Outlander Recap: Claire’s Worst Nightmare Comes to Pass, and Then Things Get Really Complicated
Sing me a song of a lad that is gone. Say, could that lad be James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser?
That’s how things look by the end of this week’s Outlander, during which Claire receives word that Jamie’s ship has gone down while crossing the Atlantic. There are no survivors.
More from TVLine
Yep, we’ve reached the point in the season foreshadowed in the trailer, where a devastated Claire declares, “I would feel it in my heart if his had stopped. Mine would stop, too.” And to add insult to emotionally crippling injury, barely a moment passes before she’s pressed into a decision that will affect the rest of her life.
Maybe we’ll find some levity elsewhere in the episode. What’s that you say? Ian just died in his bed next to Jenny and Arch Bug is about to off Rachel? Damnit!
Read on for the highlights of “Brotherly Love.”
FAREWELL, OLD FRIEND | We get one more sweet scene between Ian and Jamie, where Ian teases his friend about marrying a (hundreds of years) older woman. When the laughter dies down, Jamie says he’s loved Ian as a brother ever since they traded blood after Willie’s death. And then all that is left is for Jamie to carry his fading friend to his bed, where Jenny and Jamie both wait with him for the inevitable. “On your left, man,” Ian wheezes at Jamie, invoking his familiar call. Then he says Jenny’s name one last time, and he’s gone.
Jamie digs Ian’s grave alone. Then he invites Jenny to come and stay with him and Claire on Fraser’s Ridge, but she declines.
BALL’S IN CLAIRE’S COURT | Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, Claire arrives to help Lord John’s nephew, Henry. Henry technically is a prisoner of war under the care of Mercy Woodcock, a Black woman who is for independence; Lord John has been hanging out at her place, wearing his British Army uniform, to lend her a little protection now that the city is under British control. He’s relieved to see Claire and happy to announce that he’s bought all the vitriol he could get his hands on, so she can make ether to use during Henry’s abdominal surgery. During her examination, she learns that Denzell Hunter did the procedure that successfully removed the first musket ball, ad that William, Denzell and Rachel are all in the city.
Dr. Hunter helps Claire with Henry’s surgery. Mercy administers the ether. Lord John gags quietly in the corner but, to his credit, manages not to throw up. Eventually Claire is able to remove the second musket ball, and Lord John happily announces the news to William and Rachel, who are waiting in the parlor. In the aftermath, Mercy asks Claire about her husband, Walter, who you’ll remember died at Valley Forge. Claire breaks the news gently: “He died thinking of you.”
ADIOS, ARCH | Earlier in the episode, we saw Arch Bug clocking Rachel and William at the market. The old man later finds Rachel, who’s preoccupied that she’s lost Rollo, and grabs her in the stables. Arch exposits to Rachel that he’s going to kill her to punish Ian… who suddenly shows up! Rachel begs Ian not to kill Arch. But that imperative becomes tough to comply with after Arch buries his hatchet in Ian’s arm. The men tussle, and Arch definitely has the upper hand — grief-borne fury makes you strong, I guess? — but William enters the stables at the most opportune moment and shoots the old man dead. He tells Rachel (on whom he has a huge crush) and Ian to run, because no one will arrest him for the crime but they could get in real trouble.
Outlander Photopalooza! See Photos From Blood of My Blood Prequel
When things have calmed down a little, Rachel and Ian get cozy as she reminds him that he never told her he loved her in English. So he does. “The world is turning upside down, and yet you are the only constant thing, the only thing that binds me to the earth,” he adds. (Down by his feet, Rollo’s like, “THANKS.”) They talk about how he’s not going to convert to Quakerism, but he wants to be with her. She seems to come to a new way of thinking about the differences between them. “Your dog is a wolf, is he not?” she wonders. “Thee is a wolf, too, and I know it. But thee is my wolf.”
‘HE’S GONE’ | Throughout the episode, the British have been cracking down on revolutionary spies. Which is a problem, because Mercy is one of them. When her connect gets caught, and she is followed, she worries: She’s got a letter that must get to Gen. George Washington, and no way to deliver it. Claire volunteers to drop it off, instead; the soldiers never search her when she passes a checkpoint on the way to a garden outside of town. And indeed, though she gets a suspicious eye from a Redcoat along the way, she gets out of it in the most Claire Fraser way possible: by talking about explosive diarrhea. He quickly waves her along, and she leaves the letter in a dead drop location.
When she gets home, her world ends. The first indication that something is horribly wrong is that Lord John is in the drawing room with a visitor, and the normally composed Brit is barely holding it together. “Jamie’s ship… was lost at sea. Lost with all hands,” John tells Claire, who immediately replies that he’s mistaken. The visitor is a ship’s captain who brought the news; Jamie’s signature was on the downed vessel’s manifest — she herself had gotten a letter from him, saying he was on his way — and there were no survivors. “I would feel it. I would know,” she maintains, angry and beating John away as he moves to comfort her. “He’s dead, Claire. He’s gone,” Lord John says, wrecked, and goodness gracious, can someone comfort HIM?!
When the tears start, they don’t stop. Claire takes to her bed and won’t answer the door for anyone, so she misses the part where a Redcoat John knows comes to the house and says that he’s going to arrest Claire for being a spy. Lord John lies and says that he and Claire don’t have a personal connection, and that she’s not home. So the Brit gives him a day to produce her, then leaves.
Lord John makes a beeline for Claire’s room, ignoring her requests to be left alone. “You must marry me,” he says, instructing her to get dressed, because it’s gotta happen soon. Claire’s like HARD PASS, but he points out that she’ll be hanged otherwise. Poor Lord John, who is very much dying on the inside at the loss of his favorite redhead, chokes out that wedding her will at least afford her insulation from the charges and will be the “last service I can render Jamie Fraser.”
Claire, who admittedly is not her best self at the moment, doesn’t care. She wants them to hang her. But when Lord John explains that they won’t stop with her — Ian, Rachel, Mercy and Henry all will be implicated — she appears to reconsider. “Please, there is not a moment to lose,” he begs. “Marry me?”
FATHER’S DAY | Now let’s check in on Roger and Buck in 1739. As Geilis listens to Buck’s heart, she remarks that he seems familiar, and Roger voiceovers that it’s because he’s her son. (Heh.) When she steps out of the room, Roger fills his traveling partner in on all the family drama. Buck wonders if she knows Rob Cameron; later, after she tries to seduce Roger and he gently rebuffs her, it seems like she definitely does not have any connection to the kidnapper.
It gets weirder. We witness the moment that Geilis and Dougal Mackenzie meet and immediately start flirting, slipping into a back room so that she can “show me your wares,” Dougal suggests. First, though, he answers Roger’s questions about whether he’s seen a man traveling with a little boy. He hasn’t, but gives Rog a trinket with Jeremiah’s name on it. When they’re alone, Roger explains to Buck that the trinket is actually a set of military ID tags… and they belonged to his father, a member of the Royal Air Force who disappeared in the middle of the war. The faerie man that some people have seen roaming the countryside isn’t Rob, Roger theorizes as tears fill his eyes: “It’s my father. He’s here!”
Now it’s your turn. What did you think of the episode? Hit the comments with your thoughts!
Best of TVLine
Sign up for TVLine's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Solve the daily Crossword
