Written by Diana Gabaldon and Ronald D. Moore
Directed by Metin Hüseyin

I have to give credit to Ronald D. Moore that he did a fabulous job of maintaining a bit of mystery surrounding Claire’s return to her own time. Those of us who had read the book knew what was happening but for those being exposed to the story for the first time, there is a bit of a mystery surrounding the fact that when Claire returns, she is pregnant. At the end of season one, viewers learned she was pregnant. It would seem that her return to her own time would be happening soon, but that turns out not to be the case.

Through a Glass, Darkly begins with Claire (Caitriona Balfe) waking up at the Craigh na Dun. She is wracked with grief. At first, I couldn’t be sure which time she was in. It soon becomes apparent she is back in her original time of the late 1940s. All she wants to know is who won at Culloden, and when she’s told nothing changed from the history she knew, she breaks down.

Frank Randall (Tobias Menzies) arrives at the hospital where Claire was taken. When he approaches her, she sees Black Jack Randall instead and jumps away from him. They retreat to the Rev. Wakefield’s (James Fleet) house. Frank attempts to unravel the story behind where she was for two years. Claire is reading through the books in the Rev. Wakefield’s library on the Jacobite rebellion to try and see what happened to the people she left behind. She has no problem talking to Mrs. Graham (Tracey Wilkinson) about what she went through, but won’t open up to Frank. Mrs. Graham urges her to.

Finally, she tells him.

Frank states he will make the leap of faith and accept her story, but she doubts him. He tells her what her disappearance was like from his perspective. He pledges his unconditional love for her despite it all. She informs him that she’s pregnant. Frank talks to the Rev. Wakefield about the choice he has to make. He suggests to Claire that they move to Boston where the story can’t follow them and they can start a new life. He doesn’t want the child to know Claire’s story of her not being his child, and he wants Claire to give up searching for Jamie in the past.

As they are stepping off the airplane in New York, Claire flashes back to getting off the ship with Jamie (Sam Heughan) in France.

The story back in the 18th century picks up with Murtagh (Duncan Lacroix) finding them rooms to stay in while Jamie cultivates the relationship with his cousin, Jared (Robert Cavanah). Jamie is still feeling the effects of his time at Wentworth prison. His hand is still healing, and he seems to be suffering mentally from the trauma.

Jared challenges Jamie on his sudden embracing of the Jacobite cause. Jamie shows him the scars on his back and Jared is convinced. He puts Jamie in charge of his business so he can take a trip to the West INdies, including the use of his house in Paris and a share of the profits.

Claire takes a walk and finds a commotion nearby at the docks. A ship has come in with a crew who are suffering from smallpox. Claire’s diagnosis means the entire cargo as well as the ship is now lost, costing the Comte St. Germain (Stanley Weber) quite a bit of money. Jamie urges her to depart, but they end up in a confrontation with the Compte. He vows to make them pay.

This hour-long episode seems so much longer due to how much it covers. So much of the first season the focus was on what was happening to Claire when she is out of her own time. There were glimpses into what it was like for Frank, but it’s here, at the beginning of the second season, that we see the toll taken on him. Frank goes through so many emotions. He is elated by Claire’s return and gives her the space she asks for and needs. Once Claire is convinced to tell him the story, there is disbelief and yet acceptance of a very unbelievable tale. Frank echoes that despite what people told him, he always believed Claire did not leave him; that she was taken away by force or some force. What Claire has told him aligns with that.

Tobias Menzies deserved an award for this episode, period. The fact that at the time he was not only playing two very distinct and different roles on Outlander as well as Edmure Tully in Game of Thrones and he gives so much to each of them is amazing. The many expressions on his face when he hears Claire tell him that she’s pregnant, joy giving way to realization, and sorrow are conveyed in such a way that I could completely sympathize with Frank. Frank takes a lot of heat from fans of the series from this point out, but you really have to go back to this episode to grasp what it all means for him. The wife he has loved and adored has come back to him, in love with another man and carrying his child. His world and all that he has believed in has been torn apart and just when it seems to be a time to rebuild it, he’s thrown an impossible curve.

As far as Claire knows at this point, Jamie died at Culloden. How that happened is yet to be told, for the last viewers saw of the two of them they were headed to France intent on stopping the Jacobite uprising. There is no way for her to go back to him. She still loves him, but he is a ghost. What she has is Frank, and she’s having a hard time separating the man she is married to from his evil ancestor, Jack Randall. This will have a detrimental effect from this point on between them.

I have a minor nitpick for the scene where Claire and Frank are deplaning. There’s no airport near New York City that would have given them that view. It would have had to have been in Brooklyn for this. Even LaGuardia would not give them this view and Idlewild (now Kennedy Airport) was too far away as well.

When the story picks back up in France, Claire is still keeping her story a secret from everyone except Jamie. This puts Murtagh in a tough position as Jamie is basically asking him to go along with treason just on the say-so of Jamie and Claire. Murtagh knows Jamie hasn’t been political up until now, and can’t be fooled by a change of heart the way Jared is. Jared tells them that to be a Jacobite in France is a badge of honor, and seems to think Jamie is embracing the cause as an opportunist rather than a true believer. That is until Jamie shows him the scars on his back, courtesy of the British Army.

Claire only knows a little of the history, so they are trying to put a plan together to just try to stop the Jacobites in France from having an influence on what will happen in Scotland. I could see where telling Murtagh the truth might be a bit challenging at this point in time. Even Jamie believing her is a bit of a leap of faith. Most people would see Claire as a British agent, trying to interfere with the Jacobite cause. Would Murtagh think that if they confided her incredible story with him? I have little doubt that Dougal McKenzie likely would have.

The new villain, the Comte St. Germain, could be a throwaway character at this point. The story has to have some conflict and peril, and at this point, it would seem that their old nemesis Jack Randall is out of the picture. He will later have different ties to Claire and her situation, which you’ll know if you’ve read Diana Gabaldon’s writings, but here he is merely the most recent person she manages to make an enemy of.

Through a Glass, Darkly is a solid beginning to the second season of the series. It tells a concurrent story between Claire’s present and her past and does so quite well. The acting here is exceptional, particularly by Tobias Menzies. The weak spot is the new “villain”but his role will be more rounded in time.

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