Outlander Homepage Originals
Throughout every season of Outlander, love has always been the dominant emotion. From the soul deep love of Jamie and Claire that endures despite everything thrown into its path, to the pure love of Rachel and Ian that conquers barriers of religion and culture; from the steadfast love of Roger and Brianna who have risked everything in their united love of their son, to Roger’s tender love for the man who created him, but whom he never knew; to the protective love of siblings equally determined to protect and support the other, to the unrequited love of John Grey, who has sacrificed everything he has for the people he holds dear - love is truly an unstoppable force. In this episode, we see all of these different types of love play out and interconnect. It is clever writing and nuanced acting, and the hour flies by.
In 1739, Roger and Buck are packing up camp. Buck suggests that they follow the stream, hoping to come across someone who has seen either Jemmy or Roger’s father. Buck comments that, despite the time line, the mountains around them haven’t changed at all. Roger realises the truth of this statement and its subsequent implications. The area where they are standing is close to Pitlochry in Roger’s time, which means they are close to the dam where Brianna had mentioned feeling the time portal.
“If there were stones there before they built the dam,” says Roger,
“Then there are probably stones here now,” Buck finishes for him.
And so, with a likely explanation as to how Roger’s father has appeared in this time period, Roger and Buck have a plan. If they retrace Jerry MacKenzie’s steps, they might succeed in finding him.
Fast forward to the 1970s and Brianna has Rob Cameron prisoner in the priest’s hole. Brianna demands that Cameron tell her where Jemmy is, but Rob taunts her. If she kills him, he hisses, she’ll never see Jem again.
“The longer he’s in there, the worse it will be for him,” Rob smirks.
“You’d better be lying, for your own sake,” Brianna responds, directing another blow before she leaves him alone once more.
In the kitchen, Mandy is waiting for her mother, wanting to know where Jem is. Brianna hugs her, before going to the phone to call the police. Realising that Cameron must have cut the phone lines and that she is unable to call for help, Brianna decides that they will go in search of Jem themselves. She asks Mandy if the young girl can feel her brother nearby, but Mandy shakes her head. They get into the car and begin to drive. As the car speeds along the wet roads, we see Jem, inside the tunnel. He screams for help, and the opening credits begin.
In the third time period in as many scenes, Ian is preparing for his wedding. He talks to his ageing dog Rollo, sleeping by the fire. Ian comments that Rollo isn’t as young as he used to be.
“None of us are,” Jamie observes from the doorway.
Ian turns to look at his uncle, asking Jamie if he knows about the cairn that he had built for him. Jamie has, and comments wryly that all Ian’s hard work had been for nothing, adding that he can think of no better reason to rise from the depths of the sea than to attend his nephew’s wedding. Ian is missing his own father dearly and is glad that Jamie is there. Jamie reminds Ian of his father’s wishes and adds that Jenny too is happy to know that Ian and Rachel are so devoted to each other. Ian hopes that Denzell receives the letter that has been sent summoning him. While there will be other friends present, Denzell is Rachel’s only family. Jamie reassures Ian that Denzell will be there, before asking his nephew if he is feeling nervous.
Ian denies nerves about the wedding itself, but is more concerned about the events following it. Specifically, he is worrying about how Rachel will react to the usual wedding night ritual. Jamie reminisces about his own wedding and how he had been the inexperienced one. He tells Ian that Dougal, Rupert and Angus had provided him with advice - none of it useful! Instead, Jamie offers his own words of wisdom, telling Ian that he should be gentle with his bride. Jamie adds that, for him, the only useful advice had been what Claire herself had told him : to go slowly and pay attention.
“And was she gentle with you?” Ian asks.
“God, no!” is Jamie’s reply and the two smile.
This was a lovely scene, with Sam Heughan and Ian Bell perfectly displaying the bond between the two men: although uncle and nephew, it feels much more like father and son and certainly underscores why Ian had reacted so strongly to William’s criticism of Jamie in the previous episode.
