events leading up to that moment, it'll probably become obvious why he's so wet and worked up.
The structure of the teaser trailer -- which only features Jamie's voice, not Claire's -- could also offer an interesting clue about Season 3.
The show has rarely strayed from Claire's point-of-view so far, with her voiceover serving as our guide through the series, but Season 3 differentiates itself from the previous two by showing Claire and Jamie's parallel journeys in different time periods, covering a span of two decades.
Does this mean we might get more episodes with Jamie's voiceover as well as Claire's, to give us insight into his journey over the years he spends without her? Certainly, the show will have to rely on his POV instead of Claire's while he's alone in the 18th century, but we'll have to wait and see whether that extends to the show's signature storytelling technique -- or whether Season 3 will cut back on the VO altogether now that Claire and the audience have a handle on her time-traveling adventures.
While it's clear that Claire and Jamie will have to go through a lot before they reunite, the most important part of the teaser trailer is what Jamie says right at the end: "I'll find you, I promise."
Much like this endless droughtlander, no matter how long that takes, we know it'll be worth the wait. September can't come soon enough.
