SOME SPOILERS AHEAD.
Both Jamie and Claire were kind of annoying in this week’s episode. They both had terrible plans for how they should get back to each other; Jamie so he could have Claire back and Claire so that she could warn him about what would be awaiting him once he landed in Jamaica. Neither of them thought their plans through properly. Jamie even said so! And neither of them was in a position to do much of anything, considering that they were, ya know…in the middle of the ocean.
Just last week everyone was trying their hardest to avoid a mutiny, in, arguably, far more dire circumstances, and here Jamie wanted to start one to get Claire back. Unless he was prepared to throw everyone else over board, outright kill them or imprison them, there was no way that that was going to work. Even if it would have worked, as had been pointed out to him, they were well behind the other ship and would never have caught up. It would have been a waste of time anyway.
It was incredibly selfish of him, really, to endanger the lives of everyone else on board for the sake of Claire. And as much as I am not onboard with Fergus and Marsali, it was also incredibly heartless of him to tell his adopted son that he had no clue what love was just because he wasn’t willing to help him with his reckless plan. So I was fully on Marali’s side – despite not liking her – for talking sense into Fergus and telling him not to follow Jamie. Even if he would give his blessing for the two to get married.
I will give her some points, though, for being the one to champion Jamie to the captain and secure him his release. As much as she, likely, still hates him for leaving Laoghaire. But she didn’t do it for him, she did it for Fergus. The two of them truly demonstrated how much they love and how far they’re willing to go for each other in this episode. Still not behind their union, though.
Claire, comparatively, had a better time on the British navy vessel. She made a friend! The fourteen year old Elias Pound – the sweetest, most adorable, loyal and morally upstanding man on the entire ship – and Mistress Johansen, who, as a clearly Eastern European woman was a bit of a stereotype seeing as she took care of the goats. However, she was very kind and instantly likeable. Furthermore, Claire managed to successfully end the outbreak of typhoid fever on the ship.
Claire’s good times didn’t last long, though. I really wasn’t expecting Elias to die. It kind of came out of nowhere and blindsided me as much as it did Claire. I’m not sure if it was a deliberate effort on the part of the production, not to hint at it at all so that the audience would have been as surprised as Claire had been, but I’ll take it as such.
Another stroke of bad luck for her was finding out that the Captain was told of Jamie’s identity and his crimes against the crown. And he was told my none other than Percival’s crony, the same one Young Ian had injured during the fire at the print shop. I honestly thought that the reason someone on board had figured out Jamie’s identity was because Claire had been going by Fraser on the ship. Not that someone who knew his real identity had been there. Still, it was reckless of her to not go by Malcolm when they were still hiding his identity.
Trying to escape to Grand Turk made absolutely no sense. How would she have warned Jamie about his impeding arrest from there? Short of sending a carrier pigeon to his ship? I don’t think that’s how they work anyway. Beyond that’s he wasn’t expecting her to be anywhere by Jamaica. How would he know that she was somewhere else? In a completely different country?
When Mistress Johansen showed her the port, I thought that it was Jamaica. In which case, Claire would be able to make landfall before the ship and figure out how stop Jamie’s arrest from happening. Except that the next episode preview showed that she is in Saint Domingue, better known today as Haiti. And what is her main concern? Getting to Jamaica! So she intends to go there anyway!
How does she even fathom that she will be able to get there before the ship that she just jumped off of? She already missed a whole day. There is no way that she will catch up with and pass it. At all. She’s put herself in a worst position to help Jamie than when she was on the ship. I really don’t understand what she is trying to do.
Random thoughts:
- They have a Typhoid Mary.
- Well if he’s not dead he got a needle through the nose for nothing.
- How did he drink pure alcohol and not burn a hole in his throat?
- Can Jamie go anywhere without the law being after him?
- What are they going to do with the carrier when they land in Jamaica?
Outlander airs Sundays at 10 PM on Starz.