Meanwhile, the women are helping Rachel prepare, with advice of their own. Rachel has insisted on the Quaker wedding tradition, simple, with no flowers and a plain dress. Mercy tells her that while the dress may be borrowed, Rachel wears it like it was her own.
“The most important thing is that it’s what you want,” Claire says.
Rachel assures her that it is perfect. She thanks Claire for the alterations she has made and also thanks Mercy for hosting the ceremony in her home.
Mercy replies that it is her pleasure, adding that her only regret is that they all must leave so soon after the ceremony. But fighting is imminent and Jamie and Ian have orders. Rachel asks if it ever gets easier to watch the man you love march onto the battlefield.
“No,” says Claire, “But you do learn to live with it.”
Mercy adds that it is a reminder to cherish the time you have together.
Love becomes a shield, an armour to put on every day and fight too, Claire tells Rachel, before shifting the conversation back to happier things, like what Ian will think when he sees his bride.
Rachel smiles and says that she hopes that the Spirit will move her and that she will know what to say when the time comes. Claire calms her by reminding her that a marriage is made in the living of it, rather than in ritual or words.
Jamie is setting up the chairs for the service, when Denzell rushes in, worried that he has missed the ceremony altogether. Henry is also there and greets Denzell warmly. The two men discuss Henry’s recovery and his continued treatment under Claire and Mercy’s guidance. When Henry leaves to fetch Rachel, Denzell asks Jamie if John has returned. Jamie has assumed that John has gone north, but wonders how Denzell knows John had left in the first place. So Denzell tells the story of what had happened to John after Jamie’s attack, and of the part he himself had played in helping John to escape a hanging.
“I thought perhaps he would send word to thee,” he adds.
Jamie replies that no word has come, but that John can take care of himself. He thanks Denzell for what he had done.
Jamie’s apparent lack of remorse is frustrating in this scene. It is his actions that have endangered John’s life, when John’s primary motivation had been to keep Claire safe. Henry interrupts the conversation to announce that it is time for the ceremony.
The wedding guests are sitting in silence when Rachel enters on her brother’s arm and thanks them all for their presence. She explains that they have gathered to listen, both to one another and to the light within them. She sits next to Ian and closes her eyes, prompting everyone to else to do the same. The time passes and people start to become restless. Jamie and Claire begin to whisper. Claire asks how they will know when it is the right moment to speak and what will happen if the Spirit doesn’t move anyone.
“Then we may be sitting here for a very long time,” Jamie whispers back.
But Jamie’s words, according to Denzell, are precisely the Spiritual movement that they have been waiting for. It is up to Jamie to begin proceedings, so he talks of when Ian was a baby and how he had felt he had known him and what he would become. But he couldn’t have foreseen the man that Ian has grown into, Jamie says, and expresses his pride at being his uncle and how lucky Rachel is to call him husband.
Ian expresses his own thanks, before Denzell takes over, telling his own story, of how he was put out of meeting for wanting to join the continental army and how Rachel had felt it her duty to follow him. To be put out of meeting is a grievous thing, and Denzell blames himself for not taking care of his sister properly, adding that he has led her into a life of violence, with an army of violent men.
“That would be me, I expect?” Ian says.
Denzell stumbles over his words then, not having meant to insult his future brother-in-law. Jamie mutters to Claire asking if he should take the blame at this point, but Claire advises him to stay out of it. Fortuanately, Denzell recovers the situation, saying that once he had seen Rachel with Ian, he had realised that his fears were for naught.
“Wth Ian by thy side, thee has found love and therefore a home,” he says.
Jamie and Claire smile at one other, as do Mercy and Henry, both couples recognising the truth of these words.
Ian stands and makes his own speech. He has indeed seen darkness, he says, but Rachel has given him light. She has shown him a joy he had feared he would never feel again, He is a free man with a heart free to give and he wants to give it to Rachel forever.
Rachel stands and, before the assembled group, takes Ian to be her husband. She promises to be a loving and faithful wife. The music swells and the marriage is done.
