Outlander

Season #1 Episode #1 - 'Sassenach'

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FADE IN:

ON A WOMAN’S LEGS

Running through the WOODS, dressed in a thin cotton dress.

CLAIRE (V.O.)

People disappear all the time.

Tree branches lash at her, but we still can’t see her face as

she crashes through the underbrush.

CLAIRE (V.O.)

Young girls run away from home.

Children stray from their parents

and are never seen again.

Housewives take the grocery money

and a taxi to the train station.

She nearly falls. Her HAND reaches out at the last second

and saves herself with a tree branch.

CLAIRE (V.O.)

Most are found, eventually.

Disappearances, after all, have

explanations.

She tries to catch her breath, her hand TREMBLING on the

branch.

CLAIRE (V.O.)

Usually.

Suddenly a pair of HANDS GRAB HER FROM BEHIND -

CUT TO BLACK.

FADE IN:

EXT. VILLAGE STREET - DUSK

CLAIRE RANDALL (27) standing on a cobblestoned street in a

small village in post-war Scotland. Dressed in modest warm

clothes, her forever unruly curls cascading over her features

in the brisk wind, she stares at a SHOP window filled with

household goods:
embroidered tea cloths and cozies, pitchers

and glasses, a stack of pie tins, and a set of three VASES.

(CONTINUED)

2.

CONTINUED:

CLAIRE (V.O.)

Strange, the things you remember;

the single images and feelings that

stay with you down through the

years. Like looking at a shop

window with the sudden realization

that you’ve never owned a vase in

your entire life. That you’ve

never lived in any one place long

enough to justify having such a

thing. And how at that moment, you

want nothing so much in all the

world as to have a vase of your

very own.

She stares at the blue patterned vase in the window. The

shop is CLOSED.

CLAIRE (V.O.)

Even now I can recall every detail

of standing outside that shop in

Scotland.

Claire finally wraps her coat tighter around her body and

walks down the street. THUNDER ROLLS somewhere in the

distance.

CLAIRE (V.O.)

It was a Wednesday afternoon,

eleven months after the end of the

war.

INT. FIELD HOSPITAL - DAY

SCREAMS of agony fill the tent as two British SOLDIERS try to

hold down another badly WOUNDED SOLDIER.

British Army Nurse Claire Randall calmly goes about CUTTING

off the remnants of the wounded man’s pants, exposing

horribly mangled legs with jagged bones cutting through

grievous lacerations. In the b.g. the triage tent is filled

with cots and rough pallets, all jammed with the WOUNDED.

WOUNDED SOLDIER SOLDIER #1

JESUS CHRIST! OHMYGOD, Where’s the bloody doctor?!

OHMYGOD! OH DEAR JESUS!

Suddenly a SPRAY OF BLOOD splashes across Claire and the

other soldiers. The wounded man jerks and spasms.

CLAIRE:

HOLD HIM! YOU HEAR ME! HOLD HIM

RIGHT NOW!

(CONTINUED)

3.

CONTINUED:

Claire grabs a clamp from a crash tray and then works to

reach deep inside the man’s lacerated thigh as he screams his

lungs out. The soldiers hold him tight.

CLAIRE (cont’d)

I have to clamp the femoral artery

or he’ll bleed out!

SOLDIER #2

Come on, Jackie boy, it’s all

right. You’re going home... you’re

going home...

Claire grimaces, fights, finally gets her fingers on the

artery and clamps it off. The spray of blood STOPS. An Army

DOCTOR (30’s) finally rushes over to the table with a

hypodermic needle of morphine, which he INJECTS into the man.

The soldier sags back on the table as the drug kicks in.

DOCTOR:

(to Soldiers)

We’ve got him now. On your way.

The soldiers step back from their friend.

SOLDIER #1

Thank you, doctor. Thank you.

No thanks for Claire, who saved the man’s life. But she

neither notices nor cares -- too busy working her patient.

EXT. FIELD HOSPITAL - DAY (LATER)

GUNSHOTS are heard as Claire steps outside the tent with

cheeks as grey as the overcast sky, eyes red-rimmed and

glassy. Exhaustion etched into every inch of her face. The

sound of random gunfire continues as she stands in her blood-

spattered clothes outside the tent for a moment, numbly

trying to understand what she sees o.c.

NEW ANGLE:

The nurses are kissing soldiers, soldiers are hugging

soldiers and a few of them are FIRING WILDLY into the air

with automatic weapons. Someone has scrounged up bottles of

WINE and CHAMPAGNE and people are spraying them over one

another and drinking greedily.

Another NURSE happens by, her arms draped around a soldier

and a bottle in her hand.

(CONTINUED)

4.

CONTINUED:

NURSE:

Claire! Did you hear? It’s over!

It’s really, finally over!

She hands Claire the bottle. Claire takes a long drink, but

she’s too tired and strung out to do anything else but stare

at the revelers. Hold on her exhausted, glassy-eyed face for

a moment...

EXT. SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS - ROAD - WIDE - DAY

Mountains crowd the frame like massive shoulders as an open-

topped CAR bounces and careens down the narrow road.

CLAIRE (V.O.)

We were in Scotland on our second

honeymoon. Or at least that’s what

Frank called it. A way to

celebrate the end of the war years

and begin our lives anew. But it

was more than that.

EXT. MRS. BAIRD’S BED & BREAKFAST - DUSK

As evening falls, the Randall car is parked outside the

modest inn. Claire makes her way up the path while her

husband FRANK RANDALL (30’s) carries in the luggage.

CLAIRE (V.O.)

We didn’t discuss it, but I think

we both felt a holiday would serve

as a convenient masquerade for the

real business of getting to know

the people we had become after six

years apart.

Frank stops on the threshold, peers at the sill.

FRANK:

Now, what do you suppose that is?

Claire moves for a closer look.

CLAIRE:

Good Lord -- it’s blood!

FRANK:

Are you sure?

CLAIRE:

I should think I know the look of

blood by now...

(CONTINUED)

5.

CONTINUED:

FRANK:

(peers at neighboring

houses)

There’s a stain just like it on the

house next door. And the next. We

seem to be surrounded by homes

marked with blood.

They look about for a moment at the darkened door sills. The

street is empty at the moment, and the quiet feels unnatural,

disturbing. Claire finally breaks the tension -

CLAIRE:

(light)

Perhaps Pharaoh has refused Moses

and the spirit of death will travel

the streets of Inverness this night

sparing only those who mark their

doors with lamb’s blood.

FRANK:

You may be closer than you think.

This could well be part of a

sacrificial ritual -- but pagan

rather than Hebrew.

CLAIRE:

I had no idea Inverness was such a

hotbed of contemporary paganism.

FRANK:

My dear, I think you’ll find

there’s no place on earth with more

magic and superstition mixed into

its daily life than the Scottish

Highlands.

Frank grins and OPENS the door and Claire gingerly steps over

the stain before entering the inn.

LINGER a moment on the blood...

INT. MRS. BAIRD’S BED & BREAKFAST - FOYER - DUSK

A few minutes later. Frank fills out the registry book while

Claire looks around. MRS. BAIRD (60’s) a squat and easygoing

woman, sets up their account and fetches the room key.

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