211 Vengeance is Mine

 

When an episode of Outlander starts with teeth pulling and ends with a guy getting his head chopped off, I think you’ve covered all the bases. I think we can all agree that when Diana Gabaldon pens an episode of her show, the fans are going to be very happy. I also think we need to just let her have the writing of all the scripts for season 3, yeah? I mean, come on! This is a far cry from Daffy Duck comics, yeah? Loved it! So let’s get to it then, shall we?

1. Gotta take the bad with the good, I guess. So we hear through Claire’s voiceover that they have had great success in their quest for the throne. They have found much needed artillery, and they’ve made steady progress. However, the uprising from other clans hasn’t materialized, meaning no new troops to be thrown into the meat grinder of the Jacobite uprising.

Meanwhile, Claire is doing dental surgery on a guy, without anesthesia, because there wasn’t any back then obviously. Murtagh shares a few funny looks with her.

And then it’s inside with the royal highness and the fighting generals. Which would be a great band name, yeah?

2. When you are surrounded and outnumbered by overwhelming odds and you have an escape, usually retreat is the best option. The generals want to retire to winter quarters and recruit more men for another push in the spring. The King wants to keep going forward. They could be in London within 5 days, the war would be over.

However, the generals are in agreement on this one. They should know, having an underwhelming number of forces against the English troops would be suicide. Jamie says, “Why don’t we march around them?” and the generals scoff at this because it’s ludicrous to them. And it really is. They’d have pickets, scouts, forward observers, and all manner of ways to know where and when the Jacobite army is moving and where they’re going.

Finally, Charlie says, “Is there not one among you who wants to keep moving forward, to victory?” and only Jamie steps up, kneels in front of him, and says, “Yo, just me I guess” with a kissy show of supplication. Well, the Ponce goes on a tirade, involving no Mark Me’s whatsoever. And this is the best part of the show, because in an effort to keep us all sober, DG has decided not to use the most annoying catchphrase in the whole of TV history.

3. Meanwhile, outside, in the Dentist’s chair, we see Claire going toe to toe with a woman’s molar. And once again, I’m cringing with the sounds and the woman’s screams. I endured Episode 16 last year, why the hell does minor surgery like this make me want to throw up?

Rupert, drunk and missing his friend, says to the kid who is up next, “Dinna fash it, My bestie Angus once got his two front teeth knocked out by a cow, and for two days he was afraid to shit for fear of being bitten,” badump bump! Aww, it’s so sad watching Rupert without his right hand man. His continued anguish makes me hate you, Outlander!

The prince storms out, followed by his men, and he’s having none of it. He’s got that look on his face that says, “Fuck all y’all, I’m going to go get drunk.” while they’re still trying to reason with him. The men gather around, disappointment on their faces, and ask what’s up? Jamie’s all, “Yeah, we have to go back to Scotland. Dinna fash, you’ll be safe at Lallybroch.” And they all have to pretty much accept that fact.
Then he apologizes to Claire. “Sorry I couldn’t change history, Sassenach. I guess the time stream is immutable like some recap bloggers and horror novelists claim.”

4. One of the hallmarks of a great DG novel is the simple moments, the interludes when there is no action, no plot, but just small scenes and set pieces that show the love between Claire and Jamie. The next bit is one of those scenes. I’m not sure if this would have been in any other writer’s script, (and you can correct me if I’m wrong) but I can easily see Herself fighting for this scene to be in this episode.

Jamie talks to Claire in Gaelic, in bed, naked, while she’s asleep. When he’s done, pouring out his heart and love to her, she wakes up and turns around to ask him what he was saying. “Dinna fash, it was nothing but nonsense if I told you while you were awake.” and this is true. Ladies, sometimes when you don’t know it, when your back is turned or when you are asleep, your man will say some very flattering things. Just don’t pay attention to it, because it’ll sound ridiculous to you, but we mean every word of it.

