Outlander’s Jamie Has Gotta Get Over His Lord John Issues, Because There Are Far Bigger Problems Afoot — Read Episode 3 Recap
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Jamie, honey: We know you’re having a hard time. Your current wife’s first husband wrote a book that foretells your death. His voice — or is it the voice of his violent ancestor? — keeps taunting you from deep inside your mind. You’ve got Tory sympathizers and rogue colonial vigilantes on your land. And dinna get me started on how a threat straight outta the 1980s just may be barreling toward your gold.
It would be a lot to deal with, for anyone. So, the resolution regarding Lord John Grey that you come to in this week’s “Outlander”? I need it to stick. Because you’ve got far bigger problems ahead than holding a grudge against the good friend who, under the most extreme and bespoke circumstances imaginable, had placeholder griefsex with your soulmate.
Read on for the highlights of “Abies Fraseri.”
‘You think I was unfaithful to you, and I wasn’t’
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When the mail arrives, Jamie throws a letter on the table with disgust. “This one’s for you,” he says to Claire, sneering. “It’s from your former husband.” I will say: I do love, in scenes related to the notorious LJG, how INSTANTLY bothered Jamie becomes, and how that always confuses Claire just a little, like, “Oh, this again?!” And with good reason! The men were great friends for a very long time!
Anyway, the letter says that Lord John is in Savannah and would like Bree to come there to paint a portrait of Amaranthus and her son. The very simple request makes Jamie even pissier; when he references Claire’s short marriage to the Brit, and how he “swived” her, she’s like “Ohhhhhhhhhkayyyyyy ENOUGH.”
“I thought we were done with that?” she asks, irked. If Jamie’s rather childish behavior is any indicator, I’d say the answer is: No. Fanny overhears them arguing and (oh honey) automatically assumes that, because Jamie is (tangentially) mad at William, and William asked the Frasers to take care of her, that she’ll have to leave and go back to work at a brothel. Claire gently straightens the girl out, saying she’ll always have a home with them.
Later, Brianna asks why Jamie and Lord John are beefing. “When I thought Jamie was dead, I married him,” Claire under-explains. “It’s not like you slept together,” Bree says, confused… until the penny drops. “Mama!” she cries, laughing through her outrage. Claire looks slightly chagrined as she goes into the details: it only happened once, all parties were soused, etc. “Wait, I don’t have to call him ‘Da’ now, do I?” Bree cheekily shoots back. The ladies chuckle… and then quickly agree that Jamie should never hear that joke.
After Jamie fumes around the ridge a while longer, and everything comes to a head that night as they get ready for bed. Jamie reminds Claire that she promised him honesty. She reminds him that he’s already forgiven her — but he corrects her that, while he will love her forever, he has not forgiven her. Then he forgives her. (Oh Jamie, you are EXHAUSTING sometimes.)
Now it’s Claire’s turn to be angry — “You think I was unfaithful to you, and I wasn’t” — and eventually they arrive at the root of the problem: Jamie gets teary as he admits that he’s worried he won’t be able to sleep with her without thinking about John with her. So Claire takes pity on her poor, beleaguered husband and decides to fix the situation with a little nookie. They get it on, sitting up, on the edge of the bed; Jamie’s face reaches near-wedding-night levels of ecstasy.
When it’s over, Claire wonders if they’ve gotten the fight out of their system. “Aye,” he says, smiling and sated, “we have.”
But even the power of Claire’s lovin’ can’t cure everything: Not long after, Frank’s voice pops up in Jamie’s ear, mocking him that what Frank put it the book is 100 percent going to happen.
Claire’s powers manifest
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The next day, a laboring pregnant woman arrives at the big house, and she’s in a bad way. She’s having twins, and one is stuck on the other. The mother’s name is Mrs. Whittaker, and she’s accompanied by her young daughter, Agnes, and a midwife. Mr. Whittaker arrives soon after; he wants to leave Claire’s surgery, because the Whittakers are Black and free, and he doesn’t want the Frasers to interfere with their freedom. But Jamie promises him that they won’t ask where the Whittakers live, and they won’t tell anyone they were there. Mrs. Whittaker begs her husband to let them stay; he relents.
