Outlander Recap: The One Where Jamie Is Kind of a Jerk
If you’re not a fan of watching the men of the Grey family take emotional and physical beatings, you likely spent most of this week’s Outlander averting your eyes.
Both Lord John and William (yes, I know, not technically a Grey, but c’mon) spend the hour in a tormented state: William a victim of the knowledge that his entire life has kinda been a lie, Lord John a victim of Jamie’s fists. You all know I love me some James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser, but both his actions and his words in Episode 12 are straight-up ugly.
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I’m not measuring by modern standards, either; I’m measuring by human standards. If someone who has been your close friend for decades — and who risked everything in order to make sure your loved ones were safe when you couldn’t — admitted something hard and painful to you, maybe don’t hit him a lot?
Read on for the highlights of “Carnal Knowledge.” And then make sure to check out our recent exclusive, in-depth chat with Caitríona Balfe, Sam Heughan, Richard Rankin, Sophie Skelton and John Bell!
FOR UNLAWFUL CARNAL KNOWLEDGE | Having just left Claire (and destroyed William with the knowledge of his true birth father), Jamie marches Lord John through Philadelphia, evading Redcoats. They eventually procure horses and ride out of town, stopping for a rest in the woods. And that’s where the reckoning happens.
“I’m grateful for ye, taking care of Claire,” Jamie says. “Claire?” Lord John responds as though he has never once heard the name in his life. “Ah. Yes.” (Nice recovery there.) The Brit is acting so oddly, and looking so pale, that Jamie worries that he’s sick. Lord John screws his courage to the sticking place and then bleats, “I HAVE HAD CARNAL KNOWLEDGE OF YOUR WIFE.” Jamie is calm, if slightly puzzled. “Oh,” he says. “Why?”
The upshot is that Jamie doesn’t really believe John, knowing that Grey prefers the company of men. But the cavalier way that he’s almost laughing at the whole ordeal incenses Lord John, and when Jamie scoffs at the idea that Claire was a willing participant in what happened, Grey lets him have it. “We thought you were dead, you bloody a—hole, both of us… We were both f—king YOU.” And that’s when Jamie punches him in the face.
The assault continues; at one point, Lord John takes a tumble down a small hill. And when he gets to the bottom, Jamie meets him and calls him a “filthy pervert.” It’s not a good look for Big Red. Jamie is whaling on his friend like he’s Capt. Ahab when they’re interrupted by some continental soldiers who are suspicious of the whole shebang. Jamie tells them that John is his prisoner; when they announce they want to take John, Jamie nearly pulls a muscle, he hands him over so quickly. “We are not finished,” Jamie growls in Lord John’s ear before they part. “No, we are not,” John says, matching his tone. “And I am NOT BLOODY SORRY!” he shouts to Jamie’s retreating back.
The soldiers find a commission in John’s pocket, but he counters that he hasn’t read or accepted it. Doesn’t matter, though: They deem him a spy and bring him back to their camp to be hanged. Meanwhile, Jamie brings letters from France to George Washington’s camp and winds up re-meeting the general himself, who offers him command of a battalion. “I’d be exceedingly honored, sir,” Jamie replies.
FREE WILLY (FROM HIS IDENTITY CRISIS) | Back at the house, William comes to see Claire and ask her to relate the tawdry details of his conception. “Was it rape?” he demands, on the verge of tears. Claire is exceedingly gentle with him as she tries to explain that Jamie and Geneva were only together for one night. She also points out that Lord John and Isobel only wanted the best for him, but he’s incapable of hearing it. As he stomps out, he destroys as many priceless pieces of art — and the chandelier! — as possible.
A sex worker he passes in the street notices how out of sorts he is (a grown man yelling “BASTARD!” at himself will do that) and takes him inside. When she leaves him for a moment to get a drink, he misinterprets what’s going on and tries to wash his bits in her basin. And when she comes back, wondering what the heck he’s doing, he yells at her and knocks the wine out of her hand. She bites him and then kicks him out. Seems appropriate.
William has basically twisted himself into a full-body scowl by the time he runs into Ian and Rachel; his mood gets even darker when he learns that they’re getting married. To his credit: He tries to remove himself from the situation. But when Ian comes after him, William immediately slugs him. “That was reprehensible,” William says, but pretty soon he’s yelling at Ian about how he knew about William’s parentage, too, but said nothing. And Rachel knows, too?!? Ian and William get into a physical altercation — which, if you’re keeping score, is William’s second in the past half hour — and then William has some Redcoats arrest Ian for assaulting an officer.
