Hey folks. JP here, with another (Late as hell) recap of everyone’s favorite time travel romance thriller war story TV show. Wow, it’s been close to a month since I’ve been able to finish this because work has me by the throat lately. Anyway, don’t want to preamble too much, just get right on to it. Hope you enjoy!
1. Pirate Rupert is our first image, and I’m wishing someone would just give him a parrot and name it Angus. Because he has spent the better part of the last two episodes talking about his straggly bestie and it hurts whenever he does. It’s not the same, Outlander! And I’m still hating you for it.
Claire is basically doing her beginning of the show narration about how for the past 5 months since Prestonpans the army has suffered defeat and demoralization. They are hungry and ragged out after a “particularly long squawk” as it were. But they aren’t dead yet, and there’s one last possible place they could win a battle and the war for the crown. Culloden. And this is the place Claire has been dreading since the start f the entire series. The time is now, but she doesn’t want it to be. So things must be done to stop it. One last possible solution to make it out, save for actually killing the Bonny Prince himself.
A gaunt looking Jamie asks Dougal to take a patrol out and locate the British army. They need to know the strength of the Redcoats before anything rash is done. “The men can’t do anything on a bannock a day,” Dougal says. To which Jamie agrees. (Anyone that doesn’t know what this is should know that it’s simply a rounded piece of bread that gives minimal protein and calories. Go for about a month on 4 slices of bread and water a day, and see how you feel. Not good I assure you.)
Murtagh and Jamie talk about how the battle is coming soon and that there’s nothing to be done to stop it. Claire agrees, crestfallen. She tells Jamie, “All that plotting, all the stuff we did in France, and it still doesn’t amount to shit. So why did I wear a huge revealing Red Dress when I’d end up stuck wearing this dress for five months?”
Jamie sends Murtagh off to fetch Charles for a war council, and Claire decides to go into town to get more medical supplies. And wee Fergus is all, “Dudes, I’m out. All this riding on horseback and not eating is leaving me bushed.”
2. When in the town of Inverness, Claire goes to the Apothecary to get supplies and just so happens to run into our favorite stabby killy maiden, Mary Hawkins. Claire’s all, “Mary, what are you doing here? We thought we got rid of you after the whole Sandringham debacle.” And Mary is having none of Claire because of the whole “You tried to break up my love with Alex Randall so we’re not besties anymore.”
Claire apologizes but says, “I was doing what I thought was right for you.” and Mary drops a bomb, “Well it didn’t work, because Alex is here, he’s sick and I’m taking care of him. So you didn’t do anything but piss off people who were friends with you. But that’s okay, you’re Claire fucking Fraser, so whatever you do is okay since its justified by dint of being a main character.”
And Claire’s all, “Pretty much hit the spot. So can I come in and check in on your boy later? Since I don’t have anything else better to do, that is. Oh, and I want to advance a plot point.” And Mary agrees, saying, “Sure if you want. We’re at a boarding house down the street. Come on by, but watch the vomit and the bloody tissues all over the floor.”
3. At the war council, General McBluster is all “Dudes we have to fight at Culloden, aye?” and everyone is agreeing with him until Jamie walks in and pretty much crushes the idea with a few words about how it’s good for the british because uhh, cannons, and cavalry, and more troops and all that.
He implores the Prince to take a break from the fighting. The men are weak, hungry, exhausted. And there’s still the matter of the French gold, that should be coming soon. With that, Jamie reasons, they could rest, get better ammunition and guns, rest up the soldiers, gain more troops and win the day at another time.
Well, Mr. Doesn’t do Knee Porn As Well As Jamie says no to that. “I am a soldier, and I will comport myself as one. We will rest the men and then go fight at Culloden. Because it’s God’s will.” And Jamie’s got this look.
4. At McGilvray’s Boarding house, Claire goes in to see about Alex Randall, and is greeted with a far worse sight than she imagined, in two ways. The first of which is that Alex is really bad off, like, almost ready for the cart bad off. He can’t stop coughing and Mary is woefully inept at being able to take care of him. And two, This guy.
