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Catch Up:

Episode 1: The Battle Joined
Episode 2: Surrender
Episode 3: All Debts Paid
Episode 4: Of Lost Things
Episode 5: Whisky & Freedom
Episode 6: A. Malcolm
Episode 7: Creme de Menthe
Episode 8: First Wife
Episode 9: The Doldrums
Episode 10: Heaven & Earth
Episode 11: Uncharted
Episode 12: The Bakra

“I was dead.”

We open on Claire drowning peacefully, caught underwater by thick ropes. Abruptly, we are back in the Jamaican jungle immediately after Jamie’s capture by Captain Leonard. The carriage stops, and Claire irritably questions why. The road is blocked by dozens of slaves carrying torches. Claire watches, troubled, as they pass.

Roadblock.

“I’m your wife. I’m coming with you.”

Claire has the carriage drop her off at Geillis’ slave quarters, with instructions to inquire after her at the main house if she isn’t back by daybreak. Meanwhile, back at the inn, Fergus and Marsali have found a note from Claire detailing Jamie’s arrest. Fergus tries to weasel out of taking Marsali with him, but she won’t have it. Good girl!

Finding Claire’s note.

Claire isn’t sneaky

Claire meanders through the slaves’ quarters, stage-whispering Ian’s name. She sees a stray dog disturbing what appears to be a white boy’s body and she investigates, but it isn’t Ian. Suddenly, she is grabbed by Geillis’ hulking footman, Hercules.

Hercules is big, but he’s also quick.

“I’m tired of yer blatherin’!”

Back at the main house, Geillis is questioning Ian about Claire. She thinks that Claire was after the treasure because she learned of the prophecy. Ian denies it, losing his temper. Ian is dragged off by another servant, just as Hercules dumps Claire in Geillis’ lap. The two regard one another with suspicion, even as they exchange pleasantries.

Claire pops in for a semi-polite visit.

“You’re quite droll, for a man in irons.”

Captain Leonard leads Jamie back to his ship in order to transport him home for trial. Along the way, they are stopped by men who intercept Jamie in the name of Lord John. Captain Leonard is not amused. He’s decidedly even LESS amused when Lord John lays the smack down hard, and won’t turn Jamie back over to Leonard’s custody. Unfortunately for Leonard, he has neither a warrant nor an affidavit. “You must excuse my unfamiliarity with the somewhat…liberal practices of the navy service,” John sneers, making fun of Leonard’s unearned title. “Surely you do not mean to arrest a British subject on nothing more than the scurrilous gossip of the lower deck!” Leonard realizes he isn’t going to win this fight against Lord John, who is amused by the whole thing, and he stomps out somewhat petulantly. John fondly dismisses Jamie. “Goodbye, and good luck.”

Lord John isn’t about to take shit from the boy Captain.

“Goodbye, and good luck.”

Literal and figurative poison

Back at the main house, Claire and Geillis chat over tea. Geillis can’t believe Claire hasn’t been around the whole time – that Claire went back to her own time in the interim. She accuses Claire of poisoning Colum against Dougal and against the rising (this is somewhat ironic, of course, since Claire did literally poison Colum.) She thinks that Claire has come to stop her from fighting for a Scot to sit on the throne. Claire, of course, couldn’t care less about it at this point, and has no idea about any prophecy. Geillis gets increasingly agitated, and Claire tries to leave.

Geillis doesn’t believe a word Claire says.

“That was you, shouting my name?”

Geillis orders Hercules to grab Claire. “This isn’t Cranesmuir. There’s no one here to defend you, save from the truth.” Claire says she hasn’t “been after her” all these years – she hasn’t been here at all! Geillis doesn’t believe a word of it. Claire says she was pregnant, and she can prove it. She pulls out the photographs of Bree. Geillis remembers meeting her in 1968. Claire says she was there the night that Geillis went back, trying to warn her about what would happen at the witch trial. Geillis  suddenly makes the connection between Bree and the 200-year old baby in the prophecy, although she doesn’t let Claire in on that particular epiphany. She tries to make up with Claire, and apologizes and shows her to a guest room.

Claire brought receipts.

Now, to find Ian

Claire tries to escape the house to get to Ian, and nearly brains Jamie with a candelabra as he’s trying to get into the house for the same reason. The two run outside and traipse through the jungle, towards some very eerie drumming. They watch from a hiding place as slaves dance around a fire in preparation for the sacrifice. Claire is taken back to when she hid with Frank and watched the witches dance at Craigh Na Dun.

Jamie and Claire hide.

Mr. Willoughby to the rescue

Jamie and Claire are spotted and yanked from their hiding place when who should leap out and save the day, but Mr. Willoughby! “They’re with me,” he tells a very large man with a dead alligator on his head. Turns out, the slaves found out about Margaret’s soothsayer gifts and are cool with her, and Willoughby is now with Margaret, ergo, the slaves are cool with him, too. He’s desperately in love with Margaret, and they plan to go to Martinique together and make a home there. For Willoughby’s part, Margaret seems happier, more together, and more sane than we’ve ever seen her.

