The title card is a puppet show of a curly haired woman in white, talking with fairies near some standing stones, and then she disappears in a puff of smoke.
At Lallybroch, Jenny is issuing orders to the staff- milk the goats, get honey. Claire flies around doing dithering panic packing. Ian demands to know what the hell she plans to do, and he’s gonna help! “You’re missing your leg!” “I’ll fashion another one!” Ian continues to offer Help, and finally offers to draw up a map of where they were ambushed. Jenny is still competently prepping, then stalks out after Claire with two guns in her belt.
“YOU JUST GAVE BIRTH.” Jenny isn’t going let a little thing like that stop her- she can track soldiers. Jenny and Claire start off on a epic roadtrip adventure that I want to see more of- the Jenny and Claire wander the earth and fight crime show? I’d season pass that. On Amazon. FOR MONEY.
They follow ravens to the dead bodies of the Watch- over each body Jenny says a prayer while Claire ponders the timelessness of war and a raven eats an eyeball. On the ridge, Jenny finds tracks of a weighed down cart, and they’re off again.
In a gully, Jenny dismounts, saying she’s bursting. Claire also dismounts to pee, and realizes that Jenny isn’t peeing, she’s releasing milk from her breasts. “I canna leave Maggie too long. It’s a nuisance. Everything to do with bairns is a nuisance- but you’d never choose not to have them.” Claire’s mouth tightens and Jenny realizes that she’s blundered in a minefield she didn’t know existed.
Claire twists the conversation to her plan on dealing with getting Jamie- Randall hates her, but Randall’s commander seemed to like her and more importantly hates the living shit out of Randall. Jenny’s like well, that’s kind of shit plan, and Claire’s like yeah, but a shit plan is still a better plan than no plan.
They find droppings that are still warm, and then hear voices from the ridge. Jenny pulls her pistols and hands one to Claire and find the red coats camped below a rise. McQuarrie is still a prisoner but there’s no Jamie. “Do you think they killed him?” “Why would they?” Jenny asks, reasonably. “He’s an idiot, but not stupid enough to pick a fight with ten armed soldiers.” Claire gives her this delightful “really do you believe that” look, and Jenny respondes with a “well… at least I hope not” face.
One soldier is given a missive, and gets on his ohorses, and the ladies run down to intercept him. Jenny literally faints in front of his horse, and when he gets off to check on her Claire holds a gun to his head, and then Jenny draws the other one. It’s amazing.
They tie him to a log, and Jenny smacks him with the butt of his own rifle. He calls them whores and harlots, and Jenny puts his ramrod (FROM THE RIFLE YOU FILTHY MINDED PEOPLE HONESTLY) in the fire, pulls off his boots. Claire tries to reason with him, until Jenny burns the sole of his foot with the red hot ramrod. “WHERE IS THE HIGHLANDER!” and then Jenny threatens to brand his balls because she’s from the Jack Bauer school of interrogation. “I don’t know anything I’m a courier!”
Claire rifles through his bag to find the missive while he wails about tampering with the mails. It says that McQuarrie is going to the sherrif’s court, but Jamie escaped and everyone is looking for him. They know Jamie won’t go to Lallybroch, but he’ll probably go north- the garrison won’t go that far from supplies.
Claire goes to get the supplies to bandage the soldiers foot, and Jenny’s like whoa there, you know we have to kill him, right? Like, we used our names and said Lallybroch and stuff, so… he’s gotta go. Claire makes a face, and Jenny snaps “DON’T JUDGE ME” and then the soldier dies, Probably because Murtagh cut his throat. “Next time, hide your tracks better.” He goes to find supper.
Jenny finds Claire gathering wood, and tells her “love forces a person to choose. You’ll find yourself doing things you never imagined you’d do.” “I wasn’t judging you. If Murtagh hadn’t shown up, I would have done it myself.” Claire ends up telling Jenny a bit about her uncle who taught her how to camp, but Jenny learned to track by harassing the boys- if they didn’t teach her then she would put bugs in their supper.