Well, obviously she’s absolutely gob smacked. And with good reason. This’ guy is always showing up when you least expect it. Jack goes to his brother and, with actual caring, asks him how he’s doing. He has been given leave to see about his brother’s welfare. Claire is about to leave when Mary stops her and says, “Don’t leave. I don’t know what would become of us without John.” and Claire’s all, “Well, you’d live peaceful happy lives for a start. But now, I gotta bounce because every time I am around this guy my skin wants to crawl off me and my body wants to follow.”
Then it’s time to drop some truth bombs on the kid. One, you are pregnant and need to go repair relations with your family. Two, Alex is going to die, leaving you destitute unless someone marries you and takes care of you. Basically, kiddo, here’s the deal. You are in the 18th century where women amounted to absolutely nothing. You. Are. Well. And. Truly. Fucked.
Outside, Jonathan Randall confronts Claire. He asks that she take care of him and ease his pain in his last days. She has a counter offer, (Besides “Go Fuck yourself!”) Tell her where the british are camping, and I’ll help him. Don’t do that, and your brother lives the rest of his life in agonizing pain. What’s it going to be. Well, Jonathan Randall says, “You drive a hard bargain, Madam Fraser. Bartering over an innocent man’s life, that’s some straight up Black Jack Randall shit, I’m impressed.”
5. Well, Jamie’s upset, obviously, because of the reappearance of his nemesis. Claire tries to calm him down. “Perhaps we can use this to our advantage. We know where the English are, Maybe we can get the jump on them.” It’s yet another possibility to change the outcome of the future. We’ve tried everything else. Well there is one thing, but that’s a final option and I don’t want to think about it just yet.”
Jamie asks her, “Did he say they were encamped at Nairn?” and Claire says, “Yes. Cumberland’s having a birthday celebration there in two days. By the way, I’d like to tend to Alex. I have some Randall shit to do for frank. Hope you don’t mind. Kthnx.” And Jamie’s all, “What makes you think he wouldn’t kill you when his brother dies?”
“Because I’ll take an axe murderer with magical eyebrows and a beard any woman would love to curl up in and live.”
6. That night, Colum Mackenzie, our favorite Bendy Legged Laird shows up like the dad who came home early and wrecked your party. He gives condolences to Pirate Rupert about Angus, saying, “Sorry about Angus, thought he would die with you. And Rupert says, “Yeah, so did I. Now I gotta hang around with this Ross guy and he has absolutely no sense of humor.” Rupert asks why he’s here. Colum says “Fetch my brother and my nephew. We gotta have words.”
A bit later, Claire is taking care of him and he says, “Don’t worry about that, I’ve been dying for years, I welcome it’s conclusion.” then he asks Jamie where his brother is, and why he always keeps Colum waiting. Jamie explains that Dougal is out scouting the English positions. Colum’s all, “So you give him enough authority to make him feel special, but not enough to make him want more.”
Jamie says, “Well I learned from the best, pops.” Then Colum says he wants to talk to Claire in private. Jamie’s got this look like, “Um, what?” and says, “I’ll be right outside if you need anything.”
“Look, ya married a good kid there. Yeah, I know I was wrong about you guys to start and I’m sorry for that, so forgive me, aye?” he starts off, then continues. “I’m an old man, I’m in pain, and don’t hand me that laudanum, because it only dulls the senses and I want to be sort of in my right mind when I talk to the guys. But I ask you this one thing. Give me a quick death, you know, like Geillis Duncan gave her husband.” and Claire’s all, “Dude, that was painful and awful to watch and I think if somebody smelled almonds, they would be upset. By the way, isn’t suicide, like, a sin or something?”
“What’s one more sin to a sinner?” he asks. “Well, you got me there. By the way, what happened to her? Last I heard there was going to be a barbeque?” And Colum tells her that Geillis had a baby and it was given to someone in the family who couldn’t have kids. And if Dougal has anything to say about it, oh well. He’ll have to live with his mistake.”
So she goes to her table, gets some handy dandy poison and gives it to him. “This is Yellow Jasmine it’s like drifting off into a deep sleep.” and I think to myself, wait, she has all this stuff in her medicine bag? So I looked it up because, internet. The entire plant is poisonous. Claire, why do you have this in your medicine bag? Just in case bendy legged lairds come to visit and need to kill themselves? Or are there other reasons?
