Previously on Outlander: Claire was on a second honeymoon, but is now a prisoner at Castle Leoch and suspected of being an English spy.
Did you try out our new drinking game while watching this week’s episode? Were you still standing afterwards? Did Jamie get swoonier, or is it just me?
Claire and Frank are seen in their World War II uniforms, arguing about being separated by their posts. Claire boards a train, headed to the front lines and promises to return to him. Frank recognizes the role reversal.
We flash to the present (past? I don’t even know anymore.) and Mrs. Fitz is bathing Claire. I know Claire is a “prisoner” and all, but she’s kind of getting the royal treatment here. Claire decides to tell Mrs. Fitz that she has fallen through time and her husband hasn’t been born yet. “I’m not an English spy. I’m from the future.” Sure, girl. After Mrs. Fitz freaks out and calls her a witch, we find that it was all a daydream.
The castle is preparing for the Clan Gathering and Claire starts familiarizing herself with the medicinal treatments of the time in order to ingratiate herself to the MacKenzies.
Claire is summoned to Colum’s chambers and comes upon him (justifiably, in my opinion) threatening a foppish tailor at knife-point. He’s requested her presence so that she can take up massaging his legs, like the previous healer did. Claire suggests that massaging the base of his spine might be more beneficial (DRINK), and he bares his ass in compliance. (DRINK) Her massage eases some of his pain and Colum invites her to come join them for the evening’s music.
There, Claire introduces herself to Laoghaire, the young girl that Jamie had taken the punishment for. As they’re discussing fine young Jamie, he comes to sit between the two ladies. After a little drunken flirting (Claire is wasted on Colum’s wine), Jamie escorts her back to the surgery. She undresses him a little, under the guise of checking his wounds and bandages. He’s not infected. It’s hot.
The next morning, Claire and Geillis (in a truly terrible cape) go herb-hunting together. Claire is appalled (DRINK) to hear that a second village boy (the first one died) is believed to be possessed and there will be an exorcism. Geillis probes about whether or not Claire believes in demons and magic and things that can’t be explained. Claire is unable to convince the boy’s family, including Mrs. Fitz, to let her attempt to heal him.
Claire teases Jamie after catching him kissing Laoghaire in a corner. But Murtagh warns Claire that Laoghaire’s father would force a marriage and that Jamie needs a woman, not a lassie.
Dougal takes Claire to visit Geillis in the village. Geillis’s husband, Arthur, is called to dispense justice when a tanner’s son is caught stealing bread. At Claire’s urging, Geillis convinces him to be lenient and he decides to only have the boy’s ear nailed to the pillory, instead of chopping off his hand. Such mercy! Geillis comments that Claire seems as if she comes from a place with different customs. Jamie interrupts to fetch Claire and take her back to the castle. He even brought her cloak so she won’t get cold.
Claire ropes Jamie into helping the poor tanner’s boy, who’s expected to rip himself loose from the pillory, after his punishment. She fakes a swoon as a distraction, so that he can help the boy get free. With Jamie around, nobody needs to be “faking” a swoon. Then she has him take her to the black kirk, where the “possessed” boys had all spent time before falling ill. She finds poisonous leaves they’d likely eaten and convinces Mrs. Fitz to let her and try and heal the boy, though the priest is vehemently opposed. He “smells the whiff of brimstone” on her. But that’s probably just rhenish wine. Claire is successful and the boy begins to feel better right away. She thinks that will help her case with Colum, but Jamie informs her that it just makes her more valuable to keep around as a healer.
That evening, Jamie is translating the bard’s song for Claire (DRINK). It tells the erie folk tale of someone who travels through the stones to a strange land, but finds their way back home. She takes this as a sign that she should try to escape the castle and return to her own time – or die trying.
Kilt Drops: 1
- Someone actually dropped their kilt! So, if Colum MacKenzie’s bare ass does it for you, congrats.
Sasse-WHAT?
- Sorry for the blasphemy, but why is the village priest the absolute worst?
- Not sure I need to be that informed about Arthur Duncan’s SERIOUS intestinal distress. But Geillis’s blase response was the best.
- Do we wonder why the show decided to go with possessed boys over the abandoned foundling baby from the book?
I enjoyed hearing Jamie speak more this week, and the fleshing out of the mysterious Geillis Duncan. What did you think? Grab your rhenish and hit the comments!
Next episode: Dougal is leaving the castle and taking Claire with him. She attempts her escape.
