What’s Worth Watching: Love is War on Outlander

Matt Roush April 4, 2015, 3:00 am

Outlander, “The Reckoning” (Saturday, April 4, 9/8c, Starz)

The course of true lust never runs smooth on TV’s most torrid time-tripping fantasy romance. And so it goes for the feisty Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and the smitten Jamie (Sam Heughan) when these stormy newlyweds from different centuries are reunited, as this sensational adaptation of Diane Gabaldon’s best-sellers resumes its terrific freshman season. What happens when an 18^th-century Scotsman tries to impose husbandly discipline on the headstrong 20^th-century bride he has just rescued from a fate worse than death? Nothing pretty, although the combatants surely are.

“I’m not sure who’s punishing who,” muses an observer who can only hear the ravenously passionate lovers’ clamorous confrontation from outside their boudoir. But as is often the case, making up is worth the effort, and beware that your TV room’s windows might fog up in the final scenes of intense intimacy. (Bonus: Jamie learns a new four-letter word in the process. Expect to hear it often as the story continues.)