Murtagh arrives with a rabbit and calls them natural outlaws. He is not wrong.
In the morning, Jenny packs up, and hands Claire the rents from Quarter Day, and a small knife to put in her stocking. Claire thinks for a minute and then takes a breath and tells Jenny to plant potatoes. The crop will keep for a long time and the yield is better than wheat. Jenny says she can send for them. Claire goes in for a pound and tells Jenny that war is coming, sell unproductive land, and there will be a famine. “Aye. Jamie said you might tell me things and that I was to listen to you.” They embrace fiercely “God go wi’ ye, Claire.” Jenny rides home to her babies. I am including Ian in the collective.
Murtagh says they’ll head north, and he’s got Claire’s box of medicines. They’ll hit villages and crofts, treat people, and make themselves known so Jamie can find them. It’s a plan. Kind of. What does Murtagh mean by attracting attention? He dances. Dourly. Claire tells fortunes, basically cribbing directly from Mrs. Graham from the pilot. She ends with “You’ll have a long happy life….. and your husband won’t,” much to the woman’s relief. Murtagh gets pissed because no one appreciates him, and Claire was telling fortunes during the dance so he was paying attention to her so he couldn’t concentrate on his steps!
Ugh, Murtagh. Such a prima donna.
In another town, Murtagh dances, dourly, and ends up with people throwing bread at him. “Perhaps you could sing a song to jazz up the dance a bit?” “Jazz?” “To enliven.” “Like what.” And Claire sings the only song that comes into her head… the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B. Murtagh stares at her. “It’s a boony tune, but you need a Scottish song.” “…me?”
At night, Claire is dressed in boy’s clothes (and looks adorable). “A fine Sassenach lady dressed as a lady singing a baudy song!” Claire is disgusted Murtagh mumbles something from scripture, and Claire snaps, “Stop quoting the bible, it doesn’t suit you.” He shoves on stage, and she goes, ‘Oh, FUCK.” And she sings to the tune of Bugle Boy, but Scottish inspired lyrics. People are super into it, and she’s kind of digging it! Town after town, she sings, Murtagh passes the hat, and some Travellers take note. (I’ll expound on my word choice here below, but I try not to use the word “Gypsy” if I can help it.)
Claire wonders, off stage, how long they’re gonna keep this up, and Murtagh’s like as long as it takes. She plunks a tricorn hat on her haid (NOTE FOR TERRY FOR SEASON 2: MORE TRICORN HATS ON CAIT PLEASE AND THANK YOU). More towns, then they find a group in the woods surrounding another dancer with the same dance Murtagh does- and there are the Travellers! Murtagh makes disparaging comments about the ability of the dancer “He does not have a feel for the tune!” “Oh, none.” Claire says. The leader of the Travellers presents The Sassanach- another woman dressed as a dude, and she sings Claire’s song. I wonder about what effect Claire has had on the space-time continuum.
Claire and Murtagh go have a firm conversation about artistic ownership and who can perfom covers and plagerism. The Leader of the Travellers is on the side of fair use, and Claire would really like to issue a DCMA C&D. “It’s a special song!” “Yes it is, it brings in the crowds.” “And we added a proper dancer.” Snarks another dude.
The Traveller says that there’s only two reasons a proper English lady would do what Claire’s doing- politics or love. “I have no interest in politics.” Great, because we’re not interested in fucking around with His Majesty. Claire says that she’s looking for her husband, and she needs to sing that song to bring him out, so take this money, and until I find him, pretty plese don’t sing that song. The Travellers agree.
Later, Murtagh tells her that the travelers won’t honor their word, they’ll both be signing the song, and Jamie is going to get confused. He says he’ll follow the Travellers alone, and Claire will just slow him down. Claire pulls rank- Murtagh is sworn to the laird, she’s his lady, so they’ll go on. And they do, until they reach the coast.
“If you look hard enough, you might just see the Americas. It’s the only place you haven’t sung that damn song yet.”