Then we see him crawl into bed and everything goes to black. And Outlander, I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU TO STOP DOING THAT!!! The fans have gone 4 episodes without a Claire and Jamie horizontal bounce, and we want it now! This just kissy huggy thing isn’t going to cut it anymore. There’s only been one, ONE instance of the naked mambo this season, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask that we get something, even a fifteen second shot of them having a good time in the sheets. Hell, Soap Opera stars do it every episode, for crying out loud. So Get With It Outlander! We subscribed to see skin, and right now it’s all, death and war, and politics. Come on!

5. HEEEERE’s Dougal! He comes to their lodging with a note from Bonny Prince Chuck, and he ain’t happy. He hands Jamie the note and turns out he’s being ordered with his men to Inverness.

Why Inverness? Because O’Sullivan thinks that Jamie has too much influence with the prince, and might incite him to move south. So he’s being exiled far away in order to keep him away from Charlie. So Jamie accepts this begrudgingly and says, “What about the provisions for my men?” and Dougal says in a sarcastic tone, “Well, the people who are sympathetic to Charlie can just give him credit.”

Then Dougal announces that the prince took Jamie’s horse, to go along with the insult of sending him away where he won’t influence Poncey to do something reckless like change history or affect the time stream.

So without any options, “I hear Inverness sounds lovely this time of year, aye, Sassenach?” he says. And without further ado, we are treated to a slow motion montage of guys marching through the beautiful Scottish highland scenery. God, I’m so glad we’re back here, that stuffy closed in Paris skyline and multitude of buildings was getting on my nerves.

6. During the march, the men are set upon by an English ambush. Jamie and Rupert are talking when one of the guards who is supposed to be watching gets shot. Then everything goes wonky in an instant. Men are firing at the redcoats, the redcoats are firing back, and there are shouts of where to go and what to do from Jamie and Dougal.

Jamie, Claire, and a few others jump on horses and start to lead the British cavalry through trails and roads, and in the process, Rupert is shot and almost goes over the side of his horse. Dougal protects him, though, and gets him back up just in time for the men and one woman to find a hideout of sorts. Well, the British go past them, and then the group goes the other way.

That’s when they stumble on a church. And I’m very nervous about Rupert suddenly. Because Book Purist is going “here’s the scene from the book!” and I know DG wrote this script so it’s going to go down exactly that way and suddenly I’m sad all over again.

7. After a quick recon at the church they decide to go for it and Jamie goes up to the door, only to find Ross guarding the door. Apparently, the men were ambushed and captured, so it’s just Jamie and the boys left. Claire goes into surgery mode on Rupert, trying to get the bullet out of his eye with the barest minimum of surgical tools. Once again, we get horrific surgery noises and I’m cringing all over again. I’m starting to wonder if Rupert isn’t indestructible. All those predictions of his death are greatly exaggerated.

The men decide to wait it out until nightfall to keep a low profile, but then it turns out the British weren’t as dumb as they once were thought. They surround the church and yell for the men to come out. Because if they don’t come out and throw down their weapons, the brits are going to burn them out.

Claire comes up with a plan. She’s going to pull a LJG Damsel In Distress gambit. Jamie won’t have any of it, because he doesn’t trust the british at this point, and rightly so. But Dougal steps in and says, “It’s a brilliant plan. And by brilliant, I mean it’s a one in a million chance, and those always work in fiction.”

In layman’s terms: if there’s a million to one chance against something of vital importance happening, then it’s that one time rather than the other million times. This is Truth in Television to a certain degree that it becomes likely that an extremely improbable event will occur to someone, and it’s his story that’s told.

Jamie is still unconvinced. Then Claire lays the smack down because if there’s anything you never want to do is question Mama Claire that a course of action is the right thing to do. She yells at him, “Dude, I’m Lady Broch Turach! And if you think I don’t care for these guys, prove it! I’ve done surgery, I’ve given up a ton of stuff, like running water and penicillin and fatty foods and the creation of MacDonalds, so this is what I’m going to do, so there!”

