Outlander 4.04: Common Ground

The title card is a Cherokee man getting dressed in all his finery. It’s damn impressive.

Jamie sits with the Governor (his name is Tryon) and signs the land grant.

As someone who is adjacent to document nerds, I gotta say the props department KILLED IT with this one. There’s wax seals, and you see the uneven edge at the top? There are two copies of the document, and they were written on the same piece of paper and cut apart. That way you can tell if they are the true copies by matching up the cuts.

PLEASE SHARE IN SOME OF MY RANDOM KNOWLEDGE. You may use it to win an HQ game someday.

Anyway, 10,000 acres, lots of work, and Jamie tells the governor that Claire will be going along to set up. Jamie is also looking for settlers in Wilmington, and Tryon suggests Jamie take car:  there’s the Regulators and it’s a Problem. There’s problems with dishonest tax collectors, too. Tryon eyes Jamie for a second and says that Jamie has supped with “princes and paupers” and that it’s said that there’s much in common with Highlanders and the “savage Indians.” Jamie delicately says that savagery exists in many forms. “I’ve witnessed it in both prince and pauper.” The law, Tryon says, isn’t very efficient in dealing with the Indians, and Jamie’s like, well there’s the law and there’s what’s done. Tryon is pleased they understand each other.

In town, Claire and Marsali are overseeing the last of the packing, Marsali is still having morning (afternoon, night, anytime she looks at food) sickness, and generally miserable. She also misses her mother, and is sort of apologetic about it because of the issues with Laoghaire and Claire, but Claire totally gets it. Of course she wants her mother! Marsali is also worried about the actual parenting, but she is happy she has Claire by her side.

Except that Claire is leaving? And Marsali will send word when the baby is born? So Claire won’t be there if things go sideways? Okay. Fergus is going to be looking for the other settlers, including the men from Ardsmuir prison (like….. Murtagh hopefully?). Fergus and Marsali have enough money to get them through, and once the baby is born they’ll have a cabin waiting for them at the Ridge.

Claire is vaguely worried about having left Brianna behind, and if Bree has a baby she won’t have her mother around and that sucks. Jamie: I held on to memories of you when I was without you, and our daughter will do the same. Claire smiles, not entirely convinced but not unconvinced.

Claire, Jamie, Young Ian, and Rollo set off. Claire and Jamie admire the view of their land, and then get onto the work of surveying, marking the edge of the grant. Claire recites the lyrics to “America” and tells Jamie that it’s to the same tune of “God Save The King.” The thought of plagiarized tunes makes Jamie horny (what doesn’t?), but Young Ian, Cockblocker, calls them over to look at a cool looking tree. Jamie steps in some poop, and Young Ian tries to guess what kind of animal might have left it.

Rolo barks and wags his tail (hardly having his hackles up, as Young Ian says) and some Cherokee men come out of the woods behind Claire. They look very grim, and have rifles rest on their shoulders, and arrows nocked in their bows, but not drawn. Jamie takes Claire’s knife from Claire, and walks forward, arms outstretched, and he drops the knife, point down in the ground. He introduces himself, and the men un-nock their arrows and walk away.

Then we leap to Oxford, in 1971, where Roger’s officemate is complaining about his students and their disposable grandparents, but Roger isn’t paying attention. In Roger’s desk drawer is the book Bree bought him, and the portrait they had done. Roger has clearly not read the book, because a caption catches his attention, noting that Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina was settled by Highland Scots, including a place called Fraser’s Ridge. As he reads the caption, we see a montage of Claire and Jamie and Ian felling trees and uprooting stumps and harvesting rocks (and Young Ian finds an arrowhead).

Claire finds Jamie laying out the buildings – a cabin, a stillroom shed for her, a barbecue pit – he’s got a whole plan in his head. Ian has put all the current meat in a sack that is hanging from a tree. Good call in bear country. As Jamie is fixing a crooked pole, Ian comes running up with five or Cherokee warriors on horseback behind him. Jamie holds his axe defensively, but is clearly unwilling to strike the first blow. The warriors all throw some of the surveying poles into the ground, and one of them speaks at length in Cherokee, but like Claire and Jamie, we don’t know what he says. But he’s not happy. I’m guessing it’s something like this:

Back in Oxford, Roger has gotten a packet of papers from the author of the Scottish immigrants book, and has sent Roger photos of documents, including the land grants. Roger’s “oh my god” at seeing what he has is so fucking familiar to me, like, the sound of a historian’s boner springing to life is perfectly rendered.

