When you think of the bad guys on TV there are many. Jeoffrey is probably one of the most universally hated characters in all of land of fiction. I mean people literally threw parties over the purple wedding. I mean I know I did! I still grin about it, little bastard had it coming.
And then I have really always disliked this guy, Brutus is not the actor Tobias. That is more a personal thing for me however.
I am a Caesar girl, always have been, always will be. For reason of history and past lives, all of those kind of things. So of course the moment he was announced as being Brutus in HBO’s Rome I just had to dislike him. But really, in the grand scheme of things, Brutus was not all bad. He was in fact pushed to it by the people around him. So I do understand that and for his part Tobias is an amazing actor and he really did convey the turmoil that Brutus went through.
Then he showed up on TV as this guy.
To be fair, he of course also plays Frank but he has had much more screen time of as Black Jack Randall. Possibly the most evil man in the history of book’s and now TV. He is truly a man who has no soul. He does the most vile and terrible things and really does not care at all for anything but his own pleasure. He truly takes joy in destroying people, playing games and getting what he wants. What he does to Jamie, the way he toys with Claire and what he does to poor young Fergus. It does indeed make for riveting TV, but it also makes for very hard to watch and uncomfortable TV. Very uncomfortable. I know what things are coming myself and I still find it very, very hard to watch some scenes.
That is of course the sign of excellent acting. Tobias, who is a very kind person in real life, very gentlemanly and really would never even dream of causing someone any harm. As my friends and I sometimes jokingly say, he is what is a typical Brit, ever so polite and will tell you sorry if he so much as gently bumps into you. With all of that known you see him as Jack Randall and he really does convince you how evil he is, even his eyes have that look of someone who is dead inside. No light, except for that light of evil.
That all hit home once again as I watched perhaps the most heartbreaking Outlander yet. As Jack Randall once again completely destroyed Jamie and Claire’s life and they are left to pick up the pieces of a shattered life. It drives home the hate again. Even though I knew full well what was coming I sobbed for nearly the whole episode. While of course Jamie could have made a different choice and Claire also could have made other choices, it really boils down to the evil festering wound that is Black Jack Randall finding more and more ways to tear their life apart. Of course you know even despite his own wound given to him by Jamie is probably a small price in his mind. He likely even enjoyed it knowing that sorry bastard.
I for one very much look forward to the day that bastard is dead. There will be an even bigger party, then there was for the death of Jeoffrey on my end at least. At least there is some good news in all this sorrow and sobbing. Black Jack Randall will not win. He may break Jamie and Claire down and rip them apart, but they always come back together. They find one another again in that darkness that he creates and like a broken bone, they mend and then they are stronger then they were before the break happened.
This is what makes the story of Outlander so compelling or at least one of the reasons. Outlander is a true love story full of all the blood and grit and tears that comes with real life relationships. Black Jack Randall though, he just keeps getting nastier and just when you think you can’t possibly hate him anymore, he does something like he did with Fergus.
Good TV for sure, now I have to go dab my eyes some more because Faith is an episode I will never be able to watch without feeling emotional. I think that goes the same for many Outlander fans.
Tags: Outlander