By the fire, Claire is awake and fuming. Murtagh says that he’s a fool for trailing after her, and that she’s stubborn and won’t listen to anyone. “Are you blaming me?” He is. But it was his plan! “Well yeah, but you’re the one who got involved with the Travellers, so that’s on you.” Claire snaps that he’s never lost anyone that he’s loved. Murtagh looks off, and finally tells the story of a girl he’d loved and lost, at the Mackenzie gathering. She had another suitor, but Murtagh was going to prove himself and went off and killed a wounded boar using just a dagger. He was given the tusks, and made them into bracelets to give to the lady as a wedding gift. Ellen Fraser’s bracelets, now belonging to Claire.
Claire hands him the bracelets. “It was you.” He nods. “You think you’re the only one who loves Jamie? He’s a son to me.” Claire flings her arms around him and wails, “I’m sorry!” and ugly cries in his arms.
In the morning, Claire is back dressed in a gown, and asks where they’ll go now. “Until we hear otherwise, we’ll go back to the beginning and start again.” The horses need food (unspokenly, so do Claire and Murtagh), but they’re out of money, but “We’ll manage something.”
In a tavern again, Claire reads palms when the leader of the travelers sits at her table. Sure enough, they’ve been singing her song. Claire fumes that she’d heard Travellers aren’t trustworthy but was really hoping they’d buck the stereotype. Murtagh crashes over like a raging boar, but the Travellers are there are in the name of love- they’d gotten a message for Claire. But they need to pay for it. Claire snarls and the message is given- they’re to go to Glen Rowan Cross with all due haste. Claire gives the Traveller a kiss for thanks and she and Murtagh ride off.
More Scottish Tourism Ministry montages, and they run into a building to find… Dougal. Well, fuck. Dougal leads them deeping into a tunnel, filled with boxes and bundles. “Smuggling now, are we?” “I didn’t send for you to debate politics.” The important thing is- Jamie is alive, but was taken by red coats when he was coming to find Claire. He stood trial, and has been sentenced to hang, and soon. Dougal demands a word with the lady alone. Murtagh lets them go, but he is not happy about it.
Dougal understands that she’s grieving, but she has to let him go. After all, she’s had seventeen whole seconds to process the news that he’s going to hang. SEVENTEEN. Dougal will protect her! As hr husband! It’s totally selfless of him! “Now you listen to me, Claire!” Claire will do no such thing. What about Geillis, and her forbidden child, burned at the stake? Dougal says they won’t talk about Geillis. She’s a lone English woman by herself with no money and nothing but Lallybroch. She needs protection. So does Lallybroch. Dougal’s dick is perfectly fine protection.
Claire realizes that what Dougal wants is Lallybroch under the Mackenzie banner. Dougal’s like maybe, but Claire still needs protection! Dougal keeps talking about Jamie in the past tense, and that Jamie would say that if marrying Dougal was the only way to keep her out of Randall’s hands, he’d tell her to do it. Claire thinks, then asks how many men Dougal has. Ten. But they can’t possibly break into Wentworth Prison.
“Jamie had only a handful a men when he rescued me from Fort William. Scared he’s better than you?”
Dougal tries to refuse to be baited, but she wouldn’t expect him to give up his dream of a Stuart King, but he gives her permission to talk is men into going to Wentworth. If she doesn’t succeed, she’ll marry him. They shake on it.
At a campsite, Thing One (THING ONE AND THING TWO I HAVE MISSED YOU TWO IDIOTS) shakes his head “It’s Wentworth.” “Bloody cowards.” Murtagh snarls. No one likes being called a coward. Claire St. Crispin’s Day Speechifies that Jamie would come for any of them. Young Willie, though, Young Willie says he’ll go. “Jamie’s always looked after me, protected me…. I ken if it was me…he’d come for me.” Claire says that he has more courage than the rest. Thing One goes fuck it, my balls are as big as the boy’s! Bigger!
Five of them ride up- Thing One, Thing Two, Willie, Murtagh, and Claire, and look at Wentworth. It’s huge.
