Outlander Recap: Introducing the Lady Grey
Oh, Outlander friends, I laughed so, so hard during “A Hundredweight of Stone.” It was, perhaps, not the intention. But you’re telling me that after seven seasons of scenes chock full of unrelenting looks at gore and violence and tragedy, Outlander has finally found a line it will not cross and that line is Claire Fraser and Lord John Grey having grief sex?! That is the scene the powers that be thought, hm, no, this will simply be too much for audiences to stomach! We must film it as quick cuts leading up to the sex and then fade to black right before the sex, and then cut to them awkwardly waking up next to each other! We cannot put people through anything more than that! I have a whole list of gratuitous Outlander scenes I wish I could unsee, and this one would be nowhere near it. Anyway, hilarious.
It’s not like I’m over here suddenly ‘shipping Claire and Lord John. If Outlander is going through with this storyline, which, honestly, is insane — I get the time constraints with the spy accusations, but Claire isn’t going to, like, write one letter to double-check her husband is dead? — it needs to commit to the bit. Time is of the essence with this season, sure, but it feels like we’re speeding through all the most interesting beats to … continually check in with Roger, who this week buys a gemstone for a return trip through the stones and finds his father’s Royal Air Force jacket. That’s it! These Roger/Buck scenes are giving off real “this meeting could’ve been an email” vibes. We have much juicer stuff going down in 1778. We even, dare I say it, have juicer stuff going on in 1980 where — surprise! — Rob Cameron reveals he did not take Jemmy through the stones; he just wanted to get rid of Roger. Bree still doesn’t know where her son is, but she does slam Rob’s face in with a frying pan, which is very cool.
What’s not cool, however, is not giving this whole Claire/Lord John thing room to breathe. Their marriage, their drunken hook-up, and their grief is surely going to reverberate through each corner of what is one of the wildest TV love triangles around for the rest of Outlander’s run. It’s doubly frustrating because Caitriona Balfe and David Berry have proven time and time again how skilled they are at portraying the complicated (and that’s putting it mildly) relationship between Claire and Lord John. We don’t even get a full episode of it before Jamie arrives very much alive in Philadelphia for one of the least shocking reveals of the series. Yes, shit will surely go down once Jamie actually learns what his wife and best friend have been up to in his absence, but it would’ve been nice to dive a little bit deeper into Claire and John’s new dynamic.
Please note: I’m complaining out of love! What we do get of this duo is so good! It’s such an interesting look at how this pair are dealing with their grief both separately and as a pair: Claire, a zombie person; John, beside himself, pouring his sadness into his mission to keep Jamie’s wife safe. When William can’t understand why his father would risk his reputation and marry a rebel, why he would go to bat so hard for this other man who was just a groom and now a traitor, John has to work so hard not to blurt out first because Jamie is the love of his life and second because Jamie is your real father and you are my greatest joy; What two insane secrets to keep! The tears in that man’s eyes! The moment when he looks over at the empty chair across from his chess board, weeping? That’s devastating right there.
So, it makes sense that Lord John, bereft, lonely, and drunk out of his mind, would find his way to Claire’s room that night. She has been spending the evening contemplating her own death (the memory of Jamie dissuades her from that tragedy), wailing at the heavens, and chugging whiskey. The moment when they come together on that bedroom floor is so intimate (maybe the most intimate part of this whole thing, so joke’s on you, fade to black!) that it is hard to watch. They are both angry with each other (Claire’s “he is not yours to mourn!” is quite effective!), angry with Jamie, steeped in this despondency, and almost irrevocably broken. They drunkenly claw at each other; it’s a mix of fighting and holding on to each other for dear life.
When they awkwardly wake up next to each other the next morning there is a different kind of intimacy. The fact that they can both fully admit that they were thinking of Jamie while having sex with each other displays such a level of trust, even if they don’t want to admit it. It’s honestly probably so nice for John to have someone to speak freely with about Manoke, the cook at his Virginia estate with whom he has an open relationship, even if that whole speech about how their relationship is like the gorgeous deer that magically appears and disappears on his property is less romantic and enchanting and more Example of a Colonial Fuckboi. The whole scene almost gives you hope that should they have to, these two could live a great life as friends who are married.