Well, he relents, and says, “Okay, we’ll find each other, I promise.” and she’s all, “I know, we’re the heroes of the story, of course you’ll find me without any trouble.” So Dougal goes out to the Brits and says, “You can take mistress Beauchamp and we’ll get to go about our merry way.”

She bids her farewell to the men, and wonders, “How can I pull this off? I have a glass face, it is almost impossible for me to lie.” and Fergus goes, “Well, you could always act faint, because if there’s anything men of this era accept it’s that women of this era are pretty much weak and afraid all the time.”

“So everything that I’m not, then?” she says, and Fergus is all, “Pretty much.”

So Dougal takes Claire out of the church and hands her supine body to the british soldiers. Jamie can’t come out on account of the price on his head, so he hides in the church hoping and praying that the English Captain is stupid and won’t inspect the church. Which he doesn’t do after all, proving the point that these guys possess all the tactical ingenuity of a soiled grape. The Captain instructs the highlanders to go back home in peace and act like royal subjects of the british king. Dougal has to open his big fat mouth and says, “We’ll do that when a true king is wearing that crown.”

Then the brits take Claire and ride off, leaving Jamie and Dougal behind to figure out how to get Claire back. Jamie and Murtagh decide to go off in search of her, while the rest of the guys go off to safety. And then Rupert’s all, “When you find her, gi’ her a wink for me.” and he does actually sound like a pirate then.

8. Claire is taken to a nearby town for the night, while the men figure out what to do with her. There’s talk of taking her to a nearby garrison, and that’s the prevailing wisdom. While there, she sees two things. One, the beggar Monroe, and two, a wanted poster for her man. And whoever drew that must have been looking at the cast phtos because that’s a pretty good likeness of our ginger Scot.
Once in the tavern, she tries to get some rest, by herself in front of a fire. But then

I’m all, “Dude, really?” God, there’s always one guy. Sorry ladies. I have nothing to say beyond that.

In the morning, Claire is awoken by one lone soldier who has been instructed to take her to a nearby manor of an English lord. I wonder who that could be… On the way, she spots Monroe again, and surreptitiously tells the beggar that she’s being sent away to Belmont instead of Hazelmere. He hears this and nods and then the guy puts her on the horse to take her away to the castle of the Duke. And we all know at this point who this particular Duke is, right?

9. So, She gets taken past the troops outside the Belmont Estate, and goes in to meet the Duke of Sandringham. Everyone’s favorite Cowardly Lion. After a brief introduction where the Duke shows total ignorance of who Claire is, the Leftenant leaves and it’s just the two of them standing there with an awkward pause before Clarence decides, “I need a drink! What about you?”

10. That night, which leads me to question the continuity because I thought it was just light a few minutes ago, but whatever, Jamie and Murtagh are scouting a camp and notice there are a couple of horses that they’re going to have to steal. “So now we’re murderers, rebels, traitors, and we’re going to be horse thieves? Did you ever think that marrying Claire wasn‘t the wisest thing you ever did?” and Jamie’s all, “No. never occurred to me at all. Since I wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t set my arm, and saved my life on I don’t know how many occasions.” Which is a good answer, and should be an example of what to say for husbands everywhere when this question is asked of them.

11. So it turns out that the Duke is under suspicion of being a Jacobite, which he is, and that’s why the English have ringed his estate like a turtle. It turns out the Tower of London has been a residence of the Duke because there was a question of his loyalties to the English Crown and he didn’t like it there. So that’s why his residence is surrounded by the redcoats and their stupid red coats. Ugh, how gauche. Everyone knows red doesn’t go with forest green, which would be a lot better to use in the countryside so as to help them not stand out when people want to kill them in buckets.
Since they both want to get as far away from the redcoats as possible, they agree to a deal. Since she knows Jamie is coming for them, she tells him that when he gets there, they’ll both go and that’s that. She needs to write a note to Jamie, so Clarence gives her paper and a quill to make this happen. She writes a note in Gaelic, and Sandringham takes it to be delivered.

