Season 3, Episode 6: ‘A. Malcolm’

In a show in which a single relationship is the crux of the story, every scene that puts the two main characters together carries weight. And since “Outlander” waited half a season — and 20 years in story time — to bring Jamie and Claire back together, our expectations were through the roof. The success of this episode depends almost entirely on how you feel about their reunion.

For me, that reunion was most interesting when dealing with perspective. We open with a glimpse of Jamie’s everyday life, complete with an amorous landlady and a meditative printmaking montage. It’s an interesting move because it recasts Claire’s return not as a triumph for her, but as an interruption for him. A welcome one, of course (our hero wouldn’t swoon otherwise), but after 20 years, it would be harder to believe a passionate embrace than to believe the fond, loaded awkwardness between them. They’ve lived so long apart that this is, in some ways, less a reunion than a renegotiation.

Caitriona Balfe does a great job with a thankless task. Claire has been the de facto villain of the season so far. Jamie has built a life despite her absence, while her life has mostly happened around his absence. And opening the episode with Jamie means looking at her romantic hopes from a certain remove. In the face of Jamie’s reserve, Balfe plays Claire as restless, nervous and jealous by turns. It offers us a chance to sympathize with her without making her particularly sympathetic — quite a trick, but it works. Balfe sells it, and while we know “Outlander” won’t let her suffer long at Jamie’s hands, we also want her to feel, just for a while, what it’s like to worry that the person you love doesn’t love you back anymore.

Don’t worry: Jamie does. But his reluctance works without its feeling as if the show were dragging out the big clinch. He has more secrets from Claire than she does from him, and after trying so hard to accept her loss and move on, we see how painful it is to accept such a seismic shift in his life, however welcome. Jamie attempts some Santa-level faux cheerfulness about Brianna, but that’s because he palpably doesn’t know how to reach the old comfort they shared. Their awkwardness is so overwhelming that, despite Claire’s obvious longing, he eventually has to ask point-blank why she came back.