Outlander Recap: “The Fox’s Lair”

Saturday night’s episode of Outlander found Jamie and Claire finally returning to Scotland after the tumultuous events that took in Paris. Viewers learned that while Jamie and Claire were away, Jamie’s sister Jenny and her husband Ian had another child and that young village boy Rabbie McNab is still living at Lallybroch; and based on the suggestion of Claire, the Fraser family planted potatoes (lots of them) and the crop was plentiful.

But, their tranquility was interrupted by a piece of mail that arrived with the Stuart Crest stamped upon, listing Jamie’s full name as one of Prince Charles’s collaborators; as it turned out, though, that signature was forged. The main problem with all of that is that there would be no way for Jamie to prove he didn’t ‘make his mark’ on that notification and if the British catch up with him, that he would be seen as a traitor to the current crown of England.

In light of this upsetting news, it was clear that Jamie (whether he really wanted to or not) was going to have to side with Prince Charles and build an army of men. In order to do that, he decided to pay an unexpected visit to his ‘grandsire,’ his brutish grandfather, who had many dalliances with women as well as three wives (more on that shortly), in the hopes of gathering the men he needed to fight alongside Prince Charles.

Jamie reluctantly revealed to Claire that his father was actually a bastard (an illegitimate child) of Lord Lovat, but despite that, Jamie’s grandsire raised him as his heir; but when Jamie’s dad chose to marry Jamie’s mother (a MacKenzie) [there has always been bad blood between the Frasers and MacKenzies], the senior Lovat basically wrote all of them off.

The majority of the episode focused on Jamie trying to win his grandsire to his side, providing Jamie with his men OR signing a neutrality pact with his rival Colum MacKenzie, who took Claire and Jamie by surprise being at Beaufort Castle along with that malicious Laoghaire.

It was hard enough to watch Jamie wage a battle of words between his Uncle Colum and his Grandfather Simon; but it was even more difficult to watch Laoghaire (who was another surprise visitor at Castle Beaufort much the displeasure of both Jamie and Claire) beg forgiveness of Claire when it was clear that she really wasn’t as repentant as she claimed.

It was even more interesting to learn that Jamie’s grandfather had a great respect for the supernatural – as long as the visions went in his favor, of course. After Claire witnessed his treatment of his seer Maisri – because she told Lord Lovat that he would face a traitor’s executioner – Claire used that same vision – pretending once again to be La Dame Blanche – the White Lady, a witch – in the hope of winning him over to Jamie’s side. That, of course, didn’t work with Lord Lovat playing both sides, signing the neutrality pact with Colum while providing his men to his son Simon, who sided with Jamie.

The next new episode of Outlander will air on Starz on Saturday, June 4 at 9/8c.