Outlander Recap: Two People You Never Thought Would Sleep Together Absolutely Do (Oh, and [Spoiler] Is Alive)
If you’ve ever had a really awkward, drunken hookup that you immediately regretted, take comfort in this: You likely didn’t enter into the hookup in an effort to connect with the essence of a dead man, and the aforementioned dead man probably didn’t appear, very much alive, soon after. And if so, congratulations! You’re in a far less awkward position than Claire and Lord John are at the end of this week’s Outlander.
Yes, Lord John is gay. Yes, Claire is so deep in grief that she considers ending her own life. Yet they still get it on in Episode 11 — such is the power of (even an absent) Jamie Fraser. And then he shows up, alive, by the end of the hour! (C’mon, did you really think he was gone for good?)
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Read on for the highlights of “A Hundredweight of Stones.”
WEDDING HELLS | The hour opens with one of the grimmest weddings ever portrayed on television, with both bride and groom acting like they’re being led to their deaths. Claire is disassociating possibly even harder than she was years ago at her ceremony with Jamie; she barely gets her vows out, and when she does, she looks like she’s going to be sick. Poor Lord John, who is suffering mightily as well, still manages to pull it together a little bit; he steadies her with his hands during the “until death do us part” section. Claire goes upstairs immediately afterward, takes off her ring, lies down and is sad.
Lord John, also sad, pours himself several drinks. William finds him in the parlor. “Why did you go through with it?” the younger man wonders, citing Claire’s rebel sympathies and its potential to ruin Lord John’s reputation. And when Lord John says he owes it to Jamie to protect her, William doesn’t understand. “He was a groom, a farmer who took up arms against the Crown,” William says. Plus, what about Lord John’s happiness? Not sure how Lord John gets through this without totally losing it, but he hugs William and says he’ll have all the happiness he should need.
A TINY BRIGHT SPOT | Elsewhere, Ian prays and builds a cairn in memory of Jamie while Rachel and Rollo watch. Afterward, they have a deep conversation about his past. He lets her know he was married before. “Who was thy wife? What happened to her?” she asks. SETTLE IN, LADY.
She’s taken aback when she learns Emily is still alive. He relates the story of getting tossed from Emily’s tribe, and that her son is his. Which all leads to his saying: “Emily chose me. I was grateful. But Rachel, with my whole soul, I choose you. I hope you will choose me.” She’s touched, and kisses him.
TO BED… OR TO WEEP? | Back to Lord John’s House of Pain and Boozy Bad Decisions. Claire’s reached the “anger” stage of grief, and she wants it all to end. She looks through her box of medicines, ostensibly to find something that will kill her, but winds up pulling out a scalpel and hovering it over the skin on the inside of her elbow. The memory of Jamie’s voice stops her from doing anything drastic, though; still, she’s mad about it, and throws the surgical knife across the room before reaching for the wine.
Downstairs, Lord John has been similarly overserved and is drunk-playing ghost Jamie at chess. After sloppily refilling his glass and downing it, he unsteadily stands and makes his way to Claire’s bedroom, where she’s screaming in existential pain. “I will not mourn him alone tonight,” he announces from the doorway, and IT’S ON.
Is it weird to say that this scene matches the print shop in terms of my anticipation of seeing how the show would handle it? I remember reading that passage years ago and thinking, “SHE WOULDN’T” and then “SHE DID.” Gabaldon is unhinged, and I am eternally here for it. While I understand why the show edited the scene so that we get flashes of the crying-crying-fighting-hugging-sexing, I wouldn’t have minded hearing more of what Grey and Claire said to each other when their inhibitions — and all propriety — had left the building for the night.
The scene the next morning, though? When they’re both awake, harshly sober and lying next to each other wearing nothing but clutched sheets and sheepish expressions? PERFECTION. They gingerly apologize for how things went down, then Claire out and says it: “It wasn’t me who you were making love to. We both know it.” He’s like, oh, we’re doing this? “Nor were you, I think, making love to me. Were you?” he asks, and she has to admit he’s right. Topics covered in the ensuing conversation include: how Jamie once offered to sleep with Lord John (I loved Claire’s “SO YOU ONCE TOLD ME”), how important Lord John’s friendship was to Jamie, and how Lord John hasn’t slept with a woman in more than a decade but has a “liaison” with Manoke, the cook at his Mt. Josiah estate.
Claire is kinda judgy but keeps asking questions, and Lord John patiently answers her. He explains that “There is no sense of possession” in his relationship with Manoke, then likens their interactions to enjoying watching a silver deer that feeds at the plantation every now and then, despite not knowing when it will return. Whatever else this patronus talk is doing, it’s definitely pulling Claire out of her grief funk; she’s more herself here than we’ve seen her since she got the news of Jamie’s death.