In the twentieth century time line, Jem is sitting in the darkness, muttering for help, before he decides to take charge of the situation.
“On your feet, soldier,” he says and we realise that his grandmother’s words must have been used frequently in the Mackenzie household to encourage bravery and resilience. Jem begins by banging on the door and yelling. This does no good, but on looking down, he finds a hardhat on the ground. He switches on the hat’s lamp, as we hear Brianna’s recount of when she had also been locked in the tunnel by Cameron and his cronies. Jem follows in her footsteps, doing exactly what she had done, beginning by flipping on the switches in the breaker box.
In the car, Mandy suddenly calls Jem’s name, announcing to Brianna that she can feel her brother at last. Pulling over, Brianna suggests a game of hot or cold, asking how close to Jemmy they are.
“Warmer,” is Mandy’s reply.
The rules for the game in place, Brianna pulls back out onto the road, while in their time, Roger and Buck are covering similar ground.
The action then builds simultaneously in three time periods. As Jem starts to move through the tunnel, Mandy announces that they are now “colder.” Brianna turns the car around once more, as her voiceover guides Jemmy through the split in the tunnel. Mandy once again calls out “warmer.”
Roger and Buck have found the stones and recoil from their buzzing noise. They find a set of goggles and a soldier’s survival kit.
“Jerry!” Roger calls. “Jeremiah!”
Within the tunnel, Jem approaches the shimmering portal, and hears the shout of “Jeremiah MacKenzie!” He too recoils from the noise of the portal, but not before recognising the voice.
“Da?” he yells back.
In the car, Mandy says that Jemmy has gone, while on the 1739 hill, Roger and Buck see a boy.
Brianna is at a loss as to what is going on, until the headlights fall onto the sign that indicates the service road to Loch Errochty. Suddenly, she realises what Rob has done and where her son must be.
“Hot Mummy, really hot,” Mandy says, as they speed along the road. Brianna turns around to look at her, and when she turns back, Jem is standing in front of the car. She slams on the brakes, as Jem shields himself from the glare of the headlights, and, in their time, Roger and Buck chase the young boy.
Brianna rushes to her son. He assures her that he is unharmed and that he had gotten out of the tunnels because he had remembered what she had said. Hugging him tightly, Brianna praises his ingenuity and assures him that he is safe.
Roger and Buck finally catch the young boy, who has Jeremiah MacKenzie’s helmet in his possession. Roger asks if he took the helmet from a strangely dressed man.
“Why would I tell you?” the boy retorts. “You’re strange too.”
“Aye,” says Buck. “And we’re bigger than you.” Lifting the boy off his feet, he offers the lad a bargain: if he tells them what he knows, Buck will refrain from breaking his neck.
The boy says he had followed a queer looking man, who had traded his helmet for directions to the village. The boy had subsequently told people about the man, who had then chased him away. But the man had returned in the night, the boy says, and had stolen a lamb from the MacBirneys. Since the boy had been on duty at the time, he knew he would be in trouble.
“So you told on him, then,” Buck says.
“Well, it was my hide or his,” the boy replies, adding that Mr MacBirney is still deciding on the punishment once Jerry MacKenzie is caught. Jerry could lose a hand, he muses, or even his head.
Roger asks where the man had run to, and the boy indicates the woods in front of them. Handing back the helmet, Roger tells the boy that he had better be telling the truth.
It is Ian and Rachel’s wedding night and both are nervous. Rachel walks towards Ian, asking him to unlace her. This he does, dropping kisses down her body as the music builds. Rachel turns to face him and they kiss, exchanging flirtatious comments, firstly about about each other’s bodies and then about the noises of pleasure that each is making, as they move to the bed. Rachel unbinds her hair and their lovemaking begins in earnest. They talk honestly about what they want and how they are feeling. Rachel says that she knows that there is some pain involved and that she would rather get that over and done with. And so they do.