So Roger immediately calls Brianna, who is living on Beacon Hill, apparently, and I wonder what 1971 rents were. Now it’s like, $4000 for a one bedroom. Bree is living with her friend Gail and an adorable french bulldog. Bree and Roger have a very awkward conversation, where both of them are making the “I am so bad at talking to HUMANS” faces. Roger eventually tells her that he’s got information about Claire and Jamie: they reunited, they made it to North Carolina, and lived where the festival was. One of the other documents was a letter from a woman talking about James Fraser and “his wife Claire, a healer.” Brianna thanks Roger for looking, despite everything. Roger’s like, yeah well, I have to go, making this face that’s choking back all these things we wants to say. Brianna also chokes back a lot of words.

Back on Fraser’s Ridge, Claire games through the options, like building somewhere else, but Fraser stubbornness is Fraser stubbornness. Besides, if a line on the map isn’t going to stop them, the Cherokee will come, no matter where they go. Claire muses about the skull she found (where did she put him, by the way? Where is he?) and wonders if he was trying to warn them about something bad that might…will… happen there. Jamie: ehhhhhhhh. He thinks the real problem is that he can’t tell the Cherokee that he means to be a polite colonizing neighbor.

Later that night, everyone is woken up by Rollo’s barking, and they leave their shelter armed. The outside fire is still going (why? How?) and the markings for the cabin are messed up, along with all of their various supplies. The meat store is gone, too. One of the horses comes back (his name is Finley), with claw marks on his shoulder. It’s a bear.

JQM has his own little set up, and mentions that the Cherokee have mentioned they’ve been having trouble with a Tskili Yona. “Yona” means bear, but tskili means something like “wickedness.” The point is, they think it’s more than a mere bear. JQM says that he’ll loan Jamie some tobacco as a gesture of goodwill towards the Cherokee, and Jamie asks about how to approach properly. JQM gives him some pointers, but also suggests that he take the tobacco himself, since the Cherokee knows him. He also suggests that Jamie hold off on building the cabin until this whole issue is resolved.

Claire and Ian have been fishing, and Claire is cleaning the fish while Ian mends the net. He’s pretty good at it, because it’s like knitting. Everyone at Lallybroch can knit, even Jamie. Ian is aghast that Claire cannot (but she can sew flesh together, so like… chill out my dude). Ian wonders if the bear is still lurking around, as the camera gives us the point of view of something in the underbrush.

That night, the Cherokee walk through the woods with torches.

Something hairy creeps through the underbrush near the shelter, and Rollo wakes up. Jamie and Ian and Claire come out, and Rollo runs off and finds a wounded JQM. He’s been clawed down the front.

In the Cherokee village, a older woman is muttering over a pipe, and included in her words is “tskili yona.”

Claire and her pit crew gets JQM inside so she can start dealing with the wounds, when the bear roars off in the distance. Like an idiot, Jamie goes after it.

The Cherokee pass the pipe around the circle as Jamie heads off to look for the bear. There’s dancing and running and then Claire notices that JQM has been bitten. By a human mouth. Whoops. It’s a man in a bear skin and with claws over his hands. The bear-man and Jamie fight while the Cherokee dance, but eventually Jamie is able to get the bear-man to impale himself on out of the boundary stakes. Jamie then collapses to the ground, thinking, “I am getting too old for this shit. How many books are left?”

In the morning, Jamie drags the body of the Bear Man to the village. The warrior that’s been leading the encounters asks (in English) if Jamie killed him. Jamie did. The warrior, Tawodi, tells Jamie that they knew this was a man all along. The Bear Man had been a warrior who raped his wife, so the tribe banished him. The bear man kept coming back, but they refused to see him, and shunning is very effective. “So he went deep into the woods and his mind was lost forever.” Then he came back, but the Cherokee would not kill what was already dead to them. But now that Jamie has taken care of the problem, that’ll do. Jamie asks if there will be trouble with him and his family. “Death follows white men.” Ain’t that the fucking truth. But Jamie just wishes to live peacefully. You know, him and a couple dozen of his closest friends. He’s going to be a POLITE colonizer.

