October 22, 2017 was the watershed. Before that day there had been only speculation, and hope. How would the reunion between Claire and Jamie have gone? How would tv writers have managed this pivotal and highly emotional situation, balancing the print shop and the brothel moments? Expectations were so high. Producer Maril Davis, lead stars Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe, even Ron Moore swore to the fans that they had earned a very special episode, longer than usual, and with more than half an hour with the main actors alone and naked in a brothel's room. This sounded magical – especially to book-fans. After that day, the fan base basically split in two factions. On the one side the enthusiasts, like author Roxane Gay: people that thought the episode was great, despite the changes from the book, and that Claire & Jamie’s reunion after 20 years had been sexy, tender, and satisfying. On the other side, the disapproving faction.
Disapproval was (and is) driven basically by two reasons (sometimes combined, sometimes not). The first reason being that the episode messed up the book storyline, including things that weren’t in Diana Gabaldon's Voyager, cutting out others, or even just slightly changing the meaning of some lines. The other reason being that the chemistry between the actors is lower – or definitely off. Ok, this article is about this last topic – about the loss of chemistry between the two main actors. Despite the fact that they're still so perfectly gorgeous. Despite the fact they're both incredibly good at acting. Despite the fact they're still – and always will be – pure joy for the eye. It was essential to write this kind of review after the very end of season 3 to avoid the main “defensive line” – that the actors playing Claire and Jamie – Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan – would have, in the reunion episode (#6 of season 3), just pretended not to have chemistry anymore with the specific purpose of bringing to screen the perfectly human struggle about finding intimacy again after so many years apart.
Season 3 is now over, and we can state that its hot scenes are far from the benchmark. It’s not like there aren’t such scenes in this season: there's four of them, plus one (which is rather a fight, interrupted by... a “shower” cooling down hot spirits). And the first of these scenes is almost endless – over thirty minutes from the moment they start to take off their clothes to the moment they part, the morning after. So what? So, it’s not enough. It’s not as it was. (Please stop reading, now, if you don’t want to hear this. Many fans don’t, and they deserve respect and understanding). So we can now sadly say that – yes, the chemistry is quite off. There are proofs of it. Mostly depending on the actors, sometimes on the writers, sometimes on the directors. It’s actually nearly impossible to ascribe the responsibility to one person. But the proofs are here, under our very nose. One could be chance, two could be coincidence: but nine are definitely a pattern.
1. Claire doesn’t climax any more. Or if she does (obviously she does, for Jamie's still the king of men!), she doesn’t in front of the viewers. Season 1 had five episodes including sex scenes (7 The Wedding, 8 interrupted by deserters, 9 making up after The Reckoning, 10 a special good morning for Claire, 11 after the witch trial). In four of them (four out of five!) we were witness to Claire’s orgasm. Season 2 left all this out, but it was a much less hot season: Jamie was under post-traumatic stress for the first few episodes, unable to have sex with his wife; and even when this problem came to an end, we had just a couple of sex scenes, mostly short, and none of them following the characters ”until the end” – save the sad, quick and heart-breaking lovemaking in front of the stones, just before Culloden. But season 3... season 3 should have been the return of Claire’s sexual fulfillment. But it wasn’t. We see her climaxing just the once (during the first love-making of the reunion episode), and in a weird way, actually, full of astonishment. That’s all. (See point #9 for more details about it). 2. Why is Claire’s pleasure so important? Well, because it's not very frequently that we see the kind of “equal storytelling” about sexual pleasure Outlander has brought to screen, often “told by a female gaze both on-camera and behind it” – this article by Matilda Dixon-Smith is very interesting on the topic. So yes, basically we could say that in season 3 there’s a lack of climax on both sides, for we see Jamie’s climax just once either (or twice, considering also the night with Geneva). But in fact, Claire’s lack (as point #1 pointed out) is more significant.