7. Back at the Randall camp in the boarding house, Alex is coughing his lungs out, there’s blood all over the place, and it’s a pretty revolting sight. Claire is filling a pipe with a mixture of thorn apple and coats foot (SP) Randall tells them they can’t smoke that in there, but Claire is all, “Dude, trust me, he’ll like it, and it will help him breathe. Besides, this one time I gave it to Ned Gowan that one time and he started tripping heavy, so there’s that, yeah?”
So they shotgun the smoke into Alex’s mouth and he starts breathing a little easier in no time. Jonathan says to her “He’s in pain, you need to do something.” and she’s all, “Nope, sorry. Nothing I can do.” Well this doesn’t bode well with certain rapey douchebags and he grabs her angrily. This awakens a certain Head Chopping highlander who goes after Randall in a heartbeat. “You want someone to take your aggressions out on, I’ll happily oblige ye!” he threatens.
And I’m at this point going, “Dude, Randall’s getting a beat down by Murtagh? Where’s my popcorn?” Claire puts the kibosh on the fight tho, and Randall calls his brother over.
In the long and short of it, basically, Alex wants Jonathan to marry Mary. Just so she will be protected by the Randall name, and also to make sure she has standing in the world. “Oh, and your pension if you die a horrible death that you deserve because you’re basically a shit hole. But this is for the best so do it for me because I know there’s good in you. I can feel it.”
And Outlander’s Darth Vader says, “Sorry bro, can’t do it.” and walks out. Alex starts coughing again, Claire tells Murtagh to follow Randall while she shotguns more thorn apple into Alex’s face.
8. Well, Dougal comes riding along, and Jamie asks what he found out. “The English army is at Nairn.” and Jamie’s all, “I already knew that. A certain captain of Dragoons told me.” and Dougal asks, “Wait, what? That scumbag is here?” “Yeah,” Jamie says, and so is your brother and he wants to talk. By the way, he’s dying so I think it might be about who gets the Mackenzie lairdship so we better get there before he goes, aye?”
9. Murtagh is one of the greatest side kick characters ever. Can we just have him for the rest of the series? If we’re changing the books, let’s just keep him in the storyline, shall we? Because this is where he shines in this episode. He and Claire are talking about the whole Randall family and he questions why they have to even go through this whole process just to save Frank.
“Look, I know I’ve made a deal with the devil and all that, but I need this whole thing to go through, or Mary will die destitute and hungry on the street and the whole Frank randall thing won’t happen and I’ll never be here.” And Murtagh is all, “Then I’ll marry her. I was a good godfather to Jamie, so maybe I’ll be a good father to her bairn. I’m sure we could learn to live together.”
“Get real,” is Claire’s response. “You’re a poor highlander with no station, no money, no home, and you might die tomorrow, though we hope not.” Also, she‘s supposed to be married to Jack Randall. Remember the timey wimey stuff I told you about in episode 6?”
Then they get to the tavern where Murtagh followed Randall and she asks Murtagh to stay outside while she goes in and works her Claire magic on him.
10. Of all the characters in the outlander books, Jonathan Woolverton Randall was always an outlier for one reason. He seemed to be Evil for Evil’s sake. It seemed he was written for the one purpose of just being the bad guy. And tho in the first book and most way through the second, we get a sort of Snidely Whiplash feeling about him. He exists only to be The Bad Guy of the piece.
Here, we see he has feelings. Love, caring, and fear for his brother. So he becomes for the audience a true person with layered emotions. He actually possesses a heart, as black as it is, there is still some kind of goodness there. He can show he gives a damn about somebody. Clearly in this scene he shows it, because he doesn’t want to marry the girl, because he knows he’s an evil bastard. And he gets all creeper vibe with Claire. “Knowing what I did to Jamie, do you really want me in her bed?”
“Knowing that you know that, should show you that you have a little bit of caring and compassion for your brother and you should really just go ahead and fucking do it already.” is Claire’s response. “By the way, you’re going to die in a few days so you won’t have to worry about living with her.”
“Yes, your curse,” he says, and names the day when he will die. Which is during the battle of Culloden. When Jamie gets his bloody revenge. “Well, then I guess I’ll marry her after all, yeah?”