It wouldn’t be without some bumps, of course. The first occurs when Claire and John go to check on Henry Grey, still recovering at Mercy Woodcock’s house. Henry’s doing great. So great, in fact, that he informs his uncle and new aunt that he and Mercy are madly in love and they want to get married. Could Lord John write to Henry’s dad, the Duke of Pardloe, and tell him, pretty please? The second John puts on that ARE YOU OUTSIDE YOUR MIND look on his face, you know Claire is going to have words. In the end, she has one word, mainly, and that word is bigot. In the carriage ride home, she takes her husband (!!) to task for being so against Henry marrying a Black woman. There is a church in Philly that performs weddings in secret for interracial couples, the two of them are desperately in love, and also doesn’t John know exactly how awful it is to be forbidden to be with the person you love most? John’s like, whoa, whoa, let’s back up the bigot train here, lady, which is impressive because trains weren’t even invented yet. John’s only objection to Mercy is that she is “the widow of a traitor to the crown,” and Claire’s response is, to paraphrase, it me. John’s putting up a stink because he knows his brother, Henry’s father, would disown him and cut him off if he were to marry without approval (and he would never get approval). He also knows that Henry and Mercy would spend their lives living in fear of getting caught and perhaps facing violence in the end. John wouldn’t want that for Henry or Mercy. John does look terrified at the thought of a life like that for his nephew. He isn’t as awful as that interaction with Henry and Mercy made him look, but still, Claire is winning this argument. Give Henry and Mercy their own spinoff, you cowards!
The argument Claire decides isn’t worth pursuing comes later, when Lord John gifts her a dress and tells her, surprise, we’re throwing a big fundraising dinner for all the Loyalists in town. Claire hates this, of course; she is a rebel till the day she dies. And, as she told Ian, one of the reasons she isn’t going to head through the stones and return to her own time is because she and Jamie believed in this fight for independence, and she wants to continue it in his name. Still, John reminds her that they are still very much in the stage of convincing people their marriage wasn’t some ploy to take the heat off those traitorous spy rumors (it was). He is trying to keep Claire alive, but he needs her to play the part just a little.
Eventually, Claire puts on that blue dress, adds Lord John’s wedding ring to her growing collection, and joins the party. This party provides two major moments. First, after watching William — her closest tie to Jamie, even if he doesn’t know it! — blow off some very nice woman named Peggy because, as he admits to Claire, he is still down bad for Rachel. She gives her new step-son advice that basically boils down to “the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else,” and I love that for both of them. Even if you were moved by Ian and Rachel’s declaration of undying love for each other before they head off to Valley Forge, you still have to feel a little bad for William who did murder for Rachel just last week and literally no one is talking about it. Poor guy, it is not meant to be.
The other important moment is a fun surprise on the dance floor. Captain Richardson, yes, the same one who came to Lord John with evidence of Claire being a rebel spy, asks Claire for a dance and then immediately informs her that he is working for the rebels, too. He’s quite loud about it, to be honest. He thinks they should team up and wants Claire to especially focus on getting information from and about Lord John’s brother, the Duke of Pardloe. Now, Claire is all for the American Cause, but she isn’t about to turn on Lord John — she’ll do it her own way. She promises to keep Richardson’s secret, but that’s about all.
It feels like yet another sign that while they have their differences, Claire and Lord John are attempting to become a team.
And wouldn’t you know, just as things are taking a positive turn in this new marriage, Jamie fucking Fraser bursts through the door. He’s alive! His luggage made it onto that ship, but he never did! And now, for some reason, I’m sure we’ll learn at a later date, he needs Claire so they can peace out because a whole bunch of Redcoats are hot on his tail. Both Claire and Lord John are overcome, but only one of them gets to make out with that resurrected hottie with a body. John interrupts the happy reunion by informing Jamie that his son is due shortly and he needs to get out of there. Jamie’s response is, “William, he’s here?” and babes if you didn’t think that back-and-forth meant that William was definitely eavesdropping, you don’t know TV.
William finally learning that Jamie is his real father is everything I hoped it would be. Unlike the whole “Jamie is dead!” thing that no one in their right mind believed would stick, this reveal is real, permanent, and heartbreaking. The way William screams at both Jamie — James, now is NOT the time for a callback to the “stinking papist” moment that William definitely does not remember, okay, read the room — and then at John, will ruin your day. And if it doesn’t, well, think back to earlier in the episode when John told William that his life is worthwhile because of his son, and now he might lose that son!!
Holy hell is Lord John taking some real Ls in this episode! Here’s hoping he can sneak off to hang out with Manoke sometime soon and they resume their open deer relationship or whatever. I mean, the episode ends with Jamie pointing a gun at John’s head and “taking” him “hostage,” so the Redcoats who storm into the house back off, which will take up some of his time, but, like, after that.