TV Show Review

TV Review: OUTLANDER: Season 3, Episode 11: Uncharted [Starz]

Caitriona Balfe Sam Heughan Outlander Uncharted

Outlander Uncharted Review

Starz’s Outlander: Season 3, Episode 11: Uncharted was a survival episode not only about the sea and the island that Dr. Claire Beauchamp Randall/Fraser (Caitriona Balfe) found herself on but of lose as well – surviving loss and what its ramifications could be on the human psyche. With Claire Fraser, she had become strengthen by her time with James “Jamie” MacKenzie Fraser (Sam Heughan), even when she’d lost him for twenty years and didn’t know if he were alive or dead. With Father Fogden (Nick Fletcher), to a visible extent, loss had broken part of his mind. Perhaps Fogden’s psyche had always been fragile and the loss of Ermenegilda Ruiz Alcantara y Meroz had finally fractured it. Love and lose effect different people in different ways but I doubt that Fogden imbued inanimate objects with voices before he lost his beloved.

Outside of the voices or the voice that Fogden heard, he was an endearing and entertaining character in Uncharted, especially in the last act of the episode. Fogden almost turned the wedding, in a positive way, into a comedy skit with his psychosis powering some of his queries, statements, and replies.

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The wedding in Uncharted between Claudel “Fergus” Fraser (César Domboy) and Marsali MacKimmie (Lauren Lyle) was not only memorable because of the aforementioned utterances by Father Fogden, but because of warmth, tenderness, and sense of family (Jamie letting Fergus use the Fraser family name) that came out of the ceremony. The viewer was given a clear example (the look that passed between the two of them) of how close Jamie Fraser and Fergus Fraser had become over the years.

Though most of the heart-warming moments of Uncharted revolved around Fergus and Marsali then Claire and Jamie, the perilous portion of the episode belonged solely to Claire Fraser.

When one considered the sea raft segment of Uncharted, its beginning was uncannily dubious. How does a person fall asleep surrounded by liquid death when your only means of survival is to stay awake, keep your wits about you, and swim towards the lights of the town the ship you just jumped off of was rapidly moving away from? How easy would it have been for Claire to slip off of that raft into the ocean while she was asleep and breathe in salt water before she woke up and realized what had happened? As I said, Claire falling asleep in that predicament was highly questionable.

The sleep question notwithstanding, the viewer never imagined that Claire would perish during Uncharted but they did wonder how much Claire would suffer before she found someone or was rescued from the island. It turned out that Claire was made to suffer greatly by multiple, non-sentient assailants. None of that would have mattered if the viewer didn’t care about Claire or her welfare. Since that emotional bridge had been established long ago between character and viewer, when Claire and Jamie were reunited again on the beach in Uncharted, the viewer was happy. It was a joyous moment.

Leave your thoughts on this Outlander Uncharted review and this episode of Outlander below in the comments section. Readers seeking more Outlander can visit our Outlander Page, our Outlander Facebook, and our Outlander Google+ Page. Readers seeking more TV show reviews can visit our TV Show Review Page, our TV Show Review Twitter Page, our TV Show Review Facebook Page, and our TV Show Review Google+ Page. Want up-to-the-minute notification? FilmBook staff members publish articles by Email, Twitter, Tumblr, Google+, and Facebook.

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Rollo Tomasi

Rollo Tomasi is a Connecticut-based film critic, TV show critic, news, and editorial writer. He will have a MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University in 2025. Rollo has written over 700 film, TV show, short film, Blu-ray, and 4K-Ultra reviews. His reviews are published in IMDb's External Reviews and in Google News. Previously you could find his work at Empire Movies, Blogcritics, and AltFilmGuide. Now you can find his work at FilmBook.
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