11. We get back to the Mackenzies, and Dougal trying to be the cool bro by giving sympathy to Colum. But Colum is having none of it. He gives his last wishes. Starts naming off who he wants to help his son Hamish lead the clan. “He’s got to be braw, smart, good with the men, a charismatic leader, and know what he’s doing all the time. Basically a King of Men.”
Dougal’s all, “Aww yeah, that’s me in a nutshell.” And then Colum names Jamie to be the next Laird. Well, Dougal is highly upset, obviously. He says how he’s next in line, and he would do the best job of it, and then Colum lays a truth bomb on them.
“If you were half the man you think you are, you’d have gotten more than two guys to follow you here. Nah, Jamie is the best here. ” Then Dougal brings up Hamish being his son and Colum says, “Yeah and you bring that up all the time. I know you love him, and would honor him. But I trust Jamie. And you haven’t shown a lot of good judgment where fathering children is concerned. COUGH Geillis COUGH.”
Jamie steps up and says, “I’m honored, but Dougal’s right. At the end of the day, he should get the whole shebang simply because the Mackenzie men would follow me into battle just as much as they would follow Dougal if he was clan chief.”
“If you can say you would look at the next battle and see how it was lost before it began, tell me if you would leave the battlefield with Clan Mackenzie’s men and go back home safe.” Dougal can say nothing because he wouldn’t do this on a bet. Colum knows Jamie would do this in a heartbeat, and so does his uncle Dougal. So Dougal just walks out. “His mind is broken but his body isn’t,” is all Colum can say.
12. So then there’s the wedding of Mary Hawkins to Jonathan Woolverton Randall and everyone is very nervous and awkward and they go ahead with it and then they ask Claire and Murtagh to sign off on it and they’re all, “Yep, I guess.” and it’s not like how you want a wedding to go but it’s official and that’s all I have to say about that.
13. Next, in the war room, Poncey and the guys are talking about how they can catch Cumberland off guard during the birthday celebrations. Jamie comes up with a plan to use two different columns of soldiers to entrap the enemy between them. It’s a great plan and it could change the course of the war.
Well, Poncey goes for it and says “I will bring Cumberland my best bottle of wine, just to see his reaction when he’s my prisoner. And the plan is in place. Later that night, they will go ahead and march the twelve miles to Nairn and attack at dawn. And it hits me that this is the last Mark Me of the season. (I hope)
14. Colum is in bed, and Dougal comes in to talk. He pours his heart out to his brother, what a miserable live he’s had being second to the laird, how he got pissed off when Colum fell off the horse when he was a kid and all that other kid stuff. Colum is all, “Dude, your life is your own. How you lived it is up to you. Now can you leave me alone to die already?”
Oh, Outlander, I know you want me to give a damn about D-Mac, but I really don’t because he made me hate him with killing Leftenant Cutie in episode 10. So my having anything good to say about him is over. He’s an ass, and I pretty much hate him. And so does the audience. So stop trying to make me have sympathy for him because I don’t and you know why.
Oh, and Colum dies halfway through this entire monologue sparing himself from hearing what an awful life Dougal had and why he’s angry at Colum. Which pretty much pisses him off for the rest of his life.
15. Then, we have to watch the last death rattle of Alex Randall and everyone is all nervous and then he gives his last breath and everyone is all in tears and then Black Jack Randall jumps on the corpse and punches it repeatedly in a furious anger and Claire and Mary are watching in horror and the BJR gets off the body and walks the fuck out and they’re looking on like, What The Actual Fuck? And that’s all I have to say about that.
16. Jamie is pissed at Claire because she allowed Randall to marry Mary. And Claire says, “Um, she’s going to be his widow.” But Jamie says, “But what about this battle? If he’s not there, and we win, he’ll survive.”
17. So the soldiers march off to the battle, and when they finally get to the place Murtagh comes up to tell them that Poncey and general McBluster are lost in the woods. “So we continue with the plan,” Jamie says, and the General he’s with, who by the way has been the voice of reason this entire time, says “Nah, we have to turn back. And the troops are all, “Maaan?” because that would make them march twenty four miles that night on almost empty stomachs.
Murtagh looks at Jamie like, “Dude, I guess we can’t change history after all.” and Jamie’s all, I guess not.
And here it is, your Jamie Moony Eye pic of the week.
Jean-Paul Pare' Author 
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