I am about to say something I have never said before: My favorite scene this week involved Roger and Brianna.
well
finally
i am after all sexy and impressive
a silver-tongued imp
that must be it
Narrator: That was not it. Also, I noticed in the main titles that one of the co-EPs on this show is named Steve Kornacki. It is not the same Steve Kornacki, but that crossover would be incredible.
O sing me a tune
Of a lass that is due
Steve, could that lassie die?
“Let’s go to the board.
The numbers say no
If orgasm efficiency is high.”
Oh, but we’ll get to that in a minute. First, we deal with Jamie, who got to be Mac Dubh again in the premiere, and now returns to yet another of his nicknames: Bear Killer. This is a mostly lighter episode, with an unusual amount of comic filler for Outlander, including some that rightfully dumps on poor old Dogface. I realized halfway through that this one was difficult to do by cordoning off people’s storylines, so I’m doing a kind of hybrid recap, where we get through Jamie’s main storyline and then we’ll deal with everyone else’s in a more traditional flow.
JAMIE and IAN
Jamie’s struggle in this episode is with the weight of history pressing upon his taut 65-year old butt, which he could not keep out of things, so now he’s sitting with the Cherokee as the Indian Agent and listening to their very reasonable requests for weapons. They need help staving off settlers who cross the treaty lines, shoot and steal their game, and plant crops on the wrong side — and to tempt the Brits, Chief Bird points out that they’ve fought with them before and might well do it again if this aid is granted. Jamie is secretly paranoid that he’ll tip the revolution in the wrong direction or sign his own death warrant, and Steve Kornacki is too busy crunching the numbers from rural counties in Pennsylvania to help. Everyone, including Ian, gives him a generous helping of WTF Face while he flails. “I like you, Bear Killer. You’re a funny man,” says the Chief, in a flagrant attempt to butter Jamie up. Jamie finally is like, “I promise I will consider telling some people what you’ve said.” He’s hedging so hard you could trim him and win a topiary competition. The Divine Prophets *NSYNC spoke of swearing to take you in their arms and hold you there forever, not, “And I might ask about some arms // I will furrow very hard // For the next hour and a half // This I promise you.” But, it’s enough to get the Chief to invite them to stay for the night.
Ian had no lines in the previous scene, so I got all prepared to settle into righteous indignation that Ian was brought along by Jamie purely for show. But it turns out the writers wanted him there for the night’s shenanigans, wherein two comely native lasses crawl into their tent while they slumber and start feeling up Jamie. He lies there and takes it while whispering to Ian for confirmation that this is indeed what’s happening, then sits up and continues to take it — albeit with some alarm — while asking Ian to tell them to stop. Ian, meanwhile, spends the whole time languidly chortling about Jamie’s situation, while doing nothing to help him avoid getting jacked off by a pair of strangers. For someone who was forced to be Geillis’s sex toy for a long period of time, Ian is very cavalier about Jamie being groped against his will. I get that Jamie thinks he has to be careful not to offend his Cherokee hosts, but it’s a bit pervy that Ian is watching and yawning and laughing the whole time. Jamie finally chokes out a request to tell them in their language that he’s sworn fealty to his wife — interesting that he assumes they don’t understand English — and Useful Ian translates this into Cherokee as: God came to Jamie in a dream and told him that he can’t have sex until he gives guns to the Cherokee. Jamie thinks this is the dumbest explanation in the world, and he’s correct, and Ian insists it was the best he could come up with, even though there are a thousand easier options. The women leave, disappointed, after a healthy compliment to the size of Jamie’s pocket gun. Ian finds this all HILARIOUS and Jamie hisses, “You’d be advised to stifle your glee.”
IT’S FINE, THAT DIDN’T GO ON TOO LONG!
AUNTIE CLAIRE WILL NOT THINK I WAS WRONG.
