Surprising absolutely no one who watched the end of last week’s Outlander — in which Jamie mistakenly beat Roger within an inch of his life and then handed him over to Young Ian to do away with — this little Fraser family reunion has taken a real turn.
Sure, Claire promised her daughter she would not tell Jamie that it was Bonnet who raped her, and Brianna does have a point about Jamie not hesitating to go after Bonnet if he knew the truth (see: Roger’s face). And yes, it’s understandable that Jamie would not want his wife to know what he did to get those bruises on his hands. Yet still, don’t Claire and Jamie know by now that they shouldn’t keep secrets from each other? They always work better as a team and I am mad at everyone. As the audience, all we can do is hold our breath until this Roger-Bonnet mix-up debacle (I blame you, Lizzie! For everything!) reveals itself.
To make that waiting more painful, first we must watch as Jamie and Bree bond, knowing that it’s all going to hell the minute she finds out about Roger. But bond they do! I don’t approve of Jamie’s tactic to get Bree to realize she fought as hard as she could against her attacker, but once she sees he’s trying to show her that what happened is not her fault, Bree is cool with it. There must have been a better way of going about getting Bree to understand this than Jamie pretending to wonder if maybe she was lying about the whole thing. Seriously, hard pass. After that strange experiment in parenting, Jamie and Bree, who knows all about Black Jack Randall, speak openly and honestly about how to even attempt to heal from their traumas. They’re forming a real father-daughter relationship. Which, just as a reminder, will be totally destroyed within days. Sorry not sorry, if I have to be sad about it, so do you.
As important as that Jamie-Bree conversation is, and as nice as their shared moment commenting on how at peace Claire seems in the wilderness is, the parent-child moments in this episode that moved me the most belonged to Claire and Bree. The ladies talking about what they missed back in their time — cheeseburgers, Led Zeppelin, and toilets that flush, to name a few things — was a rare lighter scene on Outlander, and brought me so much joy! Claire compassionately and tactfully discussing abortion as an option for Bree was a great reminder of both how Claire is a woman ahead of her time literally and figuratively and of the strength of this mother-daughter relationship. It’s all pretty great.
But enough with bonding and healing! We have some real drama to get to! Thanks to a conversation with Lizzie (honestly, you guys, I cannot type her name without rolling my eyes), Bree untangles the whole Roger situation. Ya girl is pissed. She comes flying into the cabin real hot, wanting some answers from Jamie and Ian. I’ve never loved Murtagh more than when seeing that his immediate reaction is to get the hell out of there. Bless you, sir. Everyone else, unfortunately, is stuck in that cabin as the whole truth comes tumbling out.
Before the entire situation makes itself clear, though, there is more confusion as Jamie, now knowing he attacked Roger but still thinking Roger was at fault for the assault, assumes that maybe Bree was in fact lying about everything. Finally, mercifully, Claire tells her husband that Bonnet was the one to blame for everything. But the damage has been done. There is slapping! Bree can’t unhear the things Jamie said about her and she calls him a savage. Claire goes to her daughter’s side. It’s all so intense! We should’ve made like Murtagh and gotten out of this Rage Cabin when we had the chance!
With that one-two punch of being incredibly offensive toward his daughter and realizing that Bonnet, the man he helped elude execution, is to blame for all of this, Jamie is racked with a level of guilt and shame that he, a man who is no stranger to guilt and shame, has never felt before. Of course our dude vows to go out there and bring Roger back to his daughter, no matter how long it takes. This is Jamie Fucking Fraser, you guys! Bree makes Claire join Jamie and Ian on the mission — she’s right, Roger will need to see a friendly face in order to trust them. This separation of mother and daughter does absolutely nothing to help smooth over the brewing tension between husband and wife, both mad at each other for keeping secrets. Great, now mom and dad are fighting! Is there no end to the heartbreak?!
Well, no. Things are bound to get even more precarious on this journey, because how did Ian get rid of Roger, you ask? He sold him to some Mohawk who were passing through. Bad news: the Mohawk live almost 700 miles away in upstate New York. It will not be an easy or short journey to track them down. GREAT JOB, IAN. You deserve looking like an ass when you attempt to assuage the situation by proposing to Brianna. GET OUT OF HERE, YOU FOOL.
Ladies and gents, we interrupt your regularly scheduled recap full of sadness for one joyful development: Um, you guys, Murtagh and Jocasta are maybe, totally going to hook up, right? While Claire and Jamie (and Ian, sure) set off to find Roger, Murtagh volunteers as tribute to take Bree to River Run, where she’ll be taken care of should she go into labor before Claire returns. Honestly, has Murtagh ever been so flirty and, dare I say, happy in his life than when he reveals himself to Jocasta and they talk about the old days? It’s been theorized by many that Murtagh and Jocasta would end up together once the show veered away from the books by keeping Murtagh alive and sending him to America, but that was all an assumption … until now. She recognizes his hands! After 30 years! Sure, they were the hands that doted on her sister but come on! These two are so sweet to each other and Murtagh’s side hustle as a regulator adds some drama to the whole situation, so in summation: I am so here for this and now we are all truly living.
Anyway, back to the horror show: Roger is trying to stay alive while being dragged upstate on foot. The guy, still in those awful culottes, does not look good (because of his smashed-in face and general health, not the pants). After over a week, he gets a chance to make an escape. By which I mean, he falls down a hill and breaks his hand to get out of his rope shackles. It is by no means graceful, but what 18th-century escape in the backwoods is?
He finally gets away from his captors and do you know what this guy does? He stumbles across, wait for it, another set of time-traveling stones. This is a huge development that is sure to shape the future of this show! He approaches it, whips out those handy dandy gemstones he received as payment from Bonnet, and has a very big decision to make. He could go through the stones to somewhere that assuredly is more safe than the time and situation he is in now, but that would mean leaving Brianna behind.
Nice try, Outlander, but there’s no way that’s happening.