Furrowlander
Jamie is very adorable when vexed. Here, he is either: a) annoyed that Claire's knowledge of potions doesn't extend to anti-frizz; b) unsure how to explain to Murtagh why he isn't dueling Frank anymore; c) trying desperately to remember the 14th digit of pi; d) confused, because how DOES a bastard orphan son of a whore and a Scotsman dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by providence, impoverished, in squalor, grow up to be a hero and a scholar, and could Claire perhaps find the original Scotsman and raise his progeny for their own tactical use?
Crossville
The answer, officially, is B, although I suspect they are all true. Murtagh and his mustache are jointly very angry and disappointed in Jamie for canceling the duel -- and worse, frustrated that Jamie can't give him a good explanation why. I would offer, "Can we agree that duels are dumb and immature, sir," but nobody asked me.
Nurselander
It's a relief to see Florence Nightinclaire mucking about at the hospital dressed in stuff that does NOT appear to have raided Jamie's uncle's coffers. Or at the very least, she covered the nice dress with an apron.
Creeplander
It will not surprise you that the King's executioner, who moonlights as a doctor, is portrayed as a hollow-cheeked square-jawed Disney villain who delights in describing the finer points of the Drawn-And-Quartered method. Think, "Noooo oneee... starts like Gaston to cut you apart like Gaston, no one rips out your still-beating heart like Gaston. 'I'm especially good at exsanguinating!' My what a guy that Gaston!"
He does also offer up some exposition: The King hates the dark arts, and so he's taken to rounding up suspected practitioners -- like, potentially, their mutual pal Master Raymond -- and dooming them to grisly deaths. King Louis, this sounds like something ACTUAL Dark Artists would do. You have not been reading your Harry Potter.
Capelander
I will never get tired of watching Claire hustle around town in her cloak.
Byeeelander
Claire warns Master Raymond that he's probably about to get Gaston'd, and he finally takes her seriously enough that he promises to piss off someplace far far away. Which is gonna make him look REAL GUILTY, but I guess he IS guilty, so either way he's probably doomed. He promises to see Claire in another life -- or another time, he suggests, winkingly. I hope he turns out to be the ancestor of the lady from the 1940s. You know, The Housekeeper Who Knew Too Much.
Kiltlander
KILT ALERT.
Poxlander
So, Claire and Jamie have this cockamamie plan to drug Le Comte St. Germain's men and rub their coats with poison ivy so that they will believe they have smallpox, and the shipment of wine -- the sale of which will line the Bonnie Prince's rebellious pockets -- will have to be burnt as tainted. This is clever, except I also worry about Le Comte thinking, "Hmm. HOW INTERESTING. MORE SMALLPOX," before drawing a line to the only common denominator between those experiences. I don't have any better ideas, though, so I'm just going to sit back and watch Jamie's manly knees as he tests Claire's work.
Recoverylander
Jamie realizes it's past time to tell Murtagh the whole truth, and Claire agrees. So after his intestines have been brushed clean with the rude spikes of the pseudopox, he staggers out to the courtyard and tells Murtagh everything. Claire doesn't join him; she just watches from the window. Which I get, to a point; it's their business, to be settled their way, and she might come off as an interloper in that confrontation (even more so than she already might be). But also: She's kinda the one who set them off on this journey, she is the one who demanded that Jamie not fight the duel, and she is the one who just gave Jamie the demi-pox. MAYBE she could've done him a solid and helped him with this one?
Dudelander
Murtagh's reaction is great: He is irritated Jamie didn't tell him sooner -- Bros Over Flux Capacitors, y'all -- and then decks him across the face for emphasis. But that's basically like a hug. He also seems to have heard this story thusly: "Claire is a witch." Which is EXTREMELY helpful for her reputation.