I RESCUED HIS WANG
FROM A BEAUTIFUL GANG,
SO WHAT IF I COULD HAVE DONE IT TEN MINUTES EARLIER, THE POINT IS THAT I GOT RESULTS, AND SHE’LL AGREE RIGHT AND SHE WON’T USE ANY OF HER FAERIE MAGIC AND WITHER OFF MY MANSPEAR WITH HER HERBS WILL SHE, OH GOD, WHAT HAVE I DONE. IAN.
As you might imagine, Jamie returns home so urgently horny that he hurls his coat on top of the housekeeper and storms upstairs to Claire. “I missed you, Sassenach. I must have you,” he says, and Claire is like, “WELL IF IT’S THAT KIND OF PARTY,” and they proceed to destroy their bedroom while the maid — a Mrs. Bug, apparently — listens to the literal and euphemistic banging with a smile on her face. (Mrs. Bug, it must be noted, is not THAT much older in real life than Claire and Jamie are supposed to be here, but she comes off like their grandmotherly maid.) Afterward, Jamie jokes that he needs food and a nap before Round Two: “You’re lucky you’re married to an old man, Sassenach, or I’d have you on your knees with your arse in the air this minute,” says the most thirtysomething-looking 60-year old in history. Claire giggles, and Caitriona Balfe looks unlined and dewy and no older than when they shot the pilot and Claire was supposed to be in her twenties. Oh, you two dried up old crones! I can’t wait until Claire invents K-Y Jelly.
Jamie asks if Claire remembers what the Cherokee did in the Revolution. Unfortunately, no one there is much of an expert on American history, although I’m surprised the show doesn’t bust out that Brianna randomly minored in this subject and can quote liberally from her textbooks. [The Cherokee fought alongside the redcoats, in what was termed The Cherokee-American War of 1776, and led to a consistent series of conflicts as the Cherokee continually found themselves displaced and at odds with the victors.] Jamie as a human wants to arm them so that they can help themselves, but as a Keeper of the Great Secrets of Future History, he is afraid he’ll screw the whole thing up and suddenly America won’t exist and Brianna might disappear into thin air. I mean, it’s a reasonable fear — Jamie has a long history of poor planning and even worse execution — but Brianna going poof isn’t such a terrible consequence?
Jamie’s 93-year old wang then perks up for a second round of Thrust the Bayonet, but he’s thwarted by the arrival of Major Mac, who wants an update on the Cherokee. Jamie flat-out lies and says they were undecided about what they want, and Ian tries to call out Jamie’s fib, but he’s saved by Major Mac’s conveniently timed cat allergy (??) that sends him careening out of the house to try and stop sneezing. Even though he’s had whiskey with Jamie in that very room several times with no incident. Jamie then explains the American Revolution to Ian and says he’ll eventually fight with the rebels — and he isn’t sure if giving the Chief weapons makes sense, if the Chief turns those same weapons on them. He warns Ian that knowledge of the future is a double-edged sword, and always to keep a cat around when you need to buy yourself ten minutes of hasty privacy. Seriously, what a weird plot device.
Ian runs into Brianna later and asks HER what she knows — about history, I mean; we all know she’s about to pip Einstein at the post with relativity — and Brianna tells him about The United States of America. Ian loves the sound of that but is crushed to learn that Indians are not part of it: “White people will tell them they are, but… not really,” is Brianna’s clunky explanation. Although, where’s the lie? Honestly, this was a lose-lose for them the minute the first boat hit the shore, and that sucks. Ian is heartbroken to think that he now, as someone who Knows Things, bears some responsibility for what happens to them on his Future Watch. It is surprising, and yet absolutely not, that nobody has stopped to think about Ian’s connection to the Mohawk, and how he might internalize the natives’ fate. Because I don’t think any of them has embraced his integration into the Mohawk as anything other than cosplay. Poor Ian. Ian!!!
That’s a behind-the-scenes shot. I just wanted us all to see Ian happy.
Chief Bird and his crew swing by Fraser’s Ridge later, and are displeased to hear that after their gift of nubile tribeswomen, Jamie has not passed along their request. Jamie has had loads of time to come up with exactly what he would say when pressed about this, and the best he can do here is, “You must trust me.” MUST THEY?