The first infant, a boy, is born and is in good shape. But the second one comes out not breathing. Claire immediately starts CPR, which doesn’t work. As her desperation grows, she has a flashback to Faith’s stillbirth and Master Raymond telling her about her blue aura. The imagery of flapping wings — which we’ve seen before when the mystical Frenchman is around — briefly appear in Claire’s mind. We see her blood pumping through her body. And all of a sudden, as Jamie looks on from the corner of the room, Claire somehow brings the baby back to life. It takes in huge lungfuls of air as it cries, and a dazed Claire hands the child to Jamie, then slumps against the wall.
Later, while Claire is cleaning up, Jamie says he knows that she thought the baby was dead. She confesses that she doesn’t know what happened. “I felt something, something I’ve felt before. In Paris, after Faith was born, after she died,” she says, pouring them both a drink. She talks about the blue light that filled her body when Raymond healed her from childbed fever, and she wonders if Jamie saw her giving off a faint blue hue while she was working on the baby. He didn’t. (Side note: Claire, don’t you think he might’ve mentioned that?)
She wonders if Master Raymond was maybe able to bring Faith back with his (admittedly hazily defined) powers. “Maybe that’s what he wants forgiveness for: for taking our daughter from us,” she says. And maybe Claire is coming into the powers that Adawehi foretold: After all, Claire’s hair is now white all around her face…
Enemies on the ridge
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One day, Jamie is showing Fanny a cairn he built for Jane — so she can have somewhere to visit her sister — when they hear gunshots. Benjamin Cleveland shows up soon after with two bloody men and a cartload of weaponry. Cleveland says he caught the men smuggling guns onto the property, and he’s planning to hang them. Fanny recognizes the men from an uncomfortable run-in she had with them at the trading post earlier in the episode. Before an angry Jamie runs Cleveland off the property, he finds a letter on one of the men. He pockets it.
When Jamie visits Capt. Cunningham at the trading post later, he realizes that one of Cunningham’s guns contains a decoder that reveals that the letter is a secret message: Cunningham is still very much working for The Crown, raising a loyalist militia in the back country. Jamie is furious, but Cunningham points out that most of Fraser Ridge’s settlers are loyal to England, not Jamie. To that end, he wants Jamie to fight with him on behalf of The Crown, arguing that it’s the only way to protect his land.
And that’s when Frank’s voice sneaks into Jamie’s mind once more, pointing out that all of the pieces are falling into place.
Well, that was fast…
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After his travels in the previous episode, William brings his suspicion to Lord John that Ben’s not really dead. Grey scoffs: It’s much more likely that clerical error is responsible for Ben not being in the grave assigned to him, the older man reasons. But William remains convinced that something hinky is going on.
Later, Amaranthus walks in on William, shirtless, as he’s getting dressed. She gives him a waistcoat she embroidered for Ben — it’s embroidered with beetles found in the colonies, and is quite detailed and gorgeous — and they chat a bit. We learn she comes from a line of botanists and naturalists (hence her name); based on how much they’re smiling at each other, she and William seem to have put their awkward and contentious first impressions of each other behind them.
So much so that William gives Amaranthus Ben’s effects. We find out that she has the toy soldier with which William was so concerned; apparently he gave it to her, for the baby, before he left for the raid. William and Amaranthus walk around a bit outside, flirting as she explains all the bugs she stitched onto his vest. It’s a weird courting, but it works: After a short time, she kisses him, and he’s not mad about it.
Elsewhere, Lord John attends a luncheon and is shocked to see Percy sit down next to him. Percy wants Lord John to help him get in touch with Fergus. “Because you helped before with William, I’ll consider it,” the Brit says, displeased. But then he has a favor of his own to ask: Lord John requests that Percy help him find Richardson, the British officer who sent William on the swamp mission that nearly killed him.