3. No more tongue while kissing. Claire and Jamie’s kisses are tender, passionate, and usually hot. In seasons 1 and 2 there are glimmers of tongue now and again. There’s a video recalling every kiss between the two characters from episode 7 of season 1 to the finale of season 3: fourteen delightful minutes of kisses. But in season 3 there is no tongue at all. Never. Even in the super sexy what-would-I-do-to-you scene in the season finale. No tongue. (For the statistics-loving: five glimmers of tongue in season 1; two glimmers – among which one really evident from Claire to Jamie – in season 2; zero – maybe half a glimmer, in the very first kiss after the twenty years apart – in season 3).
4. No more intimate touch. Of course, Claire and Jamie still touch each other. But no, they don’t really touch each other in a sexy, passionate way. Jamie’s hands in the brothel’s scene speak volumes about it. He doesn’t touch Claire’s buttocks, or breasts. Even when he seems to, he drives his hands in an impersonal way, moving as if trying to avoid the contact with the most sensitive areas. The hand’s not open, not squeezing, not even caressing: it’s just overflying Claire’s breasts. The little slap on Claire's butt cheek just before getting out of bed? Unnatural, detached, too quick, unconvincing. Even when he scratches her, in the slow blue-bathed scene, his hands and nails feel weak on her body. There’s very little in that gesture: not passion nor lust or longing. The only time Jamie finally grabs Claire's buttocks, in the season finale's sex scene, she has her chemise on. So he basically grabs the hem of a cotton shirt and what's in it – and the displeasing sensation is that under that shirt there could even be a little hidden pillow, to avoid direct contact between the actors. It's just a sensation, and might be wrong – but the buttocks' size seem way too large and soft comparing to Balfe's tiny, perfectly toned behind.
5. No more sucking. Jamie doesn’t touch Claire’s breast, as we saw in the previous point; nor does he suck it. What he used to do with his lips in season 1 and 2, inexplicably he doesn’t anymore in season 3. He pretends to give attention to her breast, but the only thing he does with it is leaving some very light kisses in the vicinity (see point #7). Nipples are utterly forgotten. Not surprising at all that in the what-would-I-do-to-you tv scene, the lines about breast sucking have actually been cut out completely, even if the scene is otherwise quite faithful to the original Voyager chapter. In comparison, the breast-sucking moment in Geneva’s bedroom (episode 4) is heated with passion and realism. 6. No more oral sex. There are two beautifully made oral sex scenes between Claire and Jamie in season 1, both completely fulfilling for the male and the female character (plus one between Claire and Frank in episode 1, even if we don't see Claire's climax). This sort of sex contact is cut off in season 3. So the turtle soup scene (in episode 11) has no Claire kneeling in front of Jamie. And the what-would-I-do-to-you scene (in the season finale) has no ”I shall lift up your skirt” moment. Well, there should have been that moment in the episode, for it was actually in the final script. «Jamie: “And kiss the insides of your thighs, where the skin’s so soft. The stubble might help there, aye?” - He’s kissing her thighs… Claire: “It might. What am I supposed to be doing while you do this?” Jamie: “Well, ye might moan a bit, if you like, to encourage me, but otherwise, ye just lie still”. But it’s impossible to lie still while he’s doing… what he’s doing. Claire MOANS». But somehow, we don't know why, the lines have been modified during the shoot. So no more Jamie going down on Claire. As a matter of fact there is a scene, in the reunion episode, when Jamie hints at cunnilingus – the “Don't you want to eat? Aye” line, when he goes down on her in the morning. But the scene is almost immediately interrupted (see point #9). And for the split second that it lasts, the scene sadly shows Jamie kissing Claire’s hip bone. The hip bone. Not even near to the right spot (see point #7). Hip bone. Yep. 7. Bye-bye realism. Maybe seasons 1 and 2 have spoiled the viewers with a very realistic way of presenting sex and pleasure. Back in 2015 Caitriona Balfe stated she was proud of the “realism” of the season 1 wedding episode's extra-sexy scenes. She was right, of course: the chemistry between her and the male lead character, back then the almost-unknown Scottish actor Sam Heughan, was just unbelievable. Three years later, realism is quite gone. In season 3, the most realistic scene is sadly the sexual intercourse between Jamie and Geneva (episode 4, “Now move with me”...). Claire and Jamie’s sex is kind of fake, now. For one thing, they keep their clothes on when there’s no reason to. The sex scene in the season finale is, from this point of view, nearly ridiculous – Jamie keeps his pants on until the end and Claire slides her chemise down (doesn’t even take completely off) just at the very end of the scene. More: they do not touch each other (buttocks, breast, thighs...) in moments when they clearly should. Seems like the actors have at a certain point decided to try to shift all the sexual tension to the gaze: they look at each other with tons of desire. Don't take me wrong, gaze is a good thing. We like Claire and Jamie looking at each other as if they'd like to devour the other one the very minute after. But unfortunately it's not enough. There must be the minute after. There must be squeezing, and pawing, and licking, and sucking. Otherwise, what kind of realism are we talking about?