He’ll hem and haw
And drop your jaw
With his hmms and uhs and pauses.
Bear Killer’s not slick;
He WILL miss a trick,
And WHOOPS for the chaos it causes.
Nobody is impressed with that steaming pile. Chief Bird all but shakes his fist at Jamie. As everyone walks away in a dark cloud of mood funk, Ian tells Jamie that he’s going to arm the Cherokee himself if it comes to it, because they deserve the right to make their own choices and at least try to fight for whatever they need. Later, Ian is with Marsali when Jamie arrives outside, and he overhears Ian — as a way of trying to reassure Marsali that Fergus will return to himself and his family someday — tell Marsali that he also had a child. Jamie falls back in shock, and also so that he can keep eavesdropping, which as a nosy person myself is for sure the correct response. Marsali, trying to be supportive but also hoping not to scare him into silence, gently says, “Did you now?” Lauren Lyle’s voice actually cracks; it’s sweet. Ian says little else specific, but that night, Claire catches Jamie in the act of writing to the British about arming the Cherokee. We are reminded Jamie is a decrepit husk, because he is sitting at his desk and, gasp, using his glasses. Claire saunters downstairs looking every minute of 32 years old and he tells her that what he overheard made him realize the natives are Ian’s family in a way they hadn’t understood before: “His allegiance is to them, and my allegiance is to him. Come what may.” Steve Kornacki is like, “Give me ten minutes, I’m mapping the distribution of a new tranche of gunpowder that came in by mail; rural counties will be pleased.”
Also: HOW long has Ian been back? And no one has coaxed the truth out of him yet? They all know Ian went through some shit, and while it’s nice to respect the space he needs, it speaks to a real lack of attention paid to his nephew that Jamie has not gotten to the bottom of any of this. He does not stoke his personal relationships, but rather takes them for granted, and if that were a plot point then okay. But it doesn’t seem to be. As we’ll see later, it’s a common Outlander complaint of mine that I wish they would address. Jamie has become a pawn in the history game, and not a person.
EVERYONE ELSE ON THE RIDGE
Claire snips out Tom Christie’s stitches, but he won’t let her fix his other gnarled hand, saying it’s clearly God’s will that it be what it is. Claire wonders why this logic didn’t apply to some of Tom’s goats, whom Claire tended to rather than simply leaving them injured. Tom opens his mouth to quote some sexist crap from St. Paul about how women should simply be silent, but Malva beats him to it, and with more than a little bitterness to her voice. Claire rolls her eyes and says, “Clearly St. Paul also met a woman he couldn’t out-argue.” Score one for Claire.
On her way out, Claire checks to see if Allan’s back is feeling better after last week’s beating, and it is. Malva thinks it’s very cool that Claire is a real physician AND a woman at the same time, and Allan adds, “Especially when others might accuse you of witchcraft.” Malva would really like to learn, but when Claire invites her along on her house calls, Allan declines for Malva, and Claire leaves. We then get a bunch of silent reaction shots of tense jaws and flicking eyes and flaring nostrils. It’s like Days of our Lives up in here.
Malva, though, sneaks off and joins Claire anyway at Marsali’s, claiming she blew through her chores. Claire waves her in, where Marsali is sprawled out on the bed, as uncomfortably pregnant as a person can be. And completely unable to object to some random settler being invited into her personal medical business, apparently. She also has to keep yelling out to her kids to behave, because no one is there to watch them. “Let this be a lesson to you, lass,” Marvali quips to Marva. “If you do have the misfortune to marry, don’t let him touch you or you’ll end up like this.” I love her. Marsali is so salty about still being pregnant. Claire goes to check her pulse, then sees another large bruise on Marsali’s arm and waves Malva out of the room so she can ask Marsali what the hell is going on at home. Marsali says, upset, “I am cursed with my mother’s temper.” Apparently she and Fergus had a fight about how he’s either drunk or gone or both, and she threw something at him, and he grabbed her in self-defense. Claire finally says she’d like to get to the bottom of this. NO KIDDING. Marsali says Fergus has decided he is a failure because he wasn’t there to defend them, and the conversation brings Claire into her own head about what happened to her. She stiffens and looks pained, then pretends it’s just a random headache. Claire and Marsali then share a look where it’s clear they understand each other, and that each of them is fighting through trauma.
