Outlander Recap: What the Buck?
Upon their return to the 20th Century, Roger and Bree decided to stay in Scotland to be close to their heritage. How convenient that in this week’s Outlander, their heritage basically knocks on their front door and shows itself in.
Buck MacKenzie, aka Roger’s great-great-great-etc. grandfather aka the guy who strung him up at Alamance, shows up in the 1980s portion of Episode 6. If you don’t immediately recognize him, there’s a reason: When the character first appeared, in Season 5, he was played by Graham McTavish: a cheeky bit of casting, given that McTavish previously played Jamie’s uncle — and Buck’s father — Dougal. This time around, Diarmaid Murtagh plays Buck.
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Roger sees Buck skulking outside Lallybroch and nabs him at the very end of the episode; we’ll have to wait until next week to find out how things with the Nuckelavee. In the meantime, how about we review the rest of the major action in “Where the Waters Meet?”
YET ANOTHER CASUALTY OF WAR | William arrives at Fort Ticonderoga, disappointed that the British took it and he missed all the action. But Gen. Simon Fraser — the distant relative Jamie referred to in a previous episode — informs him that no shots were fired, because the colonial army evacuated before the Brits arrived.
Speaking of which: Jamie and Claire have gotten the boats away, but there’s still a lot of ground to cover on foot before the evacuees are truly safe. Plus, many of them are injured, and one of them — Mrs. Raven — is in an extended and troubling mental health crisis. “Dinna fash,” Jamie reassures Claire, who is, indeed, fashing. “If anyone’s legs won’t carry them, I will.” Anyone else just picture the entirety of Claire’s medical ward balancing on Big Red’s braw shoulders?
The group makes its way through the woods, pulling off the road abruptly when they hear whooping. Ian does some reconnaissance and reports that it’s Redcoats pretending to be Native Americans, so he and Jamie leave to draw the soldiers away while Claire and Denzell and Rachel Hunter take the evacuees deeper into the forest. That’s when Claire realizes Mrs. Raven, who’d been muttering about not letting “them” take her alive, is missing.
After whisper-shouting “Mrs. Raven!” for a while and hoping not to get a musketball in the torso for her troubles, Claire finds her patient sitting on the ground, rocking and crying. “I’ll never be safe. They’re coming,” she says. Then she shoots herself in the head. While Claire is trying to process what she’s just witnessed, a Redcoat grabs her from behind.
TA-TA TICONDEROGA, TAKE TWO | Claire has been a British prisoner of war for all of two minutes when she starts bossing around the teen soldiers who are guarding the pen where she and other POWs are kept. Walter Woodcock, the amputee from the previous episode, is there. It seems the British haven’t treated him as well as Claire would have hoped, and now he’s having trouble breathing and coughing up blood. Claire goes to yell at the nearest Redcoat she can find and it turns out it’s William, who recognizes her instantly. Then, the penny drops. “You’re a rebel,” he realizes, his entire attitude toward her changing, then intensifying when he learns Jamie is with the Continental Army, as well. Still, he’s Lord John’s boy, after all, so he is civil to her as he admits that supplies are scarce but he will see what he can have sent to help the prisoners.
William comes through, but it’s not enough, and Walter dies while Claire sits by his side. Ian sneaks into camp soon after, and he and Claire are planning her escape when William sees them together and susses out exactly what’s going on. “You are no scout,” he tells Ian. “You’re a damned liar.” Ian argues that William should let them go, because he owes him for saving his life. Just then, Jamie shoots a flaming arrow into camp as a diversion, and it works. In the tumult, William allows them to flee — he says it’s because Claire saved Lord John’s life when he had measles years ago — but “don’t let me see you again.”
Ian and his auntie get safely away and reunite with Jamie, who hugs her as she cries a little about not being able to help Walter. “Sometimes a hand in the dark is the comfort a man needs before his soul takes its final journey,” he says, and before I make a joke about how HE WOULD KNOW, let’s move on.
CLAIRE AND JAMIE DECOMPRESS |The Frasers catch up with the army, where Jamie celebrates the ending of his service by re-upping as a sniper. Claire is resigned, noting that the Battle of Saratoga is coming up, and it will be a turning point for the Americans. Then they talk about how Jamie is less afraid to die himself, but more reluctant to kill young men in the coming battles — mind you, he’ll do it, “I’ll just mind it more.” She tells him about William (“He’s thoughtful, and observant, and he’s stubborn. Clearly a man of honor. When he looked at me, I saw the same kindness in his eyes. But there’s also a fire there. Fierceness of a Highlander under all those courtly manners.”) and Jamie kisses her knuckles and looks pleased.
GAELIC GOOF-UP |In the 1980s storyline, Roger’s conversation with Jeremiah’s principal about Jem’s tete-a-tete with his teacher turns into Roger’s getting an offer to teach Gaelic after school one afternoon. Roger happily agrees. But he’s running late on the day of the class, so Bree hastily loads his books and such into his satchel. This proves a problem later, when he realizes that Bree accidentally loaded his time-traveling notebook into the bag… and that it wound up in the hands of Rob Cameron, who’d accompanied his nephew to the Gaelic class. Rob assumes the notebook is a novel Roger is working on, and a relieved Roger doesn’t correct him. Then, Rob basically invites himself over for dinner the following week.
Not long after, Roger is putting away food in the kitchen at Lallybroch when he notices a man hovering outside by the window. When Rog sneaks outside and grabs him: Yep, it’s Buck.
Now it’s your turn. What did you think of the episode? Sound off in the comments.
If you’re thinking about suicide, are worried about a friend or loved one, or would like emotional support, dial “988” for the National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
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