TW: Discussions of rape
The title card for this episode is a homemade still.
Bree is petting the goats when Jamie approaches. She notices his bandaged knuckles and asks what happened. He tells her he had an accident.
Jamie tells her that he knows about her rape and asks if she knew the man who assaulted her. Bree says she didn’t. Then Jamie asks her to help him check the snares.
As they walk through the forest, Bree asks Jamie if he hates for being unwed and pregnant. He tells her that he doesn’t think less of her for being raped, and tells her not to worry because he’ll see her married.
Bree says she doesn’t want to be married.
“With a bairn, you must,” Jamie replies.
She tells him she can’t because she’s still in love.
Bree tells Jamie that she hates herself for being raped. She feels she could have fought harder or been more careful. Jamie points out that she also could have died, and says that none of it was her fault.
Then Jamie says, “Unless you wanted it,” and implies that Bree wanted to have sex with Bonnet and made up the story after.
Bree attacks him and Jamie overpowers her, grabbing her from behind and telling her that he could break her neck. “Can you stop me?” he asks her.
“No!” she says.
“Then you couldn’t have stopped him either.”
Well, that was nauseating.
Then Bree asks him if he fought back against Jack Randall. OH HO. Jamie is clearly shocked that Bree knows he was raped. He says he gave his word not to fight in exchange for Claire’s life.
Bree asks if he killed Randall, and if so, did it help. She’s wondering if killing Bonnet would help her. Jamie says he did kill him, finally, and that it didn’t seem very important after all the deaths in Culloden.
Then we cut to a super beat up Roger and some Other Guy being led, bound at the wrists, behind Mohawk men on horseback. The other man collapses, and Roger asks them to stop. He tells his captors that Other Guy needs water, and he’s hit across the face. He tries to help Other Guy walk.
That night the men gather around a campfire. One of the Mohawk men tells the story of Skywoman and her twins, Sapling and Flint.
Roger and Other Guy are tied to a tree. Roger tells the other man that he’s going to escape and make his way back to Bree. The man, who is obviously very sick, laughs at him.
Back at Fraser’s Ridge, Claire and Bree are discussing the possibility of terminating Bree’s pregnancy. Claire explains that it would be painful given they only have whiskey as an anesthetic, but she could do it surgically. Bree says it’s impossible to know when she became pregnant, with Roger or when she was raped.
Claire tells her if she wants to keep the baby, then she should go back through the stones to Roger and to the future, as the past is too dangerous.
The next day the family is doing chores and Ian takes over hauling water for Bree.
“He’s smitten with you, lass,” says Jamie.
“He’s my cousin,” she replies.
“Can you not be smitten with cousins in your time?” he asks.
“It’s not encouraged,” she replies. “He’s sweet, though.”
Claire is tending her garden and both Jamie and Bree comment on how happy she is in North Carolina.
We get more shots of chores, an adorable baby goat (baby goats are the shit), and Ian and Bree trading items with the Native Americans. There’s lots of happy string music and everyone smiling over dinner.
Then we cut to Bree and Claire doing laundry. Claire says she misses cheeseburgers with all the fixings. Bree says for her it’s peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Aspirin, Claire adds. Led Zepplin, adds Bree. “It’s a band,” she says. “You wouldn’t like them.”
“Toilets,” both women say in unison.
That night Bree dreams that Roger has returned to her, but then Roger turns into Bonnet who tries to rape her again. Lizzie wakes her up. Lizzie promises her that her rapist will never hurt her again, but says she can’t say why.
Bree gets her to admit that Jamie beat up a guy he thought was the rapist (but Bree knows was Roger), and basically sent him off to die.
Bree runs into the house yelling, “Where is Roger?” Claire figures out what happened almost immediately.
Jamie says he didn’t realize the man was Roger. When he finds out that Bree slept with Roger, he gets all indignant saying that he thought she was violated. Bree slaps him and says he was violated by someone else.
Lizzie looks like she might puke.
Jamie says that as her father, he promises to make it right.
“My father would never have said the things you said to me,” Bree tells him. “He was a good man. You’re nothing but a savage.”
Ian asks who attacked Bree and Claire tells them it was Bonnet. Ian admits he sold Roger to the Mohawk.
Jamie, enraged, knocks a chair over. Because that helps. Bree isn’t having it.
Bree asks how they can get Roger back and Claire tells her that the Mohawk live in upstate New York, about 700 miles away.
We cut back to Roger who is still tied to a tree. Other guy has died. One of the Mohawk tells Roger that they will ride faster than yesterday. He’s floundering, basically being dragged along.
Back in Fraser’s Ridge, Jamie and Ian are hatching plans to find Roger, and Bree is like “you think I trust you two idiots to find him?”
Privately, Bree tells Claire that she isn’t going to terminate the pregnancy. She needs Claire to go with Jamie and Ian to find Roger because she doesn’t trust their judgement. Plus he’s going to need a doctor.
Claire doesn’t want to leave Bree and Lizzie alone. Jamie suggests she goes to River Run. Murtagh offers to take Bree while the others follow the Mohawk.
When they are alone Jamie asks Murtagh to find Stephen Bonnet after he delivers Claire to River Run, and to bring him to Jamie in secret so Jamie can kill him.