When Claire arrives back at her clinic, she hears Lionel Brown’s voice for a moment, freaks out, and then ethers herself into oblivion. This is very bad. Also, at some point, somebody will need Claire to be conscious for something important, and she won’t be.
Meanwhile, Roger comes home from his long day of having a beard and breathing, and hugs Brianna from behind. She’s working on her designs. Not in a Jane Mancini DE-SIGNS kind of way; for one, her designs are actually good, but it’s because she’s basically cribbing from other inventors who did it first. My design for a water wheel would ALSO be excellent. Today, though, she’s inventing matches. Brianna apparently knows — from her extensive career of stomping around Boston — that white phosphorus will catch fire when exposed to air, so she had Lord John send her a chunk of it from his stash at his new chemical emporium, Lord John’s Hot Rocks. She grabs the matchsticks she has whittled and her Jar of Science that seems like it should have been searched and seized, and announces that she should finish this experiment outside. She then kisses Roger AFTER she has pulled her chemistry safety bandanna up over her mouth.
mmm yes
your lips taste like laundry dirt
love that 18th century soap
cloth is your love language
cloth and my tears
yum
So now we detour to the church that Tom Christie has built. Some old lady we’ve never heard of before has died, and Tom wants to have a funeral for her, but their reverend is delayed so he’s asked Roger to do the service. Because… Roger’s grandfather was a reverend? My grandfather was a fishmonger but that doesn’t mean I am qualified to sell you safe fish.
yes but
see
fish is not jesus
jesus was mostly talking
and i know words
tho jesus was also a fisher of men
does that make me a monger of man salmon
well anyway, diary
someone has asked me to speak
finally
it’s dogface time
Claire arrives for this blighted funeral and sees the church and mutters, “Hmm, he got THAT up fast.” Tom Christie’s erections are even faster than Jamie’s. Dead Granny is laid out on a slab of wood wearing the clothes she died in, with crusts of bread on her chest. This, by the by, is for the sin-eater — a person who, as part of the burial ritual, consumes food that symbolizes the misdeeds of the dead, to purify their soul as they pass on to heaven. It’s a real tradition, but Wikipedia says it’s more commonly associated with Wales and the neighboring English counties, and less so with Scotland. No one seems to know exactly why this began, and I have a lot of questions. If the sin-eater dies, having taken on alllll the sins of those who predecease him, do they have to have a sin feast in order to save his mortal soul? Or is he just agreeing to roast in hell for all eternity on everyone else’s behalf? That’s very nice of him; he must have some good intel on the quality of well drinks in Satan’s sports bar.
Anyhoo, Jamie muscles up to the front to pay his respects, and then stands off to the side with Claire and one of their grandchildren.
I am not sure why they dragged this child to stare at a dead body, but good news! She’s not dead; she’s just resting. Roger stands in front of her and begins to speak.
this is it
my purpose
a group of people
listening
to me
to meeeee
here i go
dearly be–
And then Dead Granny opens her eyes sits up and calls her son a “shameless skinflint” and says, “Have you laid me out in a BARN?” Then she goes on a rant about where her jewelry is, because she had asked him to bury her with it. Everyone is deeply uncomfortable, even as they’re trying to pretend they’re glad she’s alive. Roger just blinks.
butÂ
but me!
meeeee!!!!
