Outlander Recap: Lost At Sea
You gotta love Outlander, the show that continues to pump out episodes with at least three events that are so major they all easily could carry the A-plot of their own installment. It makes sense: We’re headed into the final stretch of our time traveler story, so there is no time to waste. I knew what was coming in the back half of season seven (book readers, you with me?), and yet I still did not expect we’d get so much of it all at once as we do in “Brotherly Love.” I mean, by the end of it, I was like, wait, is this the same episode where Ian died? That seems wrong. But it is right!
It’s true. The first six minutes of “Brotherly Love” are dedicated to the two pseudo-brothers and their final moments together before Ian dies. They grew up together — Ian always taught to protect the laird’s son — and he even gets in a nice jab about Claire being 207 years older than Jamie. Before his last breath, Ian is surrounded by both Jamie and Jenny, taking their hands in his. His last words to his brother-in-law are “on your left” (in the novel, it’s “on your right”), which did, unfortunately, make me giggle because if you think about it, Ian was always a kind of Falcon to Jamie’s Captain America. Ian’s actual last word, however, is “Jenny” as he looks over at his wife one last time.
RIP, my dude! Jamie tells his sister he’ll stay at Lallybroch as long as she needs and even invites her to come live on Fraser’s Ridge with him and Claire, but she turns him down. And with heavy hearts, we leave Scotland for the time being because, baby, there is some shit going down in Philadelphia.
The city is currently occupied by the British Army and as winter ends, the war is just about to pick up again. It’s not a great time to be in favor of American Independence in the City of Brotherly Love. Thankfully, most of the British soldiers are wildly misogynistic, so they don’t give Claire even a passing glance as she and Ian pull up to Mrs. Woodcock’s house. Also, it doesn’t hurt that they have permission from General Burgoyne to go see Lord John and generally go about their business in the city.
Claire’s reunion with Lord John is sweet, if full of panic. He knew she would come, and he knew she’d need ether for this, so he took it upon himself to get all the supplies necessary to save his nephew Henry, who is in immense pain. She knows immediately that she needs to open this bitch up to get the remaining musket ball out of his system. In a nice little coinkydink, the surgeon who managed to get the first musket ball out of Henry happens to be Denzell Hunter — yep, our Quaker friend (and Rachel’s brother). He’s pretty pumped to be under Claire’s tutelage again, and the two docs waste no time putting Henry under that sweet, sweet ether and removing the final musket ball. The surgery is a success! Thank god at least something on this show goes well the first time around.
In another astounding coincidence, it turns out that Mrs. Mercy Woodcock, who has been housing Henry since back when the Continental Army had control of Philly and he was sent to her house in an injured prisoner of war situation (John didn’t want to risk moving him even when the Brits took over), is the wife of someone we know. Hey, remember that tragic little story with Claire and a soldier named Walter who needed a leg amputation at Fort Ticonderoga and then eventually died of a blood clot? Mercy is the wife he was hoping to get home to in order to make amends — they parted on bad terms. Colonial America is such a small world, you don’t even know. Anyway, Mercy is upset to hear from Claire that Walter truly is dead … but also not, like, that upset? She seemed much more concerned about Henry’s well-being, if you know what I mean. For the record, I am very much on board with some Loyalist/Continentalist caretaker/invalid romancing if Outlander should go there.
Soon enough, though, Mercy has another problem to worry about: Surprise! She’s a spy for the Continental Army. Again, thanks to misogyny and, in Mercy’s case, some additional racism, she’s the perfect spy — men refuse to believe she is in any way useful. A very cool time for women! One day, however, she returns from a drop-off and tells Claire that one of her partners was discovered, and she’s worried she’s now being followed. Claire doesn’t hesitate to take the very important letter meant for George Washington to the drop-off spot. Claire Fraser is now a rebel spy; what a time!
Unfortunately, she doesn’t get to do anything that cool with the new gig because two decidedly terrible things happen. Gird your loins, people! Claire comes home one day from spying and finds Lord John in tears, meeting with a captain from the Royal Navy. The vibes, it must be said, are quite bleak. It’s Jamie. The ship Jamie was supposedly on was lost at sea. There were no survivors. The captain has the manifest with Jamie’s name on it, and it is the same ship Jamie noted in his most recent letter, in which he informed Claire that he would soon be on his way to Philadelphia. We watch Claire cycle through every emotion you can think of: She is in denial, she is angry, she is heartbroken, she is violent, she is yelling, “I would feel it in my heart if his had stopped, do you understand? Mine would stop, too!” This absolutely devastating sentiment is met with an equally devastating one from Lord John: “Perhaps it already has.”
