Recap: ‘Outlander’ – ‘By The Pricking Of My Thumbs’

Outlander

‘Outlander’ – ‘By The Pricking Of My Thumbs,’ horny teens ruin everything.

After last week’s eye-opening episode, Outlander gets back onto solid ground by opening a huge can of subplots.

Jamie tries to win back some much needed brownie points with morning cunnilingus, now that’s a way to wake up! He is either a quick study or a significant amount of time has passed. Claire definitely seems into it. The devil’s advocate in me wonders who is better at this: Jamie or Frank? 😉

Can we talk about Murtagh for a second! When a married couple doesn’t respond to insistent door banging, other than with suspicious moaning, NOW IS NOT THE TIME!

Murtagh cares not for interrupting foreplay and shoulders his way into the Fraser bedroom. Turns out the Duke of Sandringham is in town and has enough power to clear Jamie’s name and reinstate him as a Laird(of Lallybroch). Claire, with all the smoothness of a gawky teenager asking her crush out, insinuates she knows Black Jack Randall and Sandringham are friends, but she totally can’t tell Jamie how she knows that. Because time travel. Murtagh is suspicious but Jamie puts that line of questioning on lockdown because the good news of possible pardon barely outweighs screwing up the mood.

In good spirits despite what must be a case of blue balls, Jamie goes to get Ned Gowan’s official lawyer opinion. Ned urges caution, since the English are “a tricky lot and the truth has very little to do with the law.” But he seems to think Randall’s continued sexual assault of Claire, a woman of noble birth, might be enough to tar him in Sandringham’s eyes, a court martial,and clear Jamie’s name.

I wish the show had some sort of quick captions that tell viewers the date. Claire’s clothing being used to indicate the passage of time is not really helpful or an exact measure. Has it been a week since the belt? A month?

The reason to bring this up is because as Jamie goes to see Ned, Claire goes to confront Leery about putting the ill-wish doll under their bed. That implies this is the next morning, right?

The conversation starts with Claire trying to be understanding — after all, Leery is sixteen, — and ends with Leery getting slapped. Claire warns her to stay away from her husband and I am left a little confused with the statement. If the timeline is right, Claire was trying to get to Frank less than a week ago and now she’s acting righteously upset about some tart trying to ruin her marriage to Jamie. So, I guess this is point where the metaphorical strand of pearls officially breaks and Claire makes a conscious decision to make this insane time travel accident work? A woman with one foot out of the stone circle wouldn’t be this irate about her beard of a ‘husband’.

Leery confesses she got the ill-wish doll from Geillis Duncan. Of course in true Claire form instantly goes to confront her friend, but runs into Mr. Duncan instead. I wondered why they’d even bother to bring him into the episode.

Geillis’ maid tells Claire her mistress will be in the woods tonight because it’s a full moon. I think Geillis needs to find a maid who won’t go blabbing about her witchy ways hither and yon because that’s kind of stuff gets a girl burned at the stake.

But perhaps Geillis meant for Claire to watch. After all, she’s writhing mostly naked on the ground in the chill of the night, is careful to lift up her gossamer robe to expose her pregnant belly, and knows Claire is watching. This feels like a set up. For what, I’m not yet sure.

The moonlit dance reminds Claire of the women at the stone circle. Before that train of thought can follow through to remind her that she was trying to return to her original husband, Geillis drops a bomb worthy of an episode of Maury. Dougal our war chieftan is the father! Man, he gets around. Geillis says the dance was asking Mother Nature to free her and Dougal from their respective spouses so they can be together. Claire is skeptical.

Said skepticism continues on the road home as dawn breaks. Claire confronts the redhead about the ill-wish and Geillis swears she never would’ve given it to Leery if she knew who it was for. Geillis also lets it slip that Dougal and Sandringham are friendly, triggering a memory of Frank discussing Sandringham’s alleged Jacobite ties.

As the ladies are walking home, Claire hears a baby crying in the distance. Geillis warns her not to interfere, as the wailing is coming from a fairy hill and is obviously a changeling. Claire, being a reasonable human, calls poppycock and runs off to save the infant from its superstitious parents.

She’s too late.

Sometime later, Jamie finds Claire still cradling the lifeless baby. Jamie found her out in the middle of nowhere: he ran into Geillis. Plot hole averted.

Jamie coaxes the baby out of Claire’s arms. He understands her kind-heartedness but explains it doesn’t matter if he and she know the superstitions are dumb. The people believe it. They’ll never see a speck of dirt outside their community; their worlds are tiny and full of customs. It’s the first time in a long time that Jamie reminds the audience that he is no mere farm boy.