Just when she’s about to say, “I think I’ll get up and go for a walk, I feel happyyyy, I feel happyyyy,” Claire metaphorically clubs her over the head: She pokes Ex-Dead Granny in the chest and diagnoses her with an aortic aneurysm, and says the symptoms of all that internal bleeding can mimic the coldness of death’s icy grip, but that she’ll be really truly dead in mere minutes.
good
i hope they stole
your dumb brooches
and sold them for sex
Then a decrepit old dude shuffles in and gets the go-ahead to eat her sins, so he chows down on the bread while Ex-Dead Granny gives her son some shit about how he hasn’t paid the man yet. Then she forgives her son and croaks dramatically, for real this time. This is an absurdly long scene for what it is — I am GUESSING this will pave the way for Claire to attempt more in-depth surgeries? — but in these few moments I have felt more of a kinship with Dead Ex-Dead Granny than anyone else on this show. She was a cranky old biddy until her literal last breath and I respect that. Roger tries very hard not to smile as he opens his Bible.
thank you godÂ
’tis go time for dogface
get ready to be preached to, bitches
imma rock your sad socks off
That night, Lizzy and Mrs. Bug are serving dinner at Chez Fraser to everyone plus Hugely Pregnant Marsali, who is staying at the clinic so that Claire can watch her. Brianna stands up and says she has an announcement. (Claire is at least a bit more subtle with her future tinkering. Brianna is drawing way too much attention to it, purely for head pats.) Lizzy starts shrieking that it’s got to be a baby, and everyone loses their minds except for Marsali, who more or less says, “That’s great for you , good luck being miserable for nine months.” But in a nice way. But also… she’s the best. Brianna clears her throat and explains that the only baby she is giving birth to right now is FIRE. “I invented something,” she says as if she had the idea all by herself, and then strikes a match. The entire room freezes, takes a beat, and is like, “Huh.”
Marsali, God bless her ornery soul, says through her smile, “Ah… it’s a wee bit of flint, then?” Brianna goes on about how it’s much easier than flint, and it means you can light a fire easily wherever you go. Marsali, her smile faltering a little even though she tries to keep it pasted on, says in another VERY supportive tone, “Ah, I’ve never had trouble lighting a fire!” It’s delightful. Claire doesn’t even stick up for their usefulness, though she does finally congratulate Brianna, and Jamie follows suit, which finally gets Brianna to sit down and chill. This may be the closest the show will ever get to agreeing, openly, that everyone thinks Brianna sucks. But wait, it gets even better. Truly, this scene is in my Outlander Hall of Fame. To change the subject, someone compliments Roger’s sermon from the funeral. He says Tom Christie agrees, and has asked him to preach as a lay minister on Sunday.
dearly beloved
we are gathered here today
because i am vibing
with god
in a hot three way with tom christie
Cue another rousing moment of, “Huh.” It’s Huh 2: Wuh? Brianna wonders why Tom can’t just do it himself. “Tom’s not a preacher,” Roger duhs. “Neither are you,” Brianna counters, incredulously, which made me laugh. I KNOW. Who am I?!? Jamie interjects to say that if he had to choose, he’d FAR rather Roger had a pulpit than Tom Christie. Claire brightly says she’s glad Roger’s contributions were appreciated, because after The Amazing Resurrection of Dead Granny, followed by The Speedy Re-Deadening of Granny, everyone now thinks she’s a witch and she was asked never to darken the church’s doorway again. She finds it funny, though, and has no intention of obeying that order. “Especially as I’ll be doing the preaching now,” Roger says, with a self-important smile. “You wouldn’t want to miss that.” And I kid you not, every single person at the table exchanges a glance about this with someone other than Roger.
dearly beloved
o ye of little faith
im super into god now, dammit
you will see
and you cant stop me
you cant stop the rog
amen jerkholes
Saved by the belly: Marsali starts to moan. Everyone hustles her into Claire’s clinic.
At some point, Roger and Brianna go home, and Brianna is pissy that nobody is hot for her matches. Roger pulls her into his lap.
ok but
hear me out
maybe what makes you sad
is that you’re not growing more of me
inside of you
that’s it right
you are a roger farm with no crops
lets seed it
im just saying
Brianna shrugs this off. Yes, they’ve been trying, and it hasn’t happened, but mostly she’s cheesed off that everyone was super excited when they thought she was breeding and then super NOT excited when it turned out she had been using her brain instead. Roger decides this is the time to make out with her, but before they can get going, there’s a knock on the door. Remember the widow from last week, whose son Roger comforted, and to whom he promised an entire cabin? Yeah. I had to look up her name, and it’s Amy McCallum, and this is her son Aidan. He got lost yada yada yada Roger is going to walk him home, but not before he wows Aidan with one of Brianna’s magic matches. She smiles. Sophie Skelton and Richard Rankin have nice BFF energy, and negative infinity boning energy.
