Disbelieflander

We learn, first and foremost, that Jamie and Claire are terrible at naming babies. Prompted by M. Duverney, Claire confesses her pick is Lambert, after her uncle, and Jamie makes a face like he just ate a haggis he'd been saving ill-advisedly in his underwear drawer, and counters with "Dalhousie."

This from a man who just decided Fergus's original French name wasn't manly enough. I would have believes Testicles -- pronounced as if he's an ancient Greek thinker -- before I bought "Dalhousie" coming from Jamie's mouth. And poor Lambert is going to get called "Lammykins" or "Lamb Chop" or "Mint Sauce." I vote they just sell his naming rights for an exorbitant sum and use the cash to bankroll their OWN revolution. I think the future little wee baby Madame Ellie's Sin Parlour and Ointment Emporium Fraser will think it was worth it.

Obviouslander

Le Comte St. Germain skulks rottenly in the background, marinating his soul in a proprietary blend of contempt and arousal. Well, first, he needles Jamie about his chess skills -- which suggests that Jamie may indeed be letting Duverney win some -- and Jamie's ensuing loss prompts Claire to decide that it's her fault for distracting her big man's big brain with big words like "Lambert." So she steps away and accepts a glass of wine delivered to her alone on a tray. Girlfriend, never drink anything you didn't see them pour. You'd have fared better with a Miller Lite.

Painlander

Sure enough, Claire doubles over in frightened agony as Le Comte tip-toes gleefully through the background, deploying tiny knowing smiles and appearing to have reached tantric mental climax. He could not be more obvious if he wore a blinking wig that played a song performed to the can-can: "I / poisoned you so hard, girl / you just drank my poison / poison poison death / bye bye to Lambert / peace out, jags."

Achelander

Fear not, though, Baby Dalhizzle is doing just fine, if slightly inclined to give this establishment a one-star Yelp review. Fortunately, the Encyclopedia Clairetannica immediately recalls an aftertaste that suggests a particular poison: bitter cascara. Probably not intended to be fatal, but certainly an attempt to fire a warning shot up her nose.

This scrape with death gives Jamie an idea: DINNER. Well, no, their conversation winds around to the Duke of Sandringham, and Jamie has the idea that if they throw a massive party and invite both Sandy and the Bonnie Prince, Sandy will realize what a Class A Dipshit the prince is and won't finance the rebellion. Claire is like, "GLAD MY NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE HAS NOT BONED YOUR PARTY-PLANNING."

Relieflander

She does, however, realize the time is now to tell Jamie about Black Jack Randall. Otherwise, he'll hear it from the Duke of Smarmingham. And Jamie's reaction is... unbridled joy. He LIGHTS UP. He cannot believe she waited so long to tell him. Because, see, what was killing him this whole time was believing he missed The Expiration of Black Jack. Now that he knows Randall is alive, he reasons, then perhaps he can be the one to end the scoundrel. So, yay! Murder! Everyone is so excited for the slitting of the throat.

Hoodlander

Her hood here is SUPERB. They make me want to reclaim every hooded sweatshirt I have ever owned, just so I can dispose of them again for being inadequate.

Thoroughlander

Here's the coat itself in a better light.

Mysticlander

Master Raymond assures his Madonna that while he sold the black cascara to someone's manservant, he does not know whose. Then he gives her a pendant that promises to detect poison, which he swears is valuable, but which he will give to her for the low low price of nothing. She's like, "Cool!" Apparently Claire trusts that he is always telling her the truth, because she's blinding him with her plant science.

Then they decide to play fortune-teller with some old bones, as he cooes that he's always taken with things that are not of this time -- with a VERY pointed look at Mrs. Fraser. When she rolls them over his animal hide, he informs her -- without using these words, obviously, but let's cut through the breathy symbolism -- that she will be seeing Frank again in six months. And thus, we can be confident that the origin of the metal ring Claire brought forward in time with her -- the one with a stone missing from the setting, which she was scraping the ground trying to find -- came from this dude.