8. What's so funny? Laughing is good while having sex: it means, of course, being comfortable with each other – having a good time. But laughing too much is not so good. It diminishes the emotional outcome of the scene. Claire and Jamie laugh a lot in their season 3 sex scenes – they always laugh in every sex scene after the reunion episode, in fact. On the ship in episode 9? They laugh. During the turtle soup scene? They laugh (here it's ok, though: the scene's funny even in Voyager, for Claire's drunk). During the last sex scene of the season, just before the storm? They laugh. They laugh way too much. Sex is a serious thing – at least most of the time. 9. “Stop!” comes too soon. Except for the reunion episode, every sex scene in season 3 is cut hugely too soon. Interesting to notice something “mysterious” happened at least in two scenes. The turtle soup scene was originally written in another way: after Jamie & Willoughby's dialogue through the closed door, the camera should have come back in the cabin, following Claire and Jamie in their embrace and until their climax. It's clear in the script: «She bites him, he winces – a mix of pleasure and pain. OFF the two of them moving into one another, until they both CLIMAX — ». Oops, we've lost the climax. In the final cut there's barely forty seconds from the moment Claire and Jamie close the bolt of the cabin door and get naked, starting to make love seriously after having played around, to the end of the episode. Who decided to close the episode on Mr. Willoughby grin? Why has the final part of the script been changed? It's the same for the sex scene of the season finale. Not only has the cunnilingus been cut out (see point #6), but also the climax (see point #1) of this scene. This is what the script presupposed: «Jamie: “and we’ll see what sort of noise it is ye don’t make then, Sassenach”. Claire grins, flushed with excitement, as she rides him all the way to climax, cresting with the waves of the ocean». What we had in the final cut is Claire hiding her face with her wig's curls and her breasts with her arms while kissing Jamie and moving on him – and then, fade out. That's it. For the record, we have to say that the chemistry is off just for the purely sexy moments. Otherwise it's still there. The whole print shop scene is a masterpiece of emotion and deep feeling. When Jamie looks at Claire while she's sleeping, at the brothel in the reunion episode, and she wakes up and he says, “Maybe I'm a ghost”, his gaze at her is poignant and moving and heartwarming. Maybe the warmest and soulful gaze ever. When they look at the moon on the ship, or when they find each other on the beach – the chemistry is there. But unfortunately the actors patently are not so at ease with each other as they used to be, when they're naked and acting sex scenes. That's all. This article is not about why. It's about what. And that's what happened to Outlander during the last season. Could the actors possibly find chemistry and comfort again on season 4 (and hopefully following)? Regrettably, I think not. I'm afraid it's gone for good. © insideoutlander [English version proofread by Kath at www.gofoolproof.com] More articles in English? Please press here!