Meanwhile, Claire is shoving herbs up Marsali’s hooha to induce labor because they’re worried about the baby. Jamie stomps around asking the universe where Fergus is, and Claire is like, “DO YOU NOT KNOW?” Basically, Jamie acknowledges that he is aware Fergus has been hammered all the time, but that’s about it. Lazy. Claire fills in that it’s because Fergus feels guilty and depressed. Jamie is not surprised, because he apparently flogs himself internally every day for not saving her. So if none of this is a surprise, is it possible you could have… talked about it? “You DID rescue me,” Claire notes, adding that there was nothing else anyone could have done. Lionel picked his moment wisely. They worry what Fergus will do if Marsali dies, especially if he didn’t show up for it. I am so mad at this show for making Jamie — and honestly, Claire — so passive about Fergus up to this point. Neither of them is stupid. They admit to noticing his drinking problem, and Claire had seen the bruises on Marsali. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know she was struggling, too. Jamie is supposed to be a father figure to Fergus. Claire is a mother to them both; she even refers to Marsali as her daughter. So why didn’t she take this to Fergus herself, or to Jamie earlier? And why, in the next scene, is it ROGER who goes to haul Fergus to his feet?
well
you want your best preacher
the manliest preacher
the only preacher
Wherever Fergus is, he can’t have been that hard to find, if Roger got there basically immediately. Fergus is wasted, and Roger is like, “WTF, dingus, your wife is about to pop,” and Fergus handwaves self-pityingly that he’ll just be in the way. Roger, bless, is NOT having it.
are you there, fergus
it’s me, dogface
boss up or die trying
fake it until you make it
take it from me
i have faked literally everything
except orgasms
thats more a brianna thing
anyway
Full credit to Roger, though, because he’s actually quite good in this scene. He is NOT having Fergus’s selfish drunkenness. But you know what a better scene would be? Jamie talking to his adopted son in a real way. Outlander, please, stop dropping the ball on the relationships. They’re what make this show matter. Without that, it’s just low stakes frowning about British people.
At some point, Malva Christie arrived at the clinic to help Claire, just FYI. Marsali is in too much pain to care, but I would be pretty irritated if my doctor was like, “This teenager just moved to town — can she put her face in your birth canal?” Marsali sees that Claire is frightened, concludes she’s going to die, and asks Claire to fetch her pen and paper so that she can write to her mother. It’s very touching how Marsali holds a place for Laoghaire in her heart. Claire dithers with this just long enough not to have to do it, because Fergus plows right in there and splays himself out on top of Marsali and begins feeling her up. He tells Claire that he learned at the brothel that suckling and massaging a pregnant woman’s breasts can make the uterus move. We toss to Steve Kornacki, who has Marsali’s womb up on the big board and explains that if we get a 62 percent favorable response from Marsali’s left breast, then we only need mild interest from the one on the right in order to ensure a baby victory. Claire realizes that it would be super weird if she just hangs around and watches her stepdaughter get aroused, so she leaves, at which point we get up close and personal on Cesar Domboy sucking on a very erect nipple. It’s amusing to me that they were being super careful with Claire becuse Caitriona is really pregnant, so they give a fairly explicit scene to Lauren Lyle while she is pretending to be pregnant. If that was not a stunt nipple, I hope they had a SUPERB sex choreographer/intimacy coordinator on set for her (yes, those are real jobs), because she and Fergus do not typically get naked on camera and he definitely has his mouth on her actual body at several points. While she starts to wriggle with pleasure, Marsali also looks so heartbreakingly relieved to have him with her, like all is forgiven. She confesses that she thinks she’s going to die, and he promises he won’t let her, and hops into bed with her so they can fully make out.
