Previously on Outlander: Brianna was sent to River Run to wait out 1) her incoming bairn and 2) Claire and Jamie on their quest to find Roger. Aunt Jocasta immediately tried to marry her off to anyone who’d take her, so Brianna convinced Lord John Gray (with just a touch of blackmail) to marry her, since he’s privvy to the deets of her predicament and also because she walked in on him having sex with another man and assumes she’d be safe in that arrangement. Murtagh managed to track down Stephen Bonnett with Fergus’ help, but got himself arrested in the scuffle. Roger, meanwhile, was taken to Shadow Lake where the Mohawks literally lined up to take turns beating the sh*t out of him.
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There are like four different storylines happening at once, so let’s break this down by character, shall we?
Roger
The Mohawk have given Roger the nickname Ehhaokonsah, which means Dog Face (in reference to his beard), and they’re keeping him as their captive. He’s working around the village, and meets the Mohawk healer, a woman named Johiehon who has a pretty cute blue-eyed baby. But when he unintentionally offends the tribe, he’s thrown into hut-jail with a man named Father Alexander. Father Al came to convert members of the tribe, but when he fell in love with Johiehon and “sinned” her good and pregnant, he broke his vows to the Lord. The Mohawk were actually really chill about Father Al knocking up one of their own, and just wanted him to baptize little Al Junior. But Father Al refuses to “damn his child with the false blessings of a broken priest.” The Mohawk come to get Father Al then, and as soon as Roger’s alone, he starts digging his way out of the hut. When Father Al is returned to hut-jail at dawn, they’ve cut off his damn ear, and he still refuses to baptize his kid. Roger is like, “……these people don’t care about your dumb church rituals just pour some water on that baby’s head you idiot.” He gives a lengthy but moving speech about how he screwed everything up with Bree and still missed his opportunity to escape because he truly loves her.
At first, it seems like Roger has convinced Father Al, and the two continue to dig through the night, but when the Mohawk return for Father Al the next morning, he chooses to be burned at the stake instead of baptizing his son. Roger digs furiously and manages to escape hut-jail, but as he’s running away, he can’t not hear the sounds of Father Al’s screams as the Mohawk torture him with fire. Roger eventually loses the battle with his own conscious and returns to Shadow Lake. He grabs a barrel of something HIGHLY flammable, throws it in the fire, and Father Al goes up in flames, put out of his misery. What Roger DOESN’T expect, however, is for Johiehon to set the baby down and walk right into the flames, wrapping her arms around Father Al in one last deathly embrace.
HO. LEE. SHITBALLS.
Fergus
With Murtagh in jail, it’s up to Fergus to rally the Regulators and come up with a plan to help Murtagh escape before they hang him. Marsali is all in and 100% here for New and Improved Take Action Fergus. So into it, in fact, that she decides to not only help him with his plan, but pack up all their belongings and move to Fraser’s Ridge.
Brianna
Lord John rushes in to tell Brianna that Stephen Bonnett has been captured and will be hanged for murder. Brianna insists that she must see Bonnett before he’s hanged, something that Lord John balks at first, but then Bree shows him the letter that Jamie wrote her, which essentially tells her that Bonnett will get what’s coming to him eventually and she shouldn’t let it weigh on HER soul. Instead, she should forgive him. (Cut to me, yelling and shaking my fist at the TV over the idea of Brianna forgiving Stephen Bonnett.)
So Brianna and Lord John arrive in Wilmington and Bree insists on going into the jail and speaking to Bonnett alone. He’s a real prick the whole time, natch, so she (unconvincingly) tells him she’s forgiving him and shows him her pregnant belly, to which the rat bastard is like, “Well then I guess I’ll be gone but not forgotten.” Bree whips back around and tells him nah, son. She’ll raise that baby as her own and it will never even know that Stephen Bonnett existed. Seeming the tiniest bit chagrinned, Bonnett plucks a huge ruby from his teeth and gives it to her “for the child’s maintenance.”
While all of this is happening, Fergus’ men have overtaken the jail. Lord John tries to stop them, but fails, and they end up dropping the keys right FREAKING IN FRONT of Stephen Bonnett’s cell. They Scooby gang manages to free Murtagh and escape the jail before they blow it up, but not before we see Bonnett get ahold of the keys. DAMMIT!
Kilt Drops: 0
No sexy times, not even any Jamie and Claire, so here’s a GIF of Fergus taking charge because it’s the sexiest thing that happened this week:
Wit and Wordplay
Brianna: “You’re going to die, to hang by the neck until you’re dead, and if it makes dying easier for you to know there’s something left of you on this earth, then you’re welcome to the knowledge.”
Sasse-WHAT?
- I’ve never been a huge fan of Marsali, but the last couple of episodes she’s been a freaking BALLER. Are y’all glad we’ll (hopefully) be seeing more of Fergus and Marsali at Fraser’s Ridge?
- How insanely amazing was the acting in that final scene with Johiehon and Kaheroton and the baby? I sobbed.
- Truly, having multiple episodes this season without a trace of Jamie and Claire makes me resent Brianna even more. Am I alone here?
- Next week is the finale! Do you book readers know what to expect? Because I don’t!
Next week: TBH, I tried to make sense of this promo video but it’s literally just a ton of fighting. Will Claire take Brianna back to the future? Will Jamie offer for the Mohawk to take him in Roger’s place? OH GOD DOES THAT HAPPEN?
