Outlander - Season 1, Episode 16: To Ransom a Man's Soul
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A British nurse travels through time into a mysterious world and the only means of survival is to marry a strapping Scots warrior with a complicated past and a disarming sense of humor.
The first season of Outlander is over, and it lived up to every expectation. The episode was upsetting, exhausting, and extremely graphic-all of which made it amazing.
As necessary as the show's unflinching look at Jamie's time in captivity might be, it's nowhere near as vital as the time and care given to the aftermath of his ordeal.
So if you were hoping for a finale filled with billowing fields of heather, romance and happy endings... the makers of Outlander have delivered the most disturbing hour of television drama you're ever likely to witness.
The finale takes us even further into the darkness and then, of course, the light. But the darkness ... it is impressive, even by the standards of cable television.
The events of Outlander's Season 1 finale were so difficult to watch that it's a challenge to separate one's level of uncomfortableness from the quality of the story.
"To Ransom a Man's Soul" is uplifting, which makes it all the more, to use Black Jack Randall's words, a masterpiece - because it's also one of the most agonizing hours ever filmed for television.
Thank God that's over. While Jamie was saved pretty early on in Outlander Season 1 Episode 16, he was traumatized enough to spend most of the hour revisiting the treatment he received at the hands of Black Jack Randall and it was not a pleasant.