Like I said, bleak.
Claire retreats to her room for days. She is bereft. We relive several major Outlander moments in which Jamie and Claire’s lives were in peril but they survived. How could he not survive this? This montage also includes one of Jamie’s most tragic, romantic lines: “If my last words are not ‘I love you,’ you know it’s because I didn’t have time,” he once told Claire. Hearing Jamie say that line, knowing that if he really did drown — and Claire does seem to be coming around to accepting that as truth — that means this sentiment came to fruition is absolutely gutting.
If only Claire knew that never in one million years would Outlander have one of its leads drown off-screen. (There have also been copious stories about filming the final season of Outlander, and Sam Heughan is very much there.) It’s hard to get too emotional here because there is just no way Jamie is really dead. However, that doesn’t mean this little twist in the plot is all for naught because what happens next is insane, and I am thrilled.
Well, it turns out that Claire isn’t good at everything — she happens to be a resoundingly shitty spy. I mean, Mercy was out there spying for who knows how long, Claire’s at it for what, a week? And she gets caught. We learn this thanks to a visit from Captain Richardson — he was William’s boss at one time — who shows up at Lord John’s house and informs him that they have irrefutable proof Claire has been delivering letters for the Continental Army and he just wanted to make sure John and Claire weren’t like, hooking up or anything before he arrests her and has her hanged. Very considerate on Richardson’s part, no? Lord John covers well — no, he isn’t hitting that, but also, she isn’t home at the moment. Richardson tells him he’ll come back the next day.
Lord John races up to Claire’s room and breaks through the locked door. “You must marry me!” He yells in her general direction. Claire responds as most women would with crazy eyes and a “da fuq?” (paraphrasing). Not to, like, kick a widow when she’s down, but Claire’s knee-jerk reaction to John’s clearly pained plea is to get mad at him for suggesting such a thing. Babe, do you think he’s just asking you to marry him for funsies? You know he’s just not that into you, so you have to assume he has a very good reason for breaking into your room and screaming, “You must marry me,” in your face while looking like he could barf at any given moment. And he does have a very good reason!! The best! Well, technically, it’s the worst, but you get what I’m saying. When Claire suggests she might welcome death, Lord John has to be very, very clear with her: It wouldn’t just be Claire’s life on the line here. If she is arrested and hanged for being a spy, Ian, Denzell, Rachel, and Mercy would all be implicated, too. Oh baby, you know she’s going to say yes! This is demented! We are living!!
Some other major events take place in this episode, but do we even care at this point? Ugh, fine, it is admittedly great to watch none other than Dougal Freaking MacKenzie stroll into Geillis’s home with further evidence of the “fairy man” for Roger, wasn’t it? I could very much do without Roger’s voiceovers, but getting to see Geillis and Dougal meet for the very first time — in front of their future son Buck, no less — is an absolute treat.
It also serves a significant purpose. The evidence Dougal brings to Roger turns out to be military ID tags from World War II. However, the tags have nothing to do with Rob Cameron — they belong to Roger’s father, who went missing during the war. Roger’s father is the fairy man trapped in 1739, not Rob. This might explain why Roger and Buck were pulled to this time when they traveled through the stones, and it all but confirms that Rob and Jem are not there. It’s not great for Jem, but Roger honestly seems kind of jazzed to find his dad.
We also get the big reunion between Ian and the love of his life, Rachel, in which Arch Bug attempts to make good on his promise of revenge for Ian killing his wife. It is mostly underwhelming. A lot of that might have to do with the fact that Arch Bug hardly seems to be a real threat. Sure, he is unhinged, but when he grabs Rachel in the stables and proceeds to chat her ear off for a few minutes as to why he is going to kill her in front of Ian, he just seems so frail. I know Rachel is anti-violence, but she probably could’ve given the guy a nice shove and gotten away. His tussle with Ian is laughable. And yet, still, it takes William running in and shooting Arch Bug to end the whole thing for good. Man, William is going to be so bummed when he watches Rachel walk off into the sunset with Ian. The guy is down bad!
Unfortunately for him, Rachel’s heart belongs to Ian. She calls him her wolf and apparently does not care even one little bit that he might go out and murder during the day as long as he always comes home to her. They are very in love. Old Ian would be so happy. Well, at least someone is. We are headed into chaos! Prepare yourselves!