When this scene is compared to lovemaking in previous seasons, it is clear the influence that an intimacy coordinator has had on the filming. Viewers see much less of the actors’ bodies, but nothing is taken away from the emotions of the scene. One can’t help but wonder what the season 1 Jamie and Claire scenes, to say nothing of the Black Jack and Jamie scenes, would have looked looked like with an intimacy coordinator involved.
Jamie is sitting up in bed when Claire wakes. She asks if he is thinking about John and he admits that he is. He is thinking about what has become of John, but also about what John and Claire had done in the room in which they currently are. Jamie tells Claire that he doesn’t hold it against her, but nevertheless it is hard for him to sleep.
Claire tells him that if Jamie doesn’t hold it against her, then he can’t hold it against John either. This is a bridge too far for Jamie, although he does say that he doesn’t wish John dead, adding that John was almost hanged on his account. He has failed William too, he feels, by not doing right by him.
“You haven’t failed,” Claire tells him. She describes William as a brave and honourable young man, but Jamie replies that there is nothing honourable about having to live a lie. Claire is confident that William will eventually come to understand that Jamie and John had kept the truth from him because of the love they both had for him.
“How can you be so sure?” Jamie asks.
“Because I see so much of you in him,” Claire answers. “And you would come to understand, I think.”
Jamie kisses her hand and draws her close, saying how good it is to be near her again and thanking her.
“Thank you for missing that ship,” she replies and they kiss.
John has been sleeping in the woods, when he is awakened by a pistol aimed at his temple. The American soldier wielding it asks where John has escaped from.
Thinking quickly, John begins his story, saying that he was put in irons by a British officer who had mistaken him for a spy. When asked his name, John employs the method that Jamie had once used, stating some of his middle names and introducing himself as Bertram Armstrong. He asks for the officer’s name in return.
“I am the Reverend Peleg Woodsworth of the 16th Pennsylvania,” the man replies, asking John for his own company name. John says that he hasn’t yet joined one, but was on his way to do so when he had run afoul of a British patrol and found himself in the straits that they now see.
“Well, Mr Armstrong,” Woodsworth replies, “I think we can relieve those straits.”
The scene ends with the look of relief on John’s face. For now at least, he is relatively safe.
Brianna and the children arrive back at Lallybroch. Jem is despondent, saying that if he had gotten away sooner, Roger wouldn’t have had to got through the stones.
“I should have been braver,” he says, eyes downcast.
Brianna reassures him, saying that he had been very brave and that Roger is brave too.
“We’ll get him back,” she says.
Brianna tells Jem that she is going inside to hand Rob Cameron over to the police, while Jem and Mandy wait in the trailer with a special police officer who works with children.
But on entering the house and opening the door to the priest’s hole, Brianna is shocked to find that Rob is no longer inside. Quickly, she finds herself on the defensive. She tells the police that someone has broken Rob out, so that must mean that he has people helping him. The female officer informs her that they have searched the perimeter twice and there was no sign of forced entry.
“He must have a copy of my key,” Brianna says.
“Did you give him a copy of your key?” the officer asks.
“No, of course not,” she replies.
The female officer then points to the bandage on Brianna’s hand, asking if Rob had caused the injury. As Brianna explains that she had slammed her fingers in a drawer because she was angry and scared, the two police officers exchange a look and the male officer takes over the questioning. He asks Brianna to confirm that she and Rob were colleagues at the dam and wonders whether there is anything else about the relationship that she would like to tell them.
“Not really, no,” Brianna says. She tells them that she is Rob’s boss and that he had once come over for dinner with both her and Roger. The conversation then turns to Roger’s absence. Brianna says that Roger is in Boston on a business trip, prompting the female officer to ask for a number so that they can get Roger’s thoughts on why Cameron is targeting the family. But Brianna’s hedging over this and her statement that she waits for Roger to call her doesn’t help matters. The male officer tells Brianna that he believes she is leaving out important details and begins to suggest a story where Rob had been over at Brianna’s invitation enjoying a bottle of wine. It is obvious that they think Brianna and Rob have been having an affair.