Back at Castle Leoch, Jamie explains the plan. Claire will sign a petition saying that Randall attempted to sexually assault her multiple times and then Sandringham will HAVE to take action. Claire hesitates. I’d like to think she’s weighing the consequences of opening herself up to questioning. There’s a reason women don’t report rape; often the system set up to protect them does nothing but more harm. This scene is probably as close as we’re getting to Outlander acknowledging just how mentally traumatized Claire should be after her whirlwind month of assault and kidnapping.

Claire signs of course.

Hedging her bets, she then runs right over to, you guessed it, Sandringham’s estate without telling Jamie. The opulence of a British home is jarring after the rough-hewn walls of Castle Leoch. In what might turn out to be a tactical error, Claire basically tells Sandringham he’ll sign the petition for Randall’s court martial or she’ll tell on him for accepting Jacobite gold. While this has the short-term result she’s after, Sandringham seems the type to be in it for the long con.

As for Sandringham, he is delightfully untrustworthy. He clearly has his own agenda and it doesn’t involve furthering anyone’s goals but his own. And he is so obviously batting for the other team. Yep, we get it. You can stop saying how “fond” you are of Jamie. Are all the British men after Jamie?

Back at the castle, Dougal is inconsolable. His beloved wife Moira, so beloved in fact that we’ve never heard a word about her, has died mysteriously. Well, that’s convenient. After putting on a drunken, grief-stricken show, Claire and Murtagh conspire to drug him and Dougal goes down for the count.

Geillis is pleased with this turn of events. I know you all say Leery is the bunny boiler, but Geillis has just thrown her hat into the ring for the title.

Unaware of his wife’s meddling’s, Jamie approaches Sandringham with the petition. Because the Duke is better at this game than Claire, he agrees to help Jamie…if Jamie will be his second in a duel over an unpaid debt. With Mackenzie clan enemies, the McDonnell’s.

Things get real at dinner that night when, in front of all the Mackenzie nobility and the Duke of Sandringham, Geillis murders her husband via arsenic. Dougal’s small, pleased smile gives Colum pause. Was he really upset Moira died? Or did he give her a hand into the grave?

No time to dwell on it because it’s time to learn about duels. They weren’t the barbaric murder sprees we might think they were. Instead, two men go through the rote motions of restoring honor by aiming poorly and hitting nothing.

The baby McDonnell’s are not pleased. They wanted their patriarch to shed some English blood. One thing leads to another, Jamie insults their mother, and suddenly it’s an all-out brawl. Jamie wins but takes a sword to the side for his trouble. Sandringham quips, “Please tell your wife it wasn’t my fault” and flees the scene with petition in hand.

Claire seems to disagree with the Duke’s assessment and settles for taking out her anger on Jamie’s wound.

Just when Jamie was about to cue the sad trombone music to indicate his day couldn’t get worse, it does. Colum is livid that Dougal knocked up a murderous witch, adding insult to injury, the fools in love with her. Colum banishes Dougal to his own estates and refuses to let him take Geillis along. Jamie is caught in the crossfire and sent to babysit his uncle for the crime of stabbing clan enemies. Feeling particularly bitchy, Colum also decrees that Claire can’t tag along.

Saddling up to ride into the sunset, Jamie and Claire share a kiss. Jamie warns her to stay away from Geillis because Colum is on the warpath. What Claire hears is, “You should absolutely try and help Geillis escape punishment and make yourself look like an accessory to the crime.”

Which is exactly what she does. A note sent from “Geillis,” but actually sent by Leery if I were a betting gal, lands Claire at Geillis’s house just as the cops show up to arrest her for witchcraft. A little bird told the constables that Claire was a witch too, so into the paddy wagon she goes.

As Claire looks out of the paddy wagon who does she in the distance, Loaghaire smiling. Horny teenagers are literally the worst.

Well FANdemaniacs? Is Geillis a maniacal  genius or just a pawn in a bigger plot? What will Claire do to Loaghaire, when she finally meets her again? Sound off below!

About author(s)

Jenn

Jenn is a Book Lover, Fangirl, Daniel Cudmore's Number one Fan, and Ricky Whittle connoisseur and the "chairwoman" of #TheWhittleExperience. Co-Owner of FANdomConsultants.com. When not found traveling to and from NYC (my home, my heart), reading, or writing on one of the several sites she owns, she's usually on Tumblr stalking Ricky Whittle gifs and scouring the Internet for more goodies on Dan. Jenn is also a budding artist and has her own studio where she creates some fandom made goodies. Follow her on Twitter, & Instagram.

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