‘Outlander’ 6×08 Review: ”I Am Not Alone”

Season finale time! Outlander 6×08 “I Am Not Alone” marks the end of season 6 of this show with an episode that doesn’t feel like an end, but rather a beginning and where things stay…on hold, to say the least. Time for a review!

Here we go!

WE ALREADY KNOW WHAT HAPPENS WITH THE BEST DRAWN PLANS…

Outlander 6×08 “I Am Not Alone” is a season finale that doesn’t feel like one. Mainly, because it wasn’t meant to be. If anything makes this episode clear, it’s that the season was planned for its usual 12 episodes but they had to shorten it to only 8.

This circumstance makes Outlander 6×08 “I Am Not Alone” a half-gas episode, made up of wonderful moments… but it leaves you halfway because absolutely nothing relevant happens until the end. When it ends, you are left wanting more but you also feel a bit cheated because the most important plot of the season – Malva’s story and its consequences – wasn’t resolved.

So when you get to this point, you start to remember and realize that season 6 wasted too much time down the road focusing on things that weren’t going to be fleshed out right now. A time that it could have used to develop the true story of the season and not leave us…halfway. That is, the show reaches the preliminaries but doesn’t finish the matter.

The only explanation for this is that Outlander season 6 was designed to have 4 more episodes. Four episodes that would have connected the first episodes that seem so isolated, with a plot so different from the real one, with the end, connecting all the dots and finishing the stories raised.

MOMENTS THAT MARK A SEASON

As it is, this season also feels made at moments, dark, ominous… and in which only the plot about Claire’s trauma got a closed and clearly satisfying ending (giving it the time it needed but not developing the other stories at the same pace as well). The season feels more like a prelude than a true story. We end this season feeling like the real story has only just begun.

This is not the production’s fault. After all, shit happens and then plans have to change. This is just what happened in Outlander season 6 and it shows. It could have been worse (like the season 5 finale)…but it could have been better too. So this half-gas ending is a bummer for the viewer because, in the end, we feel a bittersweet taste with this season.

JAMIE AND CLAIRE’S LOVE

Jumping right into the episode, Jamie and Claire’s love is what always works in Outlander. Outlander 6×08 “I Am Not Alone” is no exception. For them, we’re here, for them, we stay. The magic that they have, the magic that they create on-screen is unique.

And they’re always there for each other. Jamie plans to defend Claire to death if need be and she was never a damsel in distress. So she goes to work to defend herself and Jamie with everything she has.

They’re both afraid. Both can lose each other that night. They’ve been over the edge too many times not to recognize that feeling, that knot in their stomach. They know this is not going to go well. But they will fight to the death for each other. They always have, they always will.

That night…it sounds too much like what that story in the paper said. I mean, the time doesn’t seem to fit but Jamie was a printer and he knows that doesn’t mean anything. And that night…it makes sense that they would burn to death. Help doesn’t arrive and the night is upon them. They don’t have enough weapons or ammo. But either way, they will…together.

If it’s that night in which they lose each other, in which everything ends… they want to unite for what feels like the last time. And I’m not just talking about the physical aspect. The sex scenes between Jamie and Claire always felt passionate and intimate. It always felt like we saw their souls connect and that didn’t change.

NINE LIVES…

But the moment that really seems most intimate to me, almost too much to watch, the moment where I felt almost like an outsider watching, is when Jamie talks to Claire about his nine lives. That ominous night seems like the ideal one to review the past, their past together and their lives apart.

The way Jamie is almost whispering, with Claire, held tightly in his arms, talking about life and death has a special charm that gives me goosebumps and resonates to the core of me. Jamie was always prepared to greet death like an old friend…and if that’s the time, he has no regrets. He just wants it to be like this, with the love of his life in his arms, with the happiness of their life together in his hands.

Claire is so scared…but not for her, for him. Claire can live in a world where Jamie exists, even though he’s not with her, but he can’t live in a world where he’s not. Jamie feels the same way about her. Claire is Jamie’s heart and Jamie is Claire’s heart. That’s the love they share.

And that’s true love. Quiet moments, little ones, in quiet places…or places when death lurks. This is the most intimate scene of the season and one of the most intimate on the show.

TOGETHER…NO MATTER WHAT

Jamie and Claire are determined to face whatever comes their way together…but keeping a promise is never easy. Richard Brown has everything planned to make sure of that. He knows that he can’t do anything to Claire with Jamie around and he can’t let him go. Jamie will kill them all sooner or later. He will chase them to death… but if he’s separated from her and sent away, Richard can do with Claire whatever he wants.