Now it’s Jamie and Claire’s turn to hear thumping and moaning. They and Malva and Brianna are all trying to pretend they’re not hearing it, but then Marsali clearly starts to have an orgasm and Bri’s like GOTTA JAM and Jamie actually does say he suddenly remembered he has mail to sort. Malva stays behind with an amused Claire, and timidly says, “At first I thought she was in pain, but… some women… like it?”
well
some women
i’m told
but
Shush, Dogface, you’re not even in this scene. Malva wonders if you have to be a prostitute to enjoy sex, and Claire has to explain to her how love and mutual pleasure are supposed to work. I am very concerned about Malva, but before we can really invest in her life, Steve Kornacki rings the Dilation Bell at the Big Board and Marsali has the baby. Malva is behind her as she stands up and pushes and Claire catches, and… yeah, I mean, at this point, I’m sure any warm body will do, but I feel badly for Marsali that she’s got a weird rando grabbing at her during childbirth. Fergus comes in and Claire hands him his new son, Henri, and Fergus is thrilled… until he notices the boy has dwarfism, and runs out of there. FERGUS FRASER. And does anyone follow him? No. They just watch him go. We cut to Marsali being handed the baby and she falls instantly in love and THIS BABY IS SO CUTE. Somebody please go yell at Fergus and stick his head in a bucket of cold water or something, my god.
Back to Jamie for a second, because this turns out to be about Claire and Malva, and also, who WOULDN’T want to return to discussing this man on horseback?
Jamie realizes that “a church in Tom Christie’s hands could be a weapon of war.” So he cruises over to St. Whatsits and compliments Tom on his large erection, and for keeping God so close to his heart even after a brutal stint in prison, a place that can drive a wedge between many a man and his faith. On that note: “You’ll not have forgotten your Freemasons vow,” Jamie says, pointedly. Christie hems and haws. His name doesn’t have “Christ” in it for nothing, after all. Jamie tells him, “Let his be a meeting house, neither Protestant nor Catholic, where everyone can enter freely with God in their hearts.” He also makes it quite clear, as Allan listens nearby, that this will apply to Claire as well, and that Jamie won’t tolerate any more talk of witchcraft. Christie can’t really say much to this, so he points to the steeple and asks if that has to come down now. Jamie’s like, “Nah, it’s cute,” and then suggests they hang a bell on it, “to call people to their worship. Or lessons. At the meeting house.” Then he wanders off to his horse still mumbling aloud about the meeting house, and how they need window panes on the meeting house, because window panes would look good on a meeting house. It’s like a song that takes forever to fade out. “Meeting House,” by Jamie Fraser, coming soon from his debut album Mac Dubhious Judgment.
Tom Christie is feeling hella emasculated and pissed about this, so he stomps inside the tent they’re using as shelter, looking for a fight. Malva accidentally left out the milk and forgot to make butter with it, so now it’s spoiled, and he knocks it to the floor in a rage and tells her she has the same DARK SOULLLL as her mother, and “YOU KNOW WHAT BECAME OF HER!!!” Flames of Hell, reporting for duty. He then removes his belt to beat her, but he can’t hold it because one hand is still healing and the other is a withered claw.
This drives him straight to Claire, to tell her that he now believes God brought her to him for a reason, and that reason is so that he can beat the ever living shit out of his children and also probably do other things in his off hours that require one functional hand. HE claims it’s because he wants to be able to write, and Claire is like, “MMMHMMM, sure.”
OTHER NOTES
– Mrs. Bug is married to a Mr. Bug, and he and one of the twins — Kezzie — are heading off to River Run, which might mean we have Jocasta in our future?
– Lizzy also flirts like crazy with Kezzie before he goes. This being Outlander, I assume it will result in Lizzy forced to marry some other person while everyone suffers mightily.
– Jamie did have one whole (short) scene where he and Brianna said words to each other. It’s a miracle.