KEEPING UP APPEARANCES | Ian swings by later that day and finds his aunt dressed and making medicine again. They cry together about missing Jamie and she makes it clear that she has no plans to return to her own time now that Big Red is gone. Then Claire and Lord John visit Henry — who’s doing much better! — and Lord John happily announces that he’ll write his brother to say that Henry is coming home. But his nephew stops him, saying he’s going to remain in the colonies and marry Mercy Woodcock. He asks John to vouch for them with his father, but the elder Grey gets all haughty as he refuses and cites the illegality of interracial marriages.
“I never would have taken you for a bigot,” Claire says icily in the carriage on the way home. Then she digs in harder: “You once spoke to me of unbearable loneliness. How would you, of all people, wish that… on him?” But he’s got a very valid reason. “Because I know, madam, what it is to have your love be a crime. To live in fear of discovery and of violence,” he says, putting Claire in her place a little. Based on her face, she knows it.
Things are a little less tense between them when he buys her a dress to wear to a party that will raise funds for the loyalist cause. She doesn’t want to go, but he says they need to present themselves as a couple so people stop whispering about her. “What we have is each other,” he points out earnestly. “And if we have each other, then we have him.”
So Claire sucks it up and puts on the gown, appearing at the top of the stair during the party and making a grand entrance. It’s like the red dress moment in France, except dour and with less boob. Captain Richardson, who wanted to arrest her, asks her to dance. While they’re twirling around the floor, he whispers that he’s a rebel working undercover, and he wants her to spy on Lord John and his brother, the duke of Pardloe. She declines, but promises to keep his secret.
ROB CAMERON’S BIG FAKEOUT | Let’s take a break to check in on the MacKenzies Across the Space-Time Continuum. Roger and Buck are following a trail that might lead to Roger’s dad, Jeremiah. They buy a gem from a trader and notice a Royal Air Force jacket in the man’s possession, though the merchant won’t tell them where he got it. Roger immediately starts spiraling about how everything is connected, but Buck tells him to have faith.
In the farthest-present timeline, Brianna is having a really bad day at Lallybroch… and then it gets worse. Rob Cameron (!) appears in the house, holding Jamie’s letter. “I came for you and the gold,” he says, explaining that Jem won’t tell him where the Spaniard referenced in Jamie’s letter is. Bree flies at him, demanding to know where Jem is. “He isn’t in the past, if that’s what you mean,” Rob and his stupid face say. The scarf at the stones was a ruse to get Roger out of the way, we learn. Then they tussle, and he holds a knife on her as he lays out a plan that involves him kidnapping her and taking her to America to get the gold.
Seeing the glass of wine she’d been drinking, he tells her to pour him one, too. Thinking quickly, Bree grabs a cast-iron skillet and slams it into his head, knocking him out cold. Hell yeah, Bree!
HE IS RISEN! | Back in the past, Claire and Lord John seem to have reached a tentative equilibrium. They’re upstairs at the house, discussing which social obligations they’ll attend, when there’s a noise on the stair… and Jamie bursts into the room. WAIT WHAT ok all book readers knew this was coming but it’s still a huge deal!
Claire flies to him as though she’s been shot from a cannon, and they kiss. He’s like, “This is nice but I have Redcoats on my tail.” He hastily explains that the downed ship left before it was supposed to; his things were on board, but he was not. An absolutely gobsmacked Lord John recovers enough to loudly remind Jamie “Your son is going to be home soon.” And when they step out onto the landing, William is there, and he heard EVERYTHING. “Son?” he says, confusion giving way to horror. “You’re…” Jamie knows the jig is up. “James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser,” he answers. “And who the bloody hell am I?” William wonders. “You are a stinking Papist,” Jamie says, calling back to a conversation they had at Helwater when William was a boy. “And your baptismal name is James. It’s the only name I had a right to give you. I’m sorry.”
William wants literally nothing to do with any of this. “Goddamn you, sir. I don’t want your name. I don’t want anything of yours,” he says, angrily returning the rosary we KNOW is important to him. Then he turns on John. “You knew, didn’t you!” William has barely finished damning everyone in his immediate vicinity when the British soldiers who’ve been chasing Jamie enter the house. Time for some theatrics!
Jamie pulls out his gun, holds it to Lord John’s head as he pretends to take a hostage, and tells everyone to stay back. It’s total bedlam. William’s world has been shattered. There’s shouting and the very real threat of violence. Yet it’s hard to think about any of that as the episode ends on a lingering shot of Claire’s tear-stained, rapturously joyful face.Now it’s your turn. What did you think of the episode? Sound off in the comments.
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