(A note on terminology: the word “gypsy” is a racist term that’s offensive on the level of the n-word. I chose to replace it with Traveller since a) I suspect that’s what they were actually going with , as opposed to Roma, b) it’s not, you know, racist. This is not an invitation to try and argue that it’s not racist, because it is. Here are some resources. Thank you and have a nice day.)
RHG:
Since we’re at RT, I haven’t had a chance to listen to RDM’s podcast in which I’m sure he would have explained how they did “Jenny taking a break to pump.” And google searches like “outlander the search how did they do breast milk” and “outlander the search lactating boob” only turned up other people wondering (and also a page on what Mitt Romney has to do with breast feeding). So I don’t know how they did that. HOWEVER. In this episode the only boob we see is a boob performing it’s primary function. And that’s a thing. (I am told it’s a prosthetic with a bladder in it, which is what I suspected.)
I’ve always found this part of the book to be kind of uneven- it took me several reads to really remember what happens between “Murtagh starts singing” and “they get a message that there’s a large Scot looking for them.” This made it more clear, and also adorable Claire in her adorable boy clothes and her TRICORN HAT. I do worry what the logical change Claire might have done to the space-time continuum by introducing that melody 200 year earlier in the timestream, so…. idk but maybe the future is very different.
I think deep thoughts.
Elyse:
I’m dividing my thoughts on this episode into two parts: how did they boob? and Murtagh is awesome.
Part: How Did They Boob
First off, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman express breast milk on tv before and kudos to Outlander for making that a thing.
The bad assery of Jenny riding out after just having a baby is only slightly overshadowed by my fascination at how they made that scene work. RHG and I have discussed it at length and determined that it must have been a prosthetic breast with a bladder.
Also can we please have a show where Jenny and Claire ride around Scotland dispensing justice and being awesome? You could totally play the Buffy the Vampire Slayer theme over the shot of Jenny checking out the tracks in the dirt then looking up meaningfully to the sky.
I thought the scene with the captured redcoat was interesting. Claire thinks she’s a hard woman, and we see that in the first scene of the series where she holds down a soldier screaming in pain. But she has issues with torture where Jenny does not. There is clearly a place that Claire doesn’t want to go, although I believe she would have killed the redcoat had Murtagh not shown up.
Part Two: Murtagh is Awesome
I generally like Murtagh and his grumpy face and I feel like the traveling song and dance routine was really less for saving Jamie and more because Murtagh has always dreamed of a career in the arts.
I agree with RHG though–will Claire’s introduction of The Boogey Woogey Bugle Boy of Company B affect the space time continuum?
Speaking as a Brit here, my husband worked with some UK Roma who chose to use the word ‘Gypsy’ to identify themselves (see: the Gypsy Council of Britain, for example). It’s also a word used by the formal British census. Travellers are of Irish origin, and quite a different group to British Gypsies, who are again quite different to the Roma coming over to the UK from Eastern Europe. I’m not sure that Travellers would have been moving around Scotland at this time..?
I wouldn’t use the word ‘gypsy’ in the US where it’s been deemed verboten by US Roma groups, but it’s probably worth noting that – like the term ‘Colored’ in South Africa – different countries use language around race in different ways. I would not lecture a British person who identifies as Gypsy any more than I’d lecture a Native American person who used the word ‘Indian’. Is it etymologically inaccurate? Yes. Offensive and racist? Honestly, I think that’s debatable.
Final note: ‘pikey’ and ‘tinker’ are DEFINITELY not acceptable in the UK.
I’d season-pass the Jenny and Claire Show, too. They could ride around the countryside kicking ass and taking names.
If mics existed in the eighteenth century, Jenny and Claire would be dropping them all over the place. I’ll admit to having my doubts about Catriona Balfe playing Claire (“she’s not the right coloring,” I grumbled to my husband) but she completely brings it. And there are not enough words for my love of Laura Donnelly.
Oh, Dougal, you may be a conniving bastard, but I’ve missed you. I’ve been making due with: http://www.yahoo.com/tv/watch-graham-mctavish-talk-office-jargon-with-sexy-118365652920.html