'Outlander' cast agrees: Black Jack is not gay; he's a sadist 

\'Outlander\' cast agrees: Black Jack is not gay; he\'s a sadist

"Outlander" created a monster of a character in Black Jack Randall. When he returns to the series for the final two episodes of Season 1, viewers will see Tobias Menzies\' character sink to even deeper levels of depravity and come to be repulsed and horrified by him in new ways.

But with that warning in mind, it\'s worth offering clarification on the character\'s sexuality. After the season\'s twelfth episode, when Black Jack tries but fails to get aroused enough to rape Jamie\'s sister Jenny (Laura Donnelly), some members of the audience jumped to assuming he is gay because he wanted to penetrate her from behind. When the final two episodes of the season revisit his obsession with Jamie (Sam Heughan), the question will be raised again.

Except Black Jack isn\'t gay, Menzies, Heughan and author Diana Gabaldon attest. Instead he\'s a sadist who gets sexual pleasure from inflicting pain, be it on a man or a woman.

"I made a decision early on that I wanted it to be a study of sadism and not a study of sexuality," Menzies explains to Zap2it. "When he does commit sexual violence, that is the tactic rather than the end. He uses these things in order to break people down, in order to get what he wants. His interest in Jamie I think is not just about sexually drawn to him -- though that might be in there somewhere -- it is about being fascinated by someone who is as remarkable as Jamie is.

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"His interest in Claire comes by association, in a way," he adds of Caitriona Balfe\'s character. "I think he\'s intrigued. He\'s just interested in all types of people who are a match to him, who give him a good fight. Claire is no different. She\'s witty, smart, very able. She\'s able to joust very ably with him, and that gives him I think just genuine pleasure, to cross swords with someone mentally."

In a Facebook post after episode 12 aired, Gabaldon offered a similar explanation of the character\'s motivations. 

"To wit, Black Jack Randall is _not_ a homosexual," she writes. "He\'s a pervert. He\'s a sadist. He derives sexual pleasure from hurting people, but he\'s not particular about the gender of a victim. (Personality, yes -- gender, no.) ... He\'s an equal-opportunity sadist. However, given his position (garrison commander) and the structure of the culture he\'s in, he has much easier access to male prisoners, whom he can torture at leisure. But he\'ll take women when he can get them--_vide_ his reaction to finding Claire wandering around by herself."

Heughan finds the audience\'s different perspectives on Black Jack\'s sexuality to be "what I love most about TV." Though he prefers people to make their own judgments on the character based on what the show reveals to them, he too stands in the "Black Jack is not gay" camp.

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"I think there will be a real argument here about whether he\'s in love with Jamie -- which I don\'t necessarily believe," he tells Zap2it. "Personally, me Sam, I think he\'s a sociopath, psychopath. There\'s something he\'s seen between Jamie and Claire -- and also something he\'s seen in Jamie -- and it\'s become an obsession that he just wants to break [Jamie\'s] will. I think the fact that Jamie never cried out during the flogging, refuses to give up his love for Claire, just that fact that Jamie pushes Black Jack to go further because he won\'t be broken.

He continues, "They\'re kind of both to blame in a sense because Jamie won\'t give up. It\'s like a life-long bond that they\'ve got between them. Something about the spilling of blood, it\'s just cemented this battle of wills. He\'s not doing it out of just being nasty. They\'re bonded."

Since in the "Outlander" books are told from the perspective of Jamie\'s wife Claire, readers see Black Jack through her eyes, and often hear about things he\'s done later, instead of seeing him for themselves like they do on the show. Menzies admits this led to some differing interpretations of the character\'s motivations and sexuality on set.

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"I\'m not sure I accept ... that he is homosexual, actually. This is something we\'ve sometimes had disagreements with some of the writers and myself. I have felt -- and this is from also reading the books -- that I don\'t think he has any moral qualms about his sexuality," he says. "The ideas of you being either one thing or another I don\'t think existed [in 18th century Britain], is my understanding from what I\'ve read. It was not unusual in the British army then for men to sleep with men. There wasn\'t a stigma on it as there is now."

Even with the horrors coming in the final two episodes of "Outlander" Season 1, Heughan finds himself captivated by the layers of Black Jack. While it\'s undeniable that the character is a terrible person, he feels there are moments where viewers should question how a person ever got to this place.

"What he is is a man who\'s kind of tainted by the world he\'s in; by the war and what he\'s seen. I see moments in Black Jack where I\'m like, \'This guy\'s charming,\'" Heughan admits. "You kind of like him. I love him too. It\'s like, I can almost hang out with you, but he\'s been tainted by the war and the period. There\'s moments in [episodes] 15, 16 when you sort of see him trying to grasp what he\'s doing -- like, how did he even get this far? What has he done to this human being? And then he\'s past this point."

"Outlander" airs Saturdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Starz.

Tobias Menzies and Caitriona Balfe as Frank and Claire

Sam Heughan and Tobias Menzies as Jamie and Jack Randall

Caitriona Balfe and Lotte Verbeek as Claire and Geillis Duncan

Gary Lewis, Caitriona Balfe, and Graham McTavish

Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan as Claire Randall and Jamie Fraser

Graham McTavish and Gary Lewis as Dougal MacKenzie and Colum MacKenzie

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