Secretslander

Louise confesses to Claire that she's pregnant by her lover and needs a quickie abortion, which she assumes Claire knows how to procure. She does want the baby, because she clearly adores her lover, but she hasn't slept with her husband in months and is SHOCKED at the suggestion that she bone him now as a cover story. Her reaction to this idea is as if Claire said, "Why don't you spank him five times with a cow's tongue during the harvest moon."

Breastsville

Meanwhile, Claire's right breast is like, "Listen, I am going on strike REAL SOON if Jamie doesn't get his hands on me with a quickness."

RIdinglander

Mission accomplished! Except, Jamie is a dunce. He is just a total wang right now. Claire notices bite marks on his chest and thighs, and he doltishly explains that they were from that time earlier that night when some whores at the brothel wanted to try a sixty-nine with him. Yes, and that's such an easy position to stumble into without full knowledge or consent.

Jamie then goes on this tear about how LUSTFUL it was, and how AROUSED he was at the brothel. And how for weeks and weeks Claire's body only made him relive his rape, but tonight he was ALL HARD MAN, FINALLY, and it's because he knows he can murder the man who violated him.

Is Jamie really this stupid? I know in Outlander world he's supposedly only about 22 -- which is HILARIOUS, Casting Department -- so I guess that explains why he'd be dumb enough to be all, "Don't you see? I was super horny for hookers and now the life your vagina was sucking out of me is BACK."

Freakoutlander

As you might surmise, Claire is like THE HELL, HIGHLAND SLAG?!?" She cannot believe he expects her to appreciate his adulterous erotic awakening at the hands of other women; indeed, she seems tempted to punch his face deep into next Thursday. The scene is somewhat bumbling, as is Jamie, and it leaves even the viewer not ENTIRELY clear how actively Jamie participated (though he claims no completion was achieved). I think in the end it was just male ego and that he put a stop to it? Still.

But then Claire plays the "DON'T YOU KNOW HOW DIFFICULT YOUR RAPE WAS FOR MEEEE" card and I'm temporarily off her team. Jamie sobers up and delivers this poignant speech: "There’s this place inside me … a place I think everyone has that they keep to themselves. A fortress, where the most private part of you lives. Your soul. The bit that makes you yourself and not anyone else. But after [the rape], it was like my fortress had been blown apart, the thing that once lived there was suddenly exposed, out in the open. Without shelter, without … That’s where I have been ever since, Claire. Naked. Alone. Trying to hide under a blade of grass. I think it best I sleep elsewhere tonight."

Banglander

He does, but only briefly. "Find me again, Jamie," she says, but presumably she's role-playing as her own G-spot, because that is what he locates.

Nakedlander

And then he hears a noise on the roof, and climbs out of bed, and a million DVRs paused while everyone went hunting for their binoculars.

Drunkylander

The intruder: The Bonnie Prince himself, who has gotten in a fight with his lover, because she spurned him and then her husband came home early. And yes, you guessed it, his lover is Louise. So Jamie and Claire now know that Louise is pregnant with the potential heir's potential (illegitimate) heir. What they choose to do with it is stack the deck at the dinner party, in the hopes that Louise and her husband will announce their baby and the Bonnie Prince will be driven mad and cause a massive scene that further torpedoes his reputation. "Are we bad people?" Claire wonders. Jamie says he thinks that doing a bad thing for a better cause isn't the worst trade. And truly, anything that keeps this nitwit from seizing the throne OR getting a bunch of Scotsmen murdered seems fairly above-board to me.

I have no shortage of Brit Guilt when I watch this. I know it's fiction, but Culloden isn't. I keep wanting to be like, "JAMIE I AM SORRY MY ANCESTORS KILLED YOU."

Timingville

Naturally, on the day of the dinner, there's a big something-something down at the Whateverplace, resulting in the volunteer hospital being overrun with casualties (which overseas means "very wounded" and not "very dead" -- "Casualty" was their "ER," except of course when "ER" was their "ER"). Anyhoo, Claire apparently forgot to whack herself with the sensible stick today, and dresses for triage in some ENORMOUS sleeves.