Mathlander
Murtagh then writes out all the years of Claire's 20th-century life to try and grasp when she claims to have existed before now. She gently points out her date of birth and the year she became a nurse - "Healer," she amends - and Murtagh very simply tells her that he can't imagine what a heavy burden it must be to know the future. Especially a grisly one like Culloden. And so that's how you know they're fine too. Murtagh isn't mushy, but just very flatly says that it must really suck to have foreknowledge. He doesn't judge; he just states. He is a treat.
Frauleinlander
So then Claire, looking for all the world like Fraulein Maria watching the Von Trapps skip around the park singing scales, sends Fergus and Jamie to the waterfront to enact her Best-Laid Scheme. They successfully taint the clothes and bottles -- it's a completely tension-free moment, surprisingly -- and LO, WHAT POX IS THIS, the men get sick.
WOElander
The Bonny Prince is MOST VEXED. MARK ME. It seems the scheme has gone off as planned and Le Comte has a bunch of poxed dudes writhing around and a warehouse full of potentially tainted wine and no money for to buy daddy a bloodbath for his birthday.
Dudeslander
Le Comte is also enraged, and EXTREMELY suspicious of Jamie. AS YOU WOULD BE, if Jamie was present -- and intrusive, to your eyes -- the day your last shipment of mischief got destroyed by the pox. Charlie insists that he trusts Jamie with his life, and then begs Jamie to go ahead and take the wine and sell it yada yada yada ROAD TRIP!
Gulplander
Jamie is like, "Your Highness I don't have any good mixtapes for a bros' weekend." No matter. They shall all go. What fun.
Robberlander
And so, Scheme #2: Murtagh and a merry band of hired brigands are going to attack the convoy, steal the wine, and leave (and take it elsewhere, like Portugal, to sell). I feel like Jamie involving his right-hand man in this plan is going to backfire spectacularly, but at least Murtagh gets the maid to tuck him into his French costume and then rip it off him immediately thereafter.
Memelander
For your personal use.
Jamie also explains to Claire, by the way, that he disagreed with her logic that he owed her a life, because he figures he's saved her too. Ergo, he says, the real reason he decided to postpone the duel was because he isn't convinced Culloden can be prevented -- and if it comes to it, he wants Claire and the bairn to zap back to the 40s and be with a man who truly loves her. Claire agrees. This is very nice and all, and presumably it comes straight out of the books, but: As it played out on TV, Jamie did not have time to come to those conclusions, because he was too fully immersed in his anger at Claire's request. None of that inner monologue played out in that scene. So it comes off as a convenient "Oh by the way here's why Jamie isn't mad at Claire anymore even though last we saw him he was sleeping in another bed" kind of patch.
And it bears repeating that I can't figure out why nobody has wondered whether Frank's failure to exist would impact Claire with regard to her time travels.
Raidlander
Jumping ahead: Sure enough, when the caravan is raided, Murtagh ends up in a pistol standoff with St. Germain. They are glaring at each other, and loudly refusing to back down, until Jamie tackles St. Germain (ostensibly for his own protection) and then deliberately takes a knockout blow to the face from Murtagh. The way St. Germain and Charlie are always hanging around, it seems SO UNWISE to let Murtagh do that much heavy-lifting here. What if his kerchief had fallen?
Suspicionslander
And indeed, Le Comte gets in Jamie's face and points out that the attack felt like an ambush -- as if the ruffians were lying in wait because they knew the exact route. Jamie and Claire REALLY seem to think St. Germain is dumber than he is. GUYS. He's the EVIL brand of handsome that ALWAYS bespeaks someone who will sniff out your shenanigans or have someone tail you. Don't underestimate his Crazyface.
Weepylander
Poor Charlie. He sticks up for Jamie and then just breaks down in tears over the idea of not being able to give daddy the throne, which is the ONLY thing he doesn't already have, apart from central air and a flushing toilet. He's such a maddening fool and he got so many people killed in real life, and yet I kind of feel sorry for him. Which is wrong, but I can't help it. He's COMPLETELY pathetic here.