Frustrated , Brianna tells them that Rob has cut her phone lines and that they should talk to Rob’s sister, adding that she shouldn’t have to tell them how to do their job. This line, and the police officer’s sarcastic reply, is reminiscent of Frank’s despair in season 1 when he tried to convince the police to continue looking for Claire. Brianna’s temper rises in the same way that Frank’s had.
“This guy has keys to my house!” she says. “You should be out there looking for him. God knows what he might be planning next!”
Still obviously unconvinced, the female police officer asks Brianna if there is anywhere she and the children can stay until Roger’s return.
Roger, meanwhile, is still calling for Jerry MacKenzie. Buck asks Roger if he has thought about what he will say, should he actually meet up with his father. But Roger is unsure. He was so young when his father disappeared, he explains. He was more of a myth than a man, more like a hero in a story book than an actual person. Buck says that he too never knew the man who sired him, nor his mother, telling Roger that he wasn’t born to the house he grew up in.
“Is that right?” Roger asks, choosing not to enlighten Buck as to his parentage, nor to the fact that he has, actually, met them both, quite recently.
Buck continues , asking Roger if his mother had died young, and Roger confirms that his mother died during an air raid in the London Underground. Buck replies that he doesn’t know what any of that is, when they hear a sudden noise.
It is none other than Jerry MacKenzie, who stops in shock when Roger calls him by name and announces that they have come to help him. Roger holds out Jerry’s ID tags, but stops short of telling Jerry his true identity, saying only that he too is from a different time.
“It’s true,” Jerry says. “I haven’t lost my mind.”
Roger continues with further evidence, sharing the names of the Prime Ministers in each of their timelines, with Jerry expressing surprise that a woman is Prime Minister in Roger’s time. He asks Roger what year they are currently in and Roger tells him: 1739.
Jerry is injured courtesy of some non receptive villagers and Roger asks if he can have a look, saying that he has alcohol to disinfect the wound. Jerry responds that he would rather drink any alcohol on offer and Roger chuckles that they can do both.
As he pours the said alcohol onto Jerry’s hand, Roger tells him that he has been looking for his son and asks if Jerry has seen a nine year old boy. But the only boy Jerry has seen is the shepherd boy that Roger and Buck have already spoken to.
“I’m sorry you’ve lost your boy,” Jerry says. “I have a son myself. I’ve got to get back to him. He’s just a baby.”
“It’s all right,” Roger replies, gently. “He’ll be all right. I’m sure of it.” Roger asks Jerry how he has come to this time.
Jerry says that his plane had gone down and he had been looking for help. He had stumbled across a stone circle, lent against one and fallen asleep, but when he woke up he was in a different time. Roger and Buck explain the significance of the standing stones and how they act as a portal between time periods. Roger asks how a spitfire pilot has ended up in the highlands and Jerry explains that his plane’s engine had failed during a camera test flight on a classified mission. He had been meant to fly over Nazi labor camps in Poland to take aerial pictures to help the war effort, but now doesn’t know what will happen to him, or to anyone in his time.
The sound of dogs interrupt them and they run from the noise. It is the shepherd boy once more, who has told MacBirney about them. Jerry falls heavily, so Roger and Buck half carry him back to the stone circle, where Roger informs him they are sending him back to his own time. Pressing the gem he had acquired into Jerry’s palm, he instructs Jerry to think of his wife, Marjorie and to keep her in his mind’s eye as he touches the central stone.
“How the bloody hell do you know my wife’s name?” Jerry asks, pleading with Roger to tell him something by way of explanation. Roger responds by telling Jerry that the British win the war because of men like him. MacBirney and the others are almost upon them, so Roger pushes Jerry towards the stones, whispering “I love you” to Jerry’s retreating figure. As he shuts his eyes, there is a brief flash of a young boy in an air raid shelter, looking up into the eyes of a man.
“He heard you,” Buck tells Roger, by way of comfort, as the two of them leave the circle and the pursuing men behind.