A+++ parenting all around in this episode.
Hey, we’re back to Roger. He’s tied to a tree again!
Now to everyone leaving Fraser’s Ridge.
Claire assures Bree that Jocasta will make sure she’s well taken care of and has a midwife. She asks Bree what she should tell Roger.
Bree wants him to know the truth, even about the rape, and the fact that she doesn’t know whose child she is carrying.
They’re about to depart when Ian runs up.
“Cousin,” he says, “if we dinnae find him…” he drops to one knee and places his hat over his chest. “It would be my honor to take your hand in the holy sacrament of marriage.”
Claire rolls her eyes so hard she can see the back of her head.
“Get off your knee, you idiot,” says Jamie.
“I will find him, lass,” Jamie says. “I will not rest until I do.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” Bree says coldly.
They part ways, Bree, Lizzie and Murtagh for River Run, and Jamie, Claire and Ian to find Roger.
Speaking of Roger, he’s still being dragged behind a horse looking pretty rough. One of the Mohawk give him some water, but a short while later he collapses and slides off the path and down a ravine. He screams as he slides out of the rope binding his wrist and falls further.
He runs and some of the Mohawk chase after him.
He manages to hide in the forest and elude his captors.
Murtagh, Bree and Lizzie arrive at River Run. Murtagh presents a letter written by Jamie, and greets Jocasta warmly even though they haven’t seen each other in many years.
He introduces Bree who explains that she’s pregnant, unwed, and that Jamie is asking Jocasta to care for her even at the risk to her own reputation. She says that Jamie and Claire are looking for the man to whom she is handfast even though he may be dead.
“Of course you can stay with us,” Jocasta says.
We cut back to Roger who is walking through the forest. He hears a buzzing sound and says, “Oh my God.”
He emerges into a clearing that has stones similar to Craigh na Dun. He agonizes over whether to return to the future or not. The episode ends with his palm extended toward the largest stone.
…
I didn’t love this episode. First of all we could have gotten by with one scene where Roger is being dragged behind a horse and understood what was going on. The time we spent with him was largely wasted.
And if I was Roger, I’d touch that stone, and go back to the future where I’d take some Tylenol PM and lay on the floor in the fetal position until I cried myself to sleep.
Mostly this episode was Jamie making really shitty parenting choices. Putting your traumatized daughter into a choke hold to prove she couldn’t fight off her rapist. Great work, dad. The only thing that made it bearable was that Bree called him out on it every single time. Her rage was palpable and she was not taking any shit from anyone. If she’d been even an ounce less fierce and uncompromising, it would have made it seem like Jamie’s actions were validated in some way.
Only three more episodes to go! Are you still watching?
Bree calling Jamie out on his attitudes is one of my favourite elements of this book. I still hold the rape wasn’t necessary in the adaptation, but if we have to have it, we are owed Bree’s righteous fury and “You do not get to be more angry than me”. It sucks that their main bonding point is both being rape survivors, but it is a reminder that male rape is given the same weight as female in Outlander, which is rare.
Of course we’re still watching. Outlander, like the old skool romances that preceeded it, has a bit of an addictive quality. The crazysauce isn’t for everyone.
That being said, I can’t wait until we move on from this part. I don’t particularly enjoy the rehashing of the attack. I know, once Roger is back, it’s going to get dragged out some more.
I’m also very afraid that Jaime has set Murtaugh up for a slit throat.
still watching and episode was ok — if they kept TV Murtagh around for this long only to have him finished off then all bets are off!
Best line: get off your knee, yer eejit!
Murtagh died at Culloden, and I can’t get used to him being in the tv series. I think he will escort Jocasta out of River Run when the time comes. Poor Roger, he gets the short end of the stick all the time. For being a prissy History teacher/Historian he has a lot of guts and fights back. Maybe in the tv series he will beat the crap out of Jamie ?
Its interesting because I liked the actress who plays Brianna so much more in this episode. To me it really felt like she was embedded in this role, that it was real for her. Up till now it feels a bit like a kid playing dressup.
Anyway – that scene between Jamie and Bri in the forest where she is blaming herself, I actually liked the way Jamie played it. Was it kind and gentle? not so much, but you could actually *see* the moment that Bri got the point of the exercise.
And she slapped RIGHT back at him with her question about how he dealt with being raped by Randall – clearly he was taken aback not only by the fact she knew about it, but the fact she was prepared to use it as a riposte, and a telling one at that.
Her “you dont get to be more angry than me” was the BEST scene – she totally owned it, and everyone could feel her vibrating with righteous anger.
It was an episode dealing with a lot of really nasty situations (and I agree less tortured Roger might have been nice but you really felt it when he found the stone tho) but sometimes brutal situations have to be handled in a straight forward manner.
We cant always sugarcoat it and spend years in therapy dealing with it, sometimes a good slap in the face is whats needed.
The final scenes where she stands up to Jocasta up front are pretty good too – you can feel how brittle and fed up with everything she is – pregnant, in a world far from hers, without her mother, fearful of Rogers fate, and how at the hands of yet someone else.
There was a lot going on in this and I thought it was mostly well played, given the limitations of the script/book etc.