Outlander (The Morning After) Recap: “The Way Out”

The third episode of Outlander opened with Claire (series lead Caitriona Balfe) and her husband Frank (series regular Tobias Menzies) walking side-by-side at a train station during World War II because – of all things – Claire is heading off to the front (rather than Frank). Despite his best intentions using the connections he has, Frank hoped to keep Claire from the front but she didn’t want to have special treatment when so many other men could not do the same. Claire assured her husband she would be all right and he said her stubbornness is what he finds so attractive about her.

As she fades off into the fog on the train, Claire then stands naked in a small tub in 1743 as Mrs. Fitz (recurring guest star Annette Badland) dumps cold water over her head and body. As the scene plays out, Claire reveals her true origins (“I seemed to have fallen through time” she says) to Mrs. Fitz only to have the good Christian woman react badly, slapping her face and calling her a witch. At that second, Claire comes alert at the dressing table where Mrs. Fitz is actually combing her curly locks, telling her about the upcoming “Gathering” where all of the MacKenzie men will converge on Castle Leoch to declare themselves to the Laird, Colum (series regular Gary Lewis).

Claire’s day then continues in the surgery, the healer’s room where she has been relegated by Colum and Dougal (series regular Graham McTavish), reading up on the elixirs used during that time while her guard – Angus Mhor (recurring guest star Stephen Walters) – watches on. Soon enough, though, Angus seems to become bored with Claire’s ministrations and he is later found in the kitchen with Claire’s other guard Rupert MacKenzie (recurring guest star Grant O’Rourke), nearly drinking themselves in a stupor.

That is where Claire learns about the death of the son of Colum’s chamber maid the previous night due to a visit to the old ruins of the Benedictine monastery that is known to the locals as “The Black Kirk”. She is told that demons roam the ruins and that is what took the poor boy. Not that long later, Claire learns that Mrs. Fitz’s nephew has also fallen under the evil of the ruins, and despite being warned away by not only Angus but also Geillis Duncan (series regular Lotte Verbeek), Claire pays a visit to the boy. Upon her examination of the boy, she realizes he seems to have been poisoned but before she can determine the cause, Father Bain, the local Catholic priest, (guest star Tim McInnerny) enters the household to conduct an exorcism and Mrs. Fitz tells Claire to be on her way.

Claire is then invited by Dougal to visit the village – specifically Geillis – to stock her shelves before the Gathering; and while there Claire witnesses a young boy getting into trouble over stealing some bread from his employer. Arthur Duncan, Geillis’s husband (guest star John Sessions) is the fiscal of the area (in other words the magistrate or attorney for Castle Leoch and the surrounding village) and he passes judgment on the boy with an hour on the pillar with his ear nailed to the stock. Before Claire returns to the castle with Jamie (series lead Sam Heughan), who came to retrieve her since Dougal was called back to the castle early, she asks Jamie to take a risk in helping the boy. Rather than having to rip his ear from the nail, Claire creates a distraction and Jamie pulls the nail from the boy’s ear for him. Then Claire asks Jamie if he will risk something else for her: she wants to see The Black Kirk.

Jamie takes her there and Claire learns that most of the boys, a one point in time or another, visit the ruins as a way to prove their manhood (Jamie did the same when he was younger). The boys would “caper about, climb the walls, piss on the stones” to defy the devil and even “eat berries or wood garlic”. Unfortunately, the wood garlic that the boy who died as well as Mrs. Fitz’s nephew ate was not wood garlic but actually Lily of the Valley, which is poisonous. With this revelation, Claire is able to use 20th century medical practices, using the medicines available to her in the 18th century, saving the sick young boy’s life, but gaining the distain and ire of Father Bain. “I smell the vapors of hell on you”, he warns to Claire.

Elsewhere in the story, Claire is called upon by Colum to massage his deformed legs much like what the former healer did for him; but rather than massage his legs, Claire massages the lower portion of his spine, providing considerable relief to the aged man. In turn, Colum invites Claire to the hall for a performance by Gwyllyn the Bard (guest star Gillebride MacMillan), the musician and singer who has been at the castle for many years, dating back to when Jamie was a teenager, which he shares while the two of them as well as Laoghaire (recurring guest star Nell Hudson) sit together during the Bard’s performance.

Laoghaire shared, during that conversation, that she remembered when Jamie was there as a teen even though she was only a young girl herself; and without meaning to, Jamie was a bit harsh on the girl saying that he didn’t remember her. Later on, though, Claire catches Jamie kissing Laoghaire and she couldn’t help herself but tease him about it at dinner that night. Once Jaime left the table a bit befuddled, Murtagh (recurring guest star Duncan Lacroix) gave Claire a “talking down” that if Laoghaire’s father or Colum learned of them kissing, Jamie could end up in bigger trouble than just having a bloody nose (he did take a beating for the girl after all). He could end up with a wife that is not suitable for him. “He needs a woman, not a lassie. And, Laoghaire will be a girl til she is 50”, he warned.

In the end, Claire does become invaluable to Colum for “her healing touch” and even though she had hoped working herself into his good graces would help her to get out of Castle Leoch, she has earned the name “The Miracle Worker” and Colum has taken credit for bringing her on as the new healer. Based on Jamie telling her that Colum will, undoubtedly, not let her go any time soon, Claire believes she will never be able to leave the castle. But during the next performance by the Bard, Jamie explains the song he is singing. It is about a farmer out on a fairy hill on the eve of Halloween who hears a woman singing about touching a tall stone and traveling in time where she lives with strangers who become lovers and friends. In time, though, she returns to the stone and travels back to her own time and the man she left behind. This, of course, is a folktale to the MacKenzie clan but it mirrors exactly what happened to Claire with the end result that she has hoped for since arriving in 1743. She states, “I knew in that moment that I could no longer wait for permission or assistance. I must escape Castle Leoch and get back to the stones as soon as possible or die trying”.

Best Lines of the Episode:

Frank to Claire at the Train Station: “Woe but I the man who stands between you and what you set your mind upon”.

Dougal to Claire before the Bard’s first performance: “It seems the feral cat we picked up on the road is trying to pull in her claws”.

The fourth episode of Outlander will air on Starz on Saturday, August 30 at 9/8c. Don’t miss out!