Outlander Recap: Taking the Plunge

Kimberly Roots

Updated November 19, 2017 at 9:03 PM

Need to catch up? Check out the previous Outlander recap here.

Stop! Help! She’s going over!

After spending a considerable amount of time held against her will on a plague ship, Claire makes two getaway attempts in this week’s Outlander. One is unsuccessful. And the other involves goats, a German woman and a couple of barrels.

Meanwhile, Jamie spends the hour yelling at Fergus in a really unbecoming manner. Read on as we review the highlights of “Heaven & Earth.”

DESPERATE TIMES | The episode starts with a brief rewind: Fergus makes potpourri for Marsali’s stinky cabin when they realize that the Porpoise, aka the sick ship that Claire has boarded, is moving. And when Jamie realizes the same, he angrily demands that the Artemis give chase. But Capt. Raines thinks otherwise, saying, “I have more than your wife to think about, Mr. Fraser.” It gets tense, blades are drawn on both sides, but Jamie cools a little… and then the captain has him taken below and restrained, just to make sure he doesn’t try any funny business.

In the brig, Jamie’s seasickness returns. Lovely. In between bouts of heaving, he demands that Fergus use his dormant pickpocket skills to nab the keys that will spring Jamie free. Then, he reasons, they can take over the ship and follow Claire’s British kidnappers. Fergus (correctly) points out that this is the dumbest plan in the history of plans, and that it would never work, which earns him his surrogate father’s wrath. “What good are you, you damn fool?” Jamie says nastily, saying that if Fergus knew was true love was, “you would move heaven and earth, you would risk arrest and death, even hell.” I do feel for JAMMF here, because he’s near tears as he worries that he’s losing Claire again about two milliseconds after he got her back, but this whole section — including when Jamie declares that his blessing on Fergus and Marsali’s wedding depends on whether or not Fergus helps him break outta boat jail — seems really un-Jamie-like. Isn’t the King of Men supposed to be a little better than this, even under severe duress?

AT EASE, SAILOR | Let’s check in with Claire over on the S.S. Certain Death, shall we? She quickly implements a handwashing protocol and gets the crew to cleaning and swabbing, all in the efforts of curbing the fever that’s ripping through the crew. Along with Elias Pound, the 14-year-old officer who’s her new right-hand man, she gets to the bottom of how the illness is spreading (patient zero works in the galley) and then has that man — who’s asymptomatic — detained for everyone’s safety.

Claire is in Rambo mode, right down to the cloth tied around her head, but she’s affected by the funeral service at which Pound’s friend, who was sick but has since died, and several others are buried at sea. After she has a brief run-in with the ship’s suspicious and testy cook, Pound gives her the rabbit’s foot his mother gave him before he left home, saying that if there’s any luck that she needs to accompany her skill as a doctor, maybe the talisman will help. Aw, Elias. He’s a good kid.

GET YOUR GOAT | Claire is called belowdecks to attend to the husband of the woman who tends the ship’s goats; the man has been drinking the pure alcohol that’s supposed to be for medicinal purposes, and though he’s got alcohol poisoning, he’ll be OK. The woman speaks very little English but is very grateful to Claire for her help; Claire, meanwhile, is distracted by the Portuguese flag she sees in the cargo area. Turns out the Porpoise boarded a Portuguese frigate before it reached the Artemis, and Claire wants to know whether it was the ship on which Young Ian is being held.

So she starts poking around in the captain’s quarters, and I’m going to really shorthand all of this, so get ready: The ship wasn’t Ian’s, but there is a man aboard the Porpoise who recognized Jamie when the British ship sidled up to the Artemis. And that man told the captain, who is now planning to use Claire as bait to lure Jamie in once they reach Jamaica, where Redcoats will arrest him for treason (and the acting captain is likely to get his own ship as a reward for finding such a high profile criminal). The man who recognized Jamie is Harry Tompkins. And, when Claire finds him, she realizes that he’s the same milky-eyed man who was poking around Jamie’s Edinburgh print shop the night that it burned. Oh, and Jamie’s not just wanted for treason: Because the Brits found the dead exciseman in the cask of crème de menthe, Big Red is also wanted for murder.

“My husband did not kill that man,” Claire says, clearly worried. “The warrants say otherwise,” Tompkins replies. So Claire does the only thing in her power: She tells the captain that Tompkins is a second carrier of the disease, and has him locked up like patient zero. And for a second, it seems like things are getting better. The men have stopped getting sick and dying, and some are even getting better. But when Claire catches up with Elias, who’s napping in a hammock, she realizes that he’s sick and close to dying. He hallucinates that she’s his mother, and she doesn’t correct him as he succumbs to the illness and dies right there on deck.

When it comes time to sew his shroud, Claire cries but does her duty as his friend and pulls the needle and thread through his nose. (Yeah, I know there’s no real context for that, but we’ve got a lot more to get to, so Google it.)

FREE AT LAST | Let’s go back to the Artemis. Despite Fergy Ferg’s devotion to Milord, and despite Jamie’s nasty and harsh words — plus his threat never to offer his blessing for Fergus and Marsali’s marriage unless Fergus brings him the keys — the Frenchman ultimately decides not to go on such a fool’s errand for his surrogate father. And Jamie is a big jerk to him because of it. (Think of how he’d react if he knew how close Ferg and Marsali came to doing the deed after she cleaned his stump! #NotAEuphemism)

But Marsali and Fergus negotiate some deal with Capt. Raines in which he’ll release Jamie to help them navigate, as long as Jamie agrees not to do anything stupid. And Jamie appears to have realized what an arse he’s been, because he promptly gives the kids his blessing. “Ye can be married in Jamaica,” he says, returning to the Jamie we know and love. “Thank you, mon fils,” he says, perhaps knowing that calling Fergus “my son” is going to melt my insides like butter on a fresh croissant and make me forgive him for any and all previous asshattery… with the exception of wedding Laoghaire, of course.

WATCH OUT BELOW! | When the Porpoise lands at Grand Turk to let the goats graze, Claire attempts to make a run for it. But the captain catches her and lets on that he knows exactly who she is. So once Mrs. Fraser is back on board, the goat lady makes it her mission to help Claire escape — by suggesting she jump overboard at night now that they’re close to Jamaica. Claire balks. Claire protests. Claire hesitates. And then Claire takes the money the woman offers, wraps up her shoes and such in a little bundle, throws a raft overboard and then shouts “Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ!” as she jumps after it.

Now it’s your turn. What did you think of the episode? Sound off in the comments!

Launch Gallery: <I>Outlander</I> Season 3 Photos

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Outlander Recap: Taking the Plunge