Ian and Rachel are waking the following morning and greet each other as husband and wife. Ian kisses her and she asks whether the previous night had not been enough for him.
“Never,” Ian replies, but is suddenly serious. He has been thinking about Denzell’s words, and how Rachel has been pulled into violence. Even though it was her decision, he knows the toll that violence takes on her. He promises that he won’t kill anyone unless he has to, adding that since he has signed on as a scout, he shouldn’t have to.
‘But things happen. I know,” Rachel replies. Ian’s journey lies along its own path, and she cannot share it. “But I can walk beside thee,” she tells him. “ And I will.”
“Then I vow to do my best to return to you every night,” Ian says, adding that he won’t promise to return in one piece, as he would like to see her patch him up.
“If thee promises to always be careful, I promise to always patch thee up,” Rachel tells him, shrugging out of her shift and kissing him again.
Jamie, resplendent in his latest uniform with its blue coat, approaches Claire and asks if she likes it and whether she understands why he has to join the latest fight.
“All I’ve wanted since I found out you were alive was to take you home,” Claire says. “But yes, I understand.”
Jamie replies that she has seen enough war for two lifetimes, apologising for dragging her back into it.
Claire replies that he is as bad as Denzell. She isn’t being dragged anywhere, she tells him. If she were given the choice of sleeping next to him on an army cot every night for the rest of her life, or in a real bed without him, she will always choose him.
“And that is my devision, General,” she says, standing back to take in the full uniform. “At least this time it’s the right colour,” she adds, with a smile.
Fiona and Ernie have arrived to take care of Jem and Mandy. As Ernie goes to collect the children, Fi and Brianna have time to talk. Fi tells Brianna that she has told Ernie that Roger is in Boston. Brianna also gives her the box of letters for safekeeping, telling Fi that she is going back to meet the locksmith, adding that she has a gun if necessary.
“What else can I do, Fi?” she says, in response to her friend’s shocked expression. “The police are no help. I have to protect my family.”
“Surely Roger will come back when he realises that Jemmy isn’t there,” Fi whispers.
This is precisely what Brianna is afraid of. She knows Roger, she tells her friend. He will never come home without their son.
Roger and Buck are riding slowly back through the snowy wood. Roger had been hoping, he says, to have been flooded with memories of his father, as if he was suddenly part of his life. But this hasn’t happened.
“I don’t think he made it back,” Roger adds, “but I did see something. It was just an image, I think he was holding me in his arms.”
Roger is unsure whether this is an old or new memory and Buck asks him whether that matters, given that everything that they’ve experienced has happened long before either of them has been born.
“So I wouldn’t put much stock in memory for ones such as us.”
Roger adds that Jerry clearly went somewhere, and he can only believe it is a better place.
“I had to give him a chance,” he says.
“And you did,” Buck reassures him. “He’s in God’s hands now.”
At last Roger realises why they have ended up in 1739. He had been so focused on Jemmy, he tells Buck, and how scared and alone Jem must have been feeling, that just for a moment he thought of his own father and how scared and alone he had also felt. Roger thinks the stones had brought them to this time so that Roger could save his father’s life.
“It’s always 200 years, give or take,” he tells Buck. “But if you think of someone, you can go further. There’s a choice in how far you can go. But sometimes I think the stones make the choice for you.”
And with that, Roger reaches the conclusion that Brianna has feared he wouldn’t be able to make. If all of that is true and they are here, Roger says, then maybe Jem isn’t…
This was an episode about love in all its guises - from the love between friends, to that between husband and wife, to that between parent and child. No matter the situation, or the time period, it is walking beside someone with love, vowing to protect them and care for them as best as you can, that is the most important thing. As we head into the final three episodes of the season, it remains to be seen if love will truly be able to conquer all.
This recap was written by Susie Brown, a writer and teacher-librarian who lives in Australia. She particularly loved the scenes between Ian and Rachel, and can’t wait to watch this relationship develop.
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