Chipperville

She also brings Noted Sadsack Mary Hawkins with her, who is as cheerful about a bunch of bleeding bodies as she's ever been about anything. This prompts Fergus to gossip to Murtagh about how she's in love but in agony over it, and Murtagh pretends he isn't into this even though he's COMPLETELY listening and wants to know any dish Fergus has on the chambermaid. (Ferg's view of her is not flattering.) He also gets in a dig about how Murtagh is going to die alone with his right hand, and Murtagh manages not to box the ruffian's ears.

Hoodlander

Seriously, her hood game is tight.

WOE. The carriage wheel breaks, threatening Claire's timely arrival back home. She decides they need to walk. It gets good and dark while they do it, which suggests a BIT of naiveté on the part of Claire and Murtagh, and I don't know WHERE Fergus went in all this, but he's certainly not present for the shenanigans which happen next.

Woelander

O LANDS! A BRIGAND. Yes, a masked bandit with a penchant for eyeliner swoops down from the roofs of Paris and conks Murtagh over the head with his kohl pencil sharpener.

Sadlander

Nothing funny about what happens next: Mary gets viciously raped by one of the gang, who celebrates that he's found himself a virgin to impugn. Claire screams, to no avail; she too is about to be either killed or violated when her hood slips and the brigands whisper, "LA DAME BLANCHE," and run for the hills.

"La Dame Blanche" is the French version of a folkloric concept of a spirit of, yes, a white lady who is often mischievous or harmful (WAY oversimplified, but I think I have the basics right). The French version doesn't seem to have been as dastardly as the German or Dutch, but clearly she is not a picnic. I wonder if this is also connected to her appearance at the docks, and her resistance to smallpox/her appearance coinciding with the disease's arrival. Like, it's possible people decided she was some kind of witch that day, and are using the colloquial term to refer to her specifically, rather than actually thinking that because she is fair she is a spirit.

Marklander

However, Claire notices a vibrant birthmark on the hand of one assailant. It's worth noting that the traditional button to the main titles this week showed a hand pulling a pin from a carriage wheel, and that hand did appear to have a similar mark on it, so that scene could have been intended as either a) vague foreshadowing of the two things that would connect to ruin the day, or b) a specific implication that the carriage was sabotaged.

Marylander

Regardless, poor Mary is in shambles. It will be interesting to see how the show treats her rape compared with how it treated Jamie's. Here, it feels a bit... like a plot piece that's an excuse to get from A to B (specifically, the need for something to ruin her courtship with Alex Randall, but also detain Claire and then lead to drama at dinner). Jamie's rape was agonizing to behold and deeply psychologically complicated -- I mean, it is NOT HEALTHY that the only way he got past it was because he realized he could still murder the man who did it -- and at least felt character-driven, as the culmination of Black Jack's gruesome obsession with trying to break the unbreakable boy. Mary being raped felt like, "Oh, well, we've known her for two episodes, she's young, the action needs a catalyst..." We'll see.

SCOUNDRELlander

Naturally, Le Comte shows up at this party with his equally evil-looking wife, and the two of them prowl around the House of Fraser looking like they are snorting lines of powdered menace. Nobody seems to mind. Well, Jamie does, but everyone else seems to find creepiness to be a normal occurrence.

Smarminghamlander

Simon Callow is a pompous delight in this part. Truly. He feasts on introducing Alex Randall to Jamie, although luckily Claire had taken all the bite out of that meal already and so Jamie's reaction is not as fulfilling as Simon would have wanted. TAKE THAT, CALLOW.

Redlander

Louise and her husband arrive; she later tells Claire that she convinced him the baby is his from a drunken tumble in the sheets. He looks like the sort of person who would not have had sex with his wife for MONTHS and then blindly accept that, yes, he totally forgot this momentous occasion the ONE time it happened.

Marklander

The Bonnie Prince is thrown. The character has a tic of saying "MARK ME" before every sentence -- like "Mark my words" -- but the lispy accent he gives it makes it easily mistaken for "MOCK ME," and that can't be an accident.

Anyway, Charlie is a massive tool, and he blows off the introduction to her husband and instead grabs Louise's hand and performs handilingus on it. Everyone exchanges startled looks. So Le Comte St. Germain can exist in a constant heightened state of scheme-based ecstasy and no one bats an eye, but a little hand tongue and people are skeeved? Uh-huh.