Knowing Jamie with her, Claire’s greatest fear was the future and what it would mean for her to be, once again, practically alone with despicable men in the middle of a forest. But when Richard Brown and his men take Jamie away from her, that’s the least of her worries.

All she cares about is Jamie and his safety. The only thing she needs to know is that he is still alive. And the only thing that keeps her going is the hope that he is. Tom Christie makes sure to protect her and try to make her feel safe. Claire has no choice but to trust him… he’s the only thing she has.

Luckily, Jamie does have more lives than a cat, and thanks to Ian and the Cherokee he makes it out of the ambush by Brown’s men alive…and ready to rescue Claire. This whole part involves a change from the book and configures a new story, a new way of moving forward concerning the events that will follow, and… I like it. It works very well.

EPIPHANIES

While all of this is going on, Brianna and Roger have an epiphany in Outlander 6×08 “I Am Not Alone.” I have to confess that, at first, their plot in this episode seemed very disconnected from the main plot and without a clear goal. It almost seemed like a comical and relaxed point that relieved the tension of what we were experiencing with Jamie and Claire.

But later, when this moment comes, all the pieces fall into place. Jemmy is Roger’s biological son. This answers one of the unknowns that were pending. However, this doesn’t really change anything for Roger.

He accepted Jemmy as his son from the day he made the blood pact and always treated him that way. Knowing that he is his as well by blood doesn’t really change anything in the grand scheme of things, but it’s…a good thing to know.

For Brianna, on the other hand, it’s a relief and it does change something. She always loved Jemmy and was a loving mother to him from the beginning, never mind the possibility that Bonnet (AKA “the bastard”) was her father, but knowing that he isn’t and that Jemmy is the product of love between and not of her rape, relieves a weight on her that she hadn’t realized she was carrying.

And this family moment full of laughter and happiness is a perfect moment so full of love that it brought tears to my eyes.

In another order of things, Outlander 6×08 “I Am Not Alone” made it clear that Tom Christie is officially in love with Claire. That’s why he goes with her, he won’t let her get hurt…and that’s why he stays with her in the end. It hurts him to see her crying and pleading for Jamie but he can’t leave her.

And that’s why he’s going to help her get out of jail. He feels her so close but so far… he can touch her but he has no right to it. But he, at least, can protect her and see to it that she is happy. At least, he can hold her hand right now… even if he’s just a stand-in for the man who should be there with her. I’m dying to see how this plays out in season 7!

Other Stuff In Outlander 6×08 “I Am Not Alone”

• We actually saw a stoning scene in the episode. The human being can be the wildest and most ignorant being in the world, I swear. My heart sank.

• I love unexpected allies…especially when they improve on the way the book did things. I didn’t expect the Cherokees to save Jamie but it fits perfectly and I like how they’ve changed what happens in the book. This may have many possibilities for the future of the war.

• I hate Richard Brown. I want him to die in terrible suffering. Can Jamie, Claire, and Tom join forces to kill him? I also hate all of Richard’s men. So I officially add them to the “people to kill” list.

• What is the true story of Malva and her murder? Tom knows that Claire is innocent because, as in love with her as he is, he wouldn’t have protected her like that if he thought for a second that she did. Does Tom know the truth? We’ll have to wait *quite* to find out!

• Will Claire find any allies in prison? She must survive while Jamie arrives…

• It’s frustrating how no one helped Jamie and Claire, even though they took all these ungrateful people into their home at the Ridge.

• I spent part of this episode thinking: Where is Ian? Where are the Beardsleys? Where is *someone* when you need them?

• Jamie is never hotter than when he defends Claire with his body, his blood, and everything he has. And not just physically.

• I love Claire standing up for her husband and her home with everything in her.

• Roger, I’ve learned to love you, but please, for God’s sake, pluck those chest hairs of yours.

• Still, I forgive you because this season you’re being a good boy.

• And I ship you with Brianna, FINALLY.

• Jamie and Claire have a way of having sex that completely disarms me.

• I missed Jamie and Claire’s sex scenes. More of this, Outlander, please. MUCH MORE.

• Claire’s look when she says goodbye to her house thinking that she will never see it again… that look haunts me since I watched the episode.

• The heartbreaking cries of Jamie and Claire knowing they’re separated…

• I love how Ian never leaves their uncles no matter what.

Outlander 6×08 “I Am Not Alone” is the end of season 6. But we didn’t finish this season so soon. To celebrate the end, we will publish soon our exclusive interview with the Christie family in which we will have some clues about what will happen to them in season 7. Stay tuned!

Outlander season 6 aired Sundays at 9PM ET on STARZ.

Agree? Disagree? Feel free to share with us your thoughts about “I Am Not Alone” in the comments below!