Back at the Ridge, JQM is on the mend, and the Cherokee come to visit, with their chief, Nawolhali. Nawolhali says that he prays no more blood is spilled, and gives Jamie a Cherokee name, Yona Hili. Bear Killer. Jamie invites the Cherokee to join them for coffee or whatever. Included in the group is two women, one of whom is the older woman who was smoking the pipe and chanting during the bear dance. The old woman’s name is Adawehi, and through her granddaughter in law, she tells Claire of a dream she had where Claire was a white raven that swallowed the moon. Adawehi is a healer, and tells Claire that while she has medicine now, she will have more when her hair is white, and also that she must not be troubled. “Death is sent from the gods, It will not be your fault.” Claire doesn’t know what that means, but Adawehi merely smiles.

In Inverness, Roger is collecting the last of his boxes, and Fiona has decorated the house in a very midcentury style “It’s very…..aye.” Fiona knows all about the Roger and Brianna saga, but she also knows about Claire and Jamie, because the walls are not that thick. She knows pretty much everything, and Roger tells her that he found the land grant and everything. Fiona frowns; she’s found something too. Her Granny used to help Roger’s father with research, and they found an obituary from the 1770s – of Jamie and Claire, dead in a fire on Fraser’s Ridge.

Roger at first thinks that he shouldn’t tell Bree. “She’s been dead, Fi! For over 200 years!” Fiona sighs, and Roger makes his “I don’t wanna” face.

Another montage of tree felling and building, and I am wondering, is it still fall? Did we miss winter? What year is it? What is time? (Time is a flat circle.) Jamie has the foundations laid for the cabin, and has it all planned out in his head. Shelves for books and a pantry, and a fine table and a bed, facing east. It’s perfect.

Roger has been wrestling with the question of what to tell Bree, and finally calls Boston. Gail, Bree’s roommate answers, and tells Roger that Bree went to Scotland. “Why?” “To visit her mother?” Roger turns white and hang up. He sits back, stunned. This is (for him) an unexpected turn.

Elyse: So there were some things I really liked about this episode and some that bothered me. I know we’re working from book material here, but Jamie being the only one who could kill the Tskili Yona was very white-savior-y. Plus there’s the fact that they are colonizing native land and Claire knows this and she knows what happens to the Cherokee. It’s unsettling.

The parts that worked for me were just the everyday life sequences of Claire and Jamie and Ian getting by. I am fascinated by the details of everyday life in history so seeing them build a cabin from nothing (felling trees, creating boards), cleaning fish (those eggs are good protein, Claire. Just eat ‘em), and making nets was super interesting to me.

Also I loved Ian and Claire’s discussion of knitting. Of course men knew how to knit. It’s how they got socks and hats and mitts. If you wanted to stay warm and you weren’t wealthy, then you knew how to knit. Knitting didn’t become a woman’s domain until fairly recently. I also loved that in a previous episode they showed Jocasta knitting even though she’s blind. Blind people knit and crochet, too. I would straight up watch two hours of Ian showing Claire how to knit.

If you want more knitting history, I totally recommend the beautiful coffee table book Knitting Around the World: A Multi-Stranded History of a Time-Honored Tradition by Lela Nargi.

Anyway I’m very excited for the next episode to see what happens to Brianna. I’m still not talking to Roger.

RHG: So in the book, the bear fight was with an actual bear, which was changed due to what I’m sure are money constraints – a bear fight with an actual bear would be obscenely expensive and besides, Leo DiCaprio already won an Oscar for fighting a bear so anything would look tame by comparison. I have to agree with Elyse that “Well, we can’t kill what’s psychologically dead to us” does end up seeming a little white savior-y, but on the whole the change makes sense.

I’m a little confused about the passage of time- how long has it been? How long does fall last in the Blue Ridge mountains? The found the ridge with fall strawberries, went “yes, this is good” went back to Wilmington, got the grant from Tryon, got supplies and stuff, and went back and somehow it’s STILL FALL.

I will say this for Roger: Book Roger chooses not to tell Brianna about the obituary at all. Here he’s too late, but he was going to tell her. He’s late (and it’s entirely possible that she left before Fiona even showed the obituary to him), but he was going to tell her. I continue to love Richard Rankin, even if I hope his hair changes soon.

We also were sent a link from reader Olivia to the State Archive of North Carolina, who has been doing some history posts in conjunction with the show! Here is one on Land Grants, and another about Governor Tryon. It’s really cool! Thank you, Olivia!

What did you think of this episode? Are you still watching?