Willoughby saves the day, yet again.

Of rabbits and birds

Margaret grabs Jamie and Claire’s hands to see if she can see where Ian is, and gives each of them a very creepy (and very accurate) reading. Soon, it becomes clear that she’s referring to Bree, when she refers to monsters coming, and Abandawe. They have no time to sort out the vision before Archibald Campbell comes barging up, furious that his sister is giving free readings. Jamie threatens Campbell and he spills the beans about the prophecy. Claire connects the dots between it and Brianna. She rifles through her photographs and discovers that one of them is missing.

Jamie threatens Campbell.

The bad place

As Claire tries to hastily explain things to Jamie, Willoughby defends Margaret from her brother. Archibald goes too far in his abuse of Margaret and Willoughby cuts his throat, amid the roar of the natives. A slave points Claire and Jamie in the right direction of Abandawe, but won’t take them there. Meanwhile, the slaves have scooped up the body of Archibald Campbell, donned his wig, and are parading him through the jungle. Moral of the story: don’t mess with Mr. Willoughby.

Margaret & Willoughby.

Claire and Jamie save the day

Claire and Jamie arrive at the cave just in time to find Geillis casting a spell with Brianna’s photo. Ian is bound and gagged in a corner. Jamie takes on the hulking manservant as Claire makes a move to get to Ian before Geillis lights him on fire. Geillis attempts to cajole. “You owe me your daughter’s life! We have a chance to change history!” And finally, desperately, “I gave up MY child for the cause! You must do the same!”

Caught red-handed.

You’re safe now

Geillis leaps for the pool, and Claire leaps for Geillis, managing to almost take her head off in the process. Claire looks stunned, as do Jamie and the manservant. “Go, you’re free,” Jamie says to Hercules. Wisely, he does. Jamie frees Ian and grabs Claire’s hand, right as she’s being inexplicably drawn to the portal. The three of them escape just as the sun is coming up. Jamie comforts Ian as he bursts into tears.

Claire is still shaking with shock, as she remembers her friend Joe’s mysterious bones from the past, in 1968. It occurs to her that the skeleton belonged to Geillis, and that she herself was the murderer! Jamie hugs them both tight.

Jamie comforts Ian and Claire.

I do NOT make squeaking noises!”

Back on the Artemis, they’re headed back home for Scotland. Jamie and Claire chat pleasantly and make love. They seem to finally be back on track after their twenty-year separation and initial turbulence reconnecting. Jamie has given a great deal of thought as to what he’d like to do to Claire; time, space, and willingness permitting. Swoon!

He could tell me stories all day about what he wanted to do to me.

Angry seas

When the ship hits rough waters that night, Jamie banishes everyone below decks while he attempts to keep the ship right-side up with a few of the crew. Before Claire can get below decks, the mast crumbles and the ship is practically dashed to pieces. Claire is thrown overboard just after Jamie manages to herd everyone else to relative safety. “I was dead…” Claire narrates. Jamie dives into the sea after her.

A deep-sea rescue.

“If you die here, I swear, I’ll kill you!”

The two emerge in relative calm inside the eye of the storm. Claire is unconscious, and Jamie cries silently as they drift on the tide, believing her to be dead. When day breaks, Jamie awakens on land to a little girl prodding him in the buttocks with a stick. He crawls to Claire, several feet away, who suddenly sputters to life under his hands. The little girl retrieves her parents, who explain that they’ve washed up on the coast of Georgia, and that the Artemis has run aground about 4 miles south of them. There were survivors! Jamie and Claire sob with relief.

“My wife…Claire.”

Stray Observations:

  • Claire and Geillis didn’t mind having a sensitive conversation about time travel – with proof – in front of the footman and other servants? That’s a LOT of faith in the servants.
  • Good old Geillis. She’s briefly concerned that Claire saw what was left of her 1968 husband after she sacrificed him, and in the next second, she’s making a bawdy remark about him. “He was one of my favorites. Handsome. Such a lovely cock.”
  • Mr. Willoughby mentions that Margaret is the only woman who can really see him. One wonders about Willoughby’s true nature – it’s clear that he is at least spiritual, but is he also “special” in some way, like Margaret is?
  • When Claire tells Jamie not to shave his beard, he complains that it’s four days’ growth. If that’s four days’ growth for a man of Jamie’s hairiness – and I am married to one – I’ll eat my hat. He’s sporting more like an eight-o’clock shadow, here.
  • My husband’s credulity was strained when Jamie dove into a rough sea and emerged in the eye of the storm with Claire. “He swims like a dolphin! He sees underwater!” Of course he does, darling. What else, for the King of Men?

That’s it for Season 3 of Outlander! Join us next year for season 4, based on the novel from the same series, “Drums of Autumn.”

Image Credits: Sweatpants & Coffee.

Emily Parker is a musician, writer, and avid reader who started Bucket List Book Reviews, the ‘1,001 Books to Read Before You Die’ project. For Sweatpants & Coffee, Emily hopes to inspire the reading of the classics by a whole new audience by only reviewing the really good stuff.

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