Outlander S03E04 Recap

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SOME SPOILERS AHEAD.

How many more episodes are left this season and how many more of them will I have to spend seeing Claire and Jamie unhappy? At least Frank got away from it. The one silver lining to his death is that we don’t need to see Claire treating him terribly anymore. As much as I hate seeing these characters suffer misfortune after misfortune, I know that the pay off – when Claire and Jamie finally reunite – will be all the sweeter. It better be.

Jamie having a child with someone else will complicate things, though. Who, besides book readers, saw that coming? The signs pointing toward it were evident in the episode (I knew it would happen from the moment Geneva approached Jamie about having sex with her), but I don’t think anyone could have expected it to happen coming into this episode from the last.

Jamie’s time at Helwater was a lot more pleasant that I thought it would be. With Grey pointing out that Lord Dunsany didn’t like Jacobites and all. Then for it to be revealed, in Jamie’s first meeting with the man, that Lord Dunsany is a more “what’s in the past, is in the the past” kind of person and didn’t begrudge Jamie his involvement in the Jacobite Uprising at all. It was Lady Dunsany that hated Jacobites. But she came around to Jamie too, in the end. There is no end to our favourite redhead’s charm.

He didn’t quite get away with flying under the radar and not finding himself in some trouble, however, because Geneva – clever little minx that she was – found out about his true identity.

I really didn’t like Geneva at first. She seemed like such a stick in the mud, sour and miserable person. But then when she went riding with Jamie, she opened up and was so personable. She was smiling, laughing and jovial. It was like there was so much more to her and her serious facade was just her playing the role she was supposed to as a woman. And in many ways that was the case. She had a duty as her father’s daughter and she performed that duty without complaint…for the most part.

She was staring at Jamie a little too hard when Ransom left, so I wasn’t surprised when she chose him to go riding with her and showed him some kind of preference. It was clear that she was interested. Then she destroyed the better image of her that I had cultivated when she blackmailed him into sleeping with her. Just the look on her face when Grey, Lord Melton and Jamie were speaking…you could tell that she knew there was more to it and that she was going to dig for the truth.

I understood why she was doing it, but it was still incredibly selfish and manipulative. While at the same time being an act of defiance and rebellion against the role she was to play, as much as she resigned herself to playing it. She really was developed into quite a complex character in the short time she was in the show. There were so many facets to her and as contradictory as they seemed, they weren’t nonsensical. It was very apparent why she was the way she was and why she did the things that she did.

The entire time that she was having sex with Jamie I was worried that they would get caught. Jamie would have gone back to jail and her prospects would have been ruined. And my biggest concern, the only one that came to fruition, was: “What if she got pregnant?”

I think we all knew that Geneva was going to die when Isobel told Jamie that she was having a difficult delivery. They almost pulled a fast one on us too when they said that she was, only to pull the rug from under us shortly thereafter. When Jamie came upomg Isobel crying in the corridor, it was obvious why that was. Much as I didn’t particularly like Geneva it was still sad that she died.

Speaking of Isobel, I thought that she would have been the sister that Jamie wound up with. She was so nice and sweet during their first meeting and I shipped them for a little while. Not that anything really could have happened, given their positions, but I expected them to have some kind of affair.

As bad as this may sound, the good thing about Geneva dying is that Jamie got to have a relationship with William. How perfect is it that both of their dead older brothers had the same name? Geneva’s family inadvertently honoured Jamie’s older brother. Had Geneva lived, she and the child would have gone back home with the Earl and Jamie would hardly have ever seen him and we wouldn’t have gotten the sugar rush that was their father and son relationship. I love that William loved him even though he didn’t know that he was his father.

It’s unfortunate that Jamie had to leave him the same way he had to send the unborn Brianna away. Here I thought that, for once, he would actually get to be with one of his children. We knew that he wasn’t going to accept Lady Dunsany’s offer to return to Scotland and I fully expected him to live out his life at Helwater and watch William grow up. Apparently, though, the only thing William didn’t inherit from Jamie was the red hair, so he had to leave. It was gut wrenching watching William beg and plead with him to stay. I hope he shows up later in the series. I’m glad he’s being taken care of by Grey and Isobel.

It wasn’t until she received the phone call from Joe and Brianna expressing her fears to Roger, that it occurred to me how much Claire would be giving up by travelling through the stones and returning to Jamie. I don’t think that she did either, because it wasn’t until that call that she really started to show any doubt or hesitation about her efforts to find him. Ultimately, besides the constant set backs in finding out where Jamie would be at present, I think that the call from Joe is why she gave up. It put everything in perspective for her.

Our Claire Beauchamp-Randall-Fraser isn’t one to give up so easily. She’s incredibly strong willed. For her to give up when there are still options available to her – like Roger said, they could have gone to the every port of call on the Western Coast – was disheartening. We all know that this isn’t the end. She will find Jamie at some point, but still. I wish she hadn’t given up as easily as she had. There’s still so much that she could to to try and find Jamie before throwing in the towel.