Then Mary Hawkins comes in and sees Claire, and I hear the entire audience groan and say, “What the fuck, this girl again?” because there aren’t enough damsels in distress in this show already. She spirits away Claire and tells her that she has to get away from Sandringham. It turns out she’s the man’s god daughter, and she is betrothed to be married to yet another stuffy British pedophile that is a million years older than her because there’s apparently money involved and the duke is an absolute scumbag that doesn’t care about her at all.

So Claire says, “Well, yeah I guess I have to, because if I don’t protect you and make sure you marry some other guy that would lead to me being here, I wouldn’t be here, so there’s that. FML!”

12. On the road, the delivery guy comes upon a man that I can only assume is a trapper, or something since eh has animal carcasses dangling from string and looks like he’s come from a fresh hunting trip.

The guy eventually tells him he’s met a man in a slouch hat on the road not too long ago, and the courier goes off in search of slough hat guy, because this must be the beggar he seeks. A few minutes later, he finds Munroe and calls him out from behind a tree. Munroe comes out, beats the guy up a few seconds, until the guy says, “I’ve got a message for Jamie Fraser, from Madame Claire!” So Munroe takes it and runs off into the night, without leaving the guy so much as a tuppence and a by your leave.

13. Meanwhile, back at Belmont, Claire is waiting for Jamie and his dashing movie star hero rescue attempt. Sandringham and his valet come in, and the Duke tells Claire that he has ordered the men outside to hang back a bit and wait. He takes his cloak off, and hands it to the Valet and that’s when Claire notices the port wine stain on the Valet’s hand. She remembers the incident in paris and says, “When did you hire this man?”

Sandringham says, “I had him in paris, why?” and Claire’s all, “Because he’s a rapey douchebag and I should know, because he did that to Mary.” Well, the duke gets mad at the guy, “I told you to wear gloves!” and the dude closes the door behind them and locks it, saying, “The ones you had me wear were teal. I told you, I don’t wear teal! I’m a bad guy, bad guys wear black!”

Sandringham turns back to Claire. “See, what happened was, I owed Le Comte St. Germain a lot of money, and since you pissed him off, I told him I would take care of you so I wouldn’t owe him money anymore. So win/win, as far as I’m concerned. Except for the whole ‘Raping my god daughter’ thing. I never meant to harm you. Hell, if he had his way you’d have been murdered. But then I reminded him that if you had been murdered, there would have been a whole host of complications, the first being Jamie would scour the city killing everyone in his revenge and this whole series would have gone into George R. R Martin territory.”

Claire says they’re going to regret sending the redcoats away, because he’s going to get bloody revenge once he finds out. And the duke isn’t scared because he tells Claire “It’s all an elaborate trap. You see, how better could I show my loyalty by giving up the notorious Red Jamie, thus showing that I’m loyal to the crown and not in fact a Jacobite at all. So yet another Win/Win. Ah, I so love being a spider when flies are buzzing around my web.”

This whole time I’m thinking of starting a web series called the Villain Monologues. Because every villain always tells their cunning plan moments before that same cunning plan comes crashing to the ground. “You could hang side by side, traitors to the king, it would be so romantic.” he finally says, and I’m thinking, “Claire, why did you even trust him? Did you forget the whole, ‘petition of complaint’ incident?”

14. Munroe finds Jamie, give him the note, and we have one of the funny scenes of the episode. This is one of thse hallmarks of Diana Gabaldon’s writing prowess. She puts in a scene that makes you laugh all the way through, sandwiched in between tow dramatic emotional scenes. There are tons of these in the books between Claire and Jamie and young Ian. Sorry, book purist came out.

The men try to understand her hen scrathc, despite the misspellings of Gaelic, the grammar errors, and at one point decide, “This is totally unreadable, like a you tube video commenter or Facebook political rant. I mean, I can’t understand her article verb noun placement here.” and Murtagh says, “She even misspelled help!” finally, Munroe says, “Sandringham, dude! Jesus H Roosevelt Christ, are ye daft man?”