Alexlander

Poor Alex. When Claire et al get Mary home, they immediately set her up in a bedroom and decide not to make a scene for fear of ruining her reputation (indeed, her uncle and fiancé are downstairs awaiting their meals). Claire struggles to ready herself, and they all agree that it makes great sense to leave her with Alex. CLAIRE. I feel like she should know enough about the world to suspect that leaving AN UNCONSCIOUS, RECENTLY BEATEN RAPE VICTIM alone in a strange room in a strange house, with no one but a man by her side, is a stupid idea. It doesn't matter whether Mary loves him. She's going to be in shock when she wakes up, and she's so naive that she JUST told Claire that she doesn't believe English boys even LIKE the pokery. Again, this feels like another plot-driven decision rather than one Claire actually would make.

Crimsonlander

Also, she recovers handily and makes it down for a late dinner. Wearing her poison pendant. SUBTLE.

Dinnerlander

Le Comte banters with her about why she should be so afraid of poison in her own house, and whether he should fear the same. She's all, "MAYBE YOU SHOULD, ASSFACE."

Charlielander

You should also know that Charlie is indeed HIGHLY PERTURBED to learn Louise is with child, but just as he's about to make an enormous scene, Mary wakes up and flips her nightcap over seeing a man in her boudoir. As predicted, she smacks him and scampers away, and he chases her and tries to calm her down with words of love -- but it looks for all the world like he's trying to restrain her while he has his way. This doesn't play well with the peanut gallery...

Fightlander

... and so a big, confusing fight breaks out between Jamie and a bunch of glorified extras, like Mary's uncle and fiancé and whoever else. Jamie fights them off more or less with one hand tied behind his back, while Le Comte looks on in pervy joy. Then Le Comte encourages Charlie to leave and escape this palace of idiots, before promising to call the gendarme. So THAT'S great. Poor Alex.

Snacklander

Fergus, meanwhile, slides into the empty seats at dinner and proceeds to have himself a wonderful meal. Fergus is basically Gavroche. That didn't end well, so be vigilant, kiddo.

Fug the Show: Outlander recap, S2 E4, "La Dame Blanche"

You don't need to bother with the recaps to be curious about the costuming, and in that regard Terry Dresbach is your new favorite human. I'm going to use this space to highlight the pieces she's produced since the last airing that pertain to the costumes herein, and also some from last week. I urge you to take a look even if you've never watched a frame of the show, because the photographs are astonishing. If you are into minutiae -- and I am sure most of you are -- then you can't miss the post which zeroes in on things like the stomachers of all these fabulous French gowns Dresbach's team is constructing. It's even called "Frills, Furbelows, and Bows." Anyone who uses the word "furbelow" is a friend of this site. -- Since my last recap, she put up a GLORIOUS array of full-length and details shots of Louise's flowered gown from Versailles, with some analysis of how pivotal it was to nail this time and place through the clothes: "[W]e knew that we were going to play this time travel note with Claire. The ONLY way that works is if the world around her is very, very true to the period. [...] Of course you can never be truly authentic. There is no way to make thousands of garments by hand, in the time we have. We can’t use actual 18th century materials... But I did not want to present a contemporary view of history. As I say over and over, 'History is pretty good, just as it is! It needs no help from us.'" -- She highlighted what she calls "Posh Jamie," namely, all the waistcoasts they've produced for Sam Heughan. They even make the buttons themselves. I love this part: "There's something about a man so confident in his sexuality that he is not threatened by decoration. That men’s clothing has to be stripped bare, or it MEANS SOMETHING (gasp), is such a conceit of a later time, and an attitude that I think is very narrow and less progressive than earlier times. Again, we think we are so advanced compared to earlier periods of history. We had a recent discussion on Twitter about how restrictive corsets were to women, but once I posted pictures of Victoria Secret pushup bras, the discussion expanded." -- Oh, and this post about Jamie is A LOT of shots of Sam smoldering. You may need a moment. And a fainting couch.