Rachel calls William a coward and demands that he get Ian freed. She slaps him. He kisses her, which is pretty much the worst choice he could make in this situation? She pushes him off her and spits, no doubt internally cursing her Quaker vow not to beat the snot out of people as she leaves.
JANE SAYS | What William needs: a good cry and a nap. What he gets: Jamie, who has crossed paths with Rachel, grabbing him and ordering him to set Ian free. Otherwise, Jamie threatens, he’ll tell the British soldiers exactly who William is and why he was fighting. There’s a lot of shoving, but William gives his word that he’ll set things right. That’s something, right? “Goddamn you, sir. Goddamn you to hell,” he tells Jamie. OK, maybe not.
He winds up back at the brothel that evening with some of his fellow soldiers; one of them, Capt. Harkness, is quite the disgusting lout. He wants to engage the services of Arabella, the sex worker who bit William earlier, but William says he’ll take her for the evening — then gives the madam his silver gorget to settle the matter.
In her room, he immediately apologizes for what happened before and they chat. Her name is really Jane, we learn. And though William admits that he would like to have sex with her, he’s leaving the matter up to her, and he’s happy to spend the night in a chair so she can rest, unbothered. “Come get into bed, you idiot,” she says fondly, which, given the day he’s had, is the nicest thing anyone has said to him in a while.
Once he’s there, she climbs on top of him, but he stops her. “I am a bastard, do you understand?” he says, upset. “The only honor I have left is my word.” She understands, but doesn’t seem to care a whole lot, as she makes short work of their clothes. The sex they have is quick (sorry, William) but she’s into it. Afterward, he cries while she holds him.
INSULT TO INJURY | If you thought a few hours might be all it would take for Jamie to cool down a bit… have you seen this show before? He returns to the house and leaps into needling Claire with questions about her night with Lord John. He bounds up to the bedroom, asking “Was it here?” and generally being a giant drama queen. He forces her to relate the details — her admission that John came in as she was contemplating suicide brings him up short, as it SHOULD — and her recollection of John’s saying “I will not mourn him alone tonight” nearly brings Jamie to tears. It seems like Big Red is starting to understand just how wrecked two of his favorite people were in the wake of his supposed death, then… “Did he bugger you?” he wonders. Good God, Jamie. Claire (correctly) calls him an “absolute bastard” in response.
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The fight continues, and it’s a humdinger. She wonders if he killed Grey. “Would you mind if I did?” he taunts. She’s like YES I WOULD. He brings up how “I ken what you’re like when you’re drunk, Sassenach,” which earns him a slap. He brings up Culloden and Mary McNab, aka the woman he slept with when he was living in the cave. Claire reminds him that she never once asked for details about that interlude. “Maybe you weren’t jealous,” he shoots back. “I am.”
She starts babbling about triage, explaining that John helped stop her emotional bleeding by “placing his grief over mine.” Then it’s Jamie’s turn to get verklempt, recalling how, when his heart was ripped apart over everything having to do with William years ago, “that bloody Englishman bandaged me with his friendship. Then he confirms that aye, Lord John is still alive, and he reserves the right to have thoughts/feelings/conversation about all of this later. Now, though, he’s giddy and teary as he and Claire talk about how nothing can take them from each other.
“I have one question,” he says. “Are you my wife?” She replies, “How could I not be?” And that settles it. “Then we’re done with talking,” he says, gently moving her back toward the dining room table as he notes that there’s no one home, and “may as well be hung for sheep as lambs.” (Side note: In for a penny, in for a pound, eh?) Jamie re-earns some of my esteem when he immediately — like, no hesitation whatsoever — drops to his knees before his wife. But she stops him, asking him to kiss her first, and it’s ON in earnest.
Meanwhile, poor Lord John, who has to wear an eyepatch and has been informed that he’s to be killed, makes a break from rebel captivity with the aid of Denzell Hunter, the camp’s doctor. Our final sequence is of Lord John galumphing through the underbrush with zero depth perception and soldiers chasing him with guns and dogs, juxtaposed with shots of Himself and Herself going at it by the fire, all cozy-like.
Now it’s your turn. What did you think of the episode? Sound off in the comments!
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