“You can talk?” jamie says, and Munroe is all, “Yeah, I just like saying Ook all the time. Lol”

15. Meanwhile, at the manor, Mary comes into the room they’ve put Claire using a handy dandy secret door. Mary’s all, “What are you doing all locked up like this?” and Claire explains, “You have to get out of here, stop being a simpering little girl I need you to be strong for me. I have to get out of here, and warn Jamie that this is a trap.”

But Mary is all, “I can’t go out to the front door in the night to meet a filthy beggar, that’s some high level Claire Fraser shit right there. What do you take me for, someone who has an ounce of courage?”

“Fine, I’ll do it. Just stay quiet and away from all the action. Don’t be like me at all. There’s a girl.” Claire says. And she goes down the stairs to get out the kitchen. And who does she run into? Yeah, This guy.

Moments later, he asks about her killing of the Comte. She says it was kind of an accident, but the Duke will have none of that. He keeps pestering her about it, and Claire says, “I’m hungry after all, do you mind if I have some of that indistinguishable meat there with that horribly sharp knife sticking out of it?” And Duke is all, “Sure, but I get to use it, not you. Do you think I’m stupid?”

“I’m not going to answer that…”

Then Mary comes in, claiming she’s hungry. Well, the duke will have none of it, gives her a slice of pie and says, “Now go to bed, there’s a girl. The adults are talking about murder and rape and stuff, nothing for your delicate little ears.”

16. Then Mary goes to the front door as instructed by Claire and meets an English soldier. Before he can ask what she’s doing, Munroe comes behind the man and knocks him out with a huge rock. Then, the Valet comes down to find out what she’s doing, tries to grab her, and she keeps his eyes averted from the front door while Munroe pulls the body out of the door.

He takes young Mary into the dining room and she’s all crying about how she tried to get away and she can’t marry that old stuffy guy, and she’s a scaredy cat, and the duke tells her to “Just go to bed!” well, this was apparently the signal for everything to go wonky because that’s the cue for Jamie to break in and surprise everyone.

Port Wine Stain grabs a knife and puts it to Claire’s throat, The duke stands up, puts on his wig, because apparently, you have to have a bit of style when uninvited guests break in your home to rescue their wives. The man orders Jamie to put down the dirk he’s holding, which Jamie does, but then Murtagh comes in and distracts the dude. Jamie punches the guy, shoves him down on the floor, and Claire identifies the guy as the one who attacked them in Paris.

“What’s that you said?” says mary’s look. “Because I think I just heard you say this is the guy who raped me, is that it?” The Duke is all, “No, that’s not what happened at all. Le Comte had so much worse in mind. You know me, Jamie, I’d never countenance such a thing as dastardly as rape.” and Claire is having none of it. “Dude, you so totally told these guys to rape us.” and that’s all Jamie had to hear.

He grabs the Duke by the throat, pulls of his stupid little wig, and says, “Aye, I do know you, you sniveling little coward!” and he pushes the duke away. And that’s when we see Murtagh go into Scary Murtagh mode, and pick up an axe.

Meanwhile, Mary picks up a dagger on the floor, goes to Port Wine Macrapeypants and stabs the life out of him. The Duke is surprised, and rightly so. Because that’s the point where Murtagh advances on the duke and takes after him with an axe. To the throat. With a spray of blood. Ewww…. And he keeps on cutting with a vengeance until the Duke’s head is split from his body. Then wordlessly, he takes the head to Claire, kneels down and says, “I promised you, and now I lay your vengeance at your feet.” and the crowd goes wild.

“Dude, we gotta bounce,” says Mary, and they all agree, leaving a couple of dead bodies in the estate dining room.

And here it is your Jamie Mooney eye pic of the week. Which no one guessed, because I’m changing it up since my sister tells me she knows where I’m taking it from each week, so there! Ha!