Ladieslander
I just thought you'd like to see some more period costuming. These must have been really fun days to loll about on set.
Consciencelander
As the ladies gossip, Claire becomes totally sickened at how shallow and awful they are -- but they don't take well to her social commentary and pleas to help the homeless, either. In fact, one actively misinterprets her concerns as meaning, "Please sweep the homeless off our streets and dump them in another part of the city." Disgusted, Claire leaves. But her belly is also not feeling well and she's bleeding slightly, which Mother Hildegarde attributes to the baby turning. She is prescribed rest at the hospital.
Scamplander
So when Jamie returns home, Claire is still at the hospital sleeping off her cramps. Gavroche -- er, Fergus -- relays this, and then offers his aid to Jamie when he's called to Madame Elise's. It seems Charlie has rung up a massive tab and won't pay it. Fergus, of course, cannot resist taking his sticky pickpocket fingers for a jaunt around the brothel. Look at his little angel face, and then imagine the music cue when it's revealed that Fergus snoops around in a room in which hangs the red coat of one Black Jack Randall. It's like they made Ferg look EXTRA angelic in this scene just to really turn the knife when he wanders into Jack's room. We don't see Jack, and we don't know what ensues, but it's clearly going to be... what's the technical 18th-century French term... shitballs dangercakes.
Defiancelander
Claire comes home and a) hears what's up, and b) finds a note from Jamie apologizing but saying he has to duel Jack anyway. Claire's giant sleeve is NOT HAVING THIS, so she insists on being taken to the Bois de Bologne -- which is, from my understanding, rather large, and I can't recall if she was told exactly WHERE in the Bois to find him -- so she can stop the duel. This, despite her abdominal cramps.
She also nervously fingers Frank's ring, which she is still wearing? I think? If I'm not mistaken someone in the comments last week said that Book Claire used the ring as a sort of symbol that Frank hadn't been erased yet, but TV Claire hasn't gotten there yet. So it comes off like she's more emotionally torn between Jamie and Frank than I think she show itself is presenting. She NEVER seems to struggle with that, except suddenly here. I understand that not wanting to have sex with him anymore does not means she wants him to be Erased From Existence, but... again, I think the show is being inconsistent here. If Claire still misses Frank, or has pangs for Frank, or is in any way still experiencing feelings for him, I think they need to take us there more fully.
Duel-lander
She arrives upon this scene in a merry glade. I kind of can't believe Jamie would give in to the duel, on the principle that surely he KNOWS Jack is enjoying all the phallic imagery their swordplay conjures. This has got to be an erotic experience for that dude, so immediately we fear that whatever happened to Fergus must have been Bleak Indeed. NO SPOILERS. (I'm wondering if he caught a beating and Jamie walked in on it.)
Jacklander
I just liked this screen grab. Tobias Menzies was JUST SO CREEPY AND EVIL in the first season, but I think his sympathetic acting as Frank in the premiere of this season made me happier to see him overall.
Oh, but Jack shouldn't get too comfortable. Why? Because LITERAL REVENGE IS AFOOT.
YEEEEOWlander
Or awang, as the case may be. Because -- in an upsetting piece of symmetry -- just as Claire's uterus expels massive quantities of blood, Jamie STABS JACK IN THE JUNK. And for whatever reason, when this happened, my brain screamed, "REVENGE! REVENGE FOR WANDA!" just like Michael Palin in A Fish Called Wanda when he steamrolls Kevin Klein into the wet concrete. Revenge for WANGda. ZING.
Unconsciouslander
But ALAS, the gendarme has been alerted; dueling is illegal in France, and as they pull up to arrest Jamie and a woozy Jack, Claire collapses. Jamie sees, and screams to her, but it's too late; the last thing she sees is him being wrestled away. Do we think Master Raymond is going to have to step in with his Dark Arts? In the very moment his wife's reproductive organs gave out, has Jamie erased Frank from existence by filleting Black Jack's urethra? Find out next week on Crotchlander.