Claire learns that it’s hard to make friends when people think you’re a British spy. But she does learn some valuable new information about her captors and whereabouts.
Credit: Provided by Starz
If you waited all week with bated breath for Saturday to roll around so that you could spend your evening oogling Sam Heughan’s Jamie Fraser, you’re definitely not alone! I mean, if you tuned into the second episode of “Outlander” for a bit of Black Jack Jonathan Randall instead, I won’t judge. (Well. I will, but only because we all know who most of you are here for, let’s be real.)
In tonight’s “Outlander” recap, Claire tries to figure out where she is, who she can trust and how to relocate the magical stones that sent her back in time. Jamie takes his shirt off. Here we go:
Och, Toto, I dinnae think we’re in 1945 anymore.
“Castle Leoch” opens exactly where we left off last week. Claire Randall-Beauchamp (now going by Claire Beauchamp) has been taken hostage by a group of Scottish Highlanders is being escorted to Castle Leoch. No one else seems to know what to do with a sassy, improper Englishwoman who refuses to tell anyone who she is, so they’re all deferring to their Laird, Colum MacKenzie. Claire muses, via voiceover, about the last time she was here at the castle way back (er, forward) in 1945. She and Frank drove, as opposed to the two-day jostle on a horse she just had to endure.
I don’t know why she’s complaining. SHE JUST SPENT TWO DAYS IN THE SADDLE WITH JAMIE FRASER. COME ON, CLAIRE.
Enter Mrs. Fitz. She’s kind of like the grandmother everyone wishes they had, and she has even the nastiest of Highlanders wrapped around her plump little finger. After laying horrified eyes on Claire, Mrs. Fitz demands she be taken inside to get her dressed a little more respectably.
“WAIT, WHAT ABOUT JAMIE?!!!” We all scream at our TV. Thankfully, Claire seems to hear us, and reminds Mrs. Fitz that Jamie was wounded in battle (shot! In the shoulder!) that his wounds need to be tended to, that he needs a bath and also a get good, deep tissue massage. (Well, that’s my diagnosis, anyway. Claire wants to dress his injury for purely medical reasons. Yawn.)
Claire and Jamie are finally alone together, and Jamie finally has his shirt off. Don’t get too excited though because Claire thoroughly ruins the mood by asking Jamie why he has such horrific scars across his back. We get a bunch of flashbacks about how Captain Jack Randall once tried to rape Jamie’s sister (geez, this guy needs therapy), and because Jamie is, you know, Jamie, he attempted to stop it by getting all up in the Redcoat’s faces (#HighlanderStyle) and then getting himself arrested and flogged twice in one week. (#HighlanderLife)
Of course, we’re all just glad to know that Jamie has depth beyond those rusty, rugged good looks, and maybe he’ll make a good husband, and he’ll probably be a great dad and we won’t ever have to do the vacuuming because he’ll take care of it and … er. Sorry. Tangent.
Off to meet the Laird.
After a wardrobe montage that was almost as painful as every clothing episode of “Sex and the City” combined, Claire finds herself in Colum MacKenzie’s chambers. Despite his disability (he suffers from a degenerative disease of the legs), he’s pretty hardcore, and he’s relentless in his questioning of Claire. She insists that she is a simple widow from Oxfordshire, who fell into a spot of bother on the road. Obviously he thinks she’s something more than that, and he all but tells her she can’t leave until he says so.
Jamie Fraser: Outlaw. Murderer. Horse Whisperer.
You know, for someone who has a worried husband waiting for her in 1945, Claire manages to quite consistently find herself in Jamie’s company. (Not that we blame her.) The next day, she meets him down at the stables in order to feed him and redress his wounds. (Why she didn’t demand they needed to be dressed on hour every hour, I’ll never know. Talk about a missed opportunity!)
They hang out and chat about how he’s wanted for murder (he didn’t do it), how he’s got a price on his head and how he’s great with his hands. It’s all very edifying, but sadly not long enough. Soon, Jamie’s on his feet and off to feed the horses, while Claire (lips parted and bosom heaving) heads back to the castle.
Claire’s new bestie.
No doubt it’s rather lonely being a suspected English spy in 18th Century Scotland, which is why Claire seems so pleased to meet a young Scottish lass, Gelis Duncan, in the herb garden. Conversation turns abruptly creepy when Gelis points out that she’s a witch and that she’s the one you go to if you’re unwed and need a pregnancy taken care of. Uh, good to know?
Gelis invites Claire to “The Hall,” which is basically just a really boring town meeting where everyone airs their grievances to Colum MacKenzie. In Gaelic. Feel free to go make a cup of tea while you wait until Jamie shows up again.
Some lass named Laoghaire is accused of being “improper” with a boy (she made out with him under the bleachers or something, I don’t know), and so Colum sentences her to a minor flogging. Well, that’s totally reasonable. Jamie, who is in the crowd, steps forward and offers to take the punishment on her behalf. The audience collectively swoons. Since he’s a grown man, Colum decides for Jamie to get “fists” instead. It goes about as well as you’d expect, which is great for Claire, because she gets to play nurse again! Win/win right?
The episode closes out with Colum MacKenzie “hiring” Claire as the castle healer (against her wishes, since she really wants to get back to those stones), and us wishing there had been more Jamie this week. Maybe riding a horse. With naught but his kilt.
Maybe we’ll get lucky next week. (For Jamie, though it’s gonna take a little more effort with the hot nurse.)
