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Outlander Recap: “Free Will”

By Rueben | March 5, 2020

As we saw at the end of last week’s episode of Outlander, Jamie was being sent back to Fraser’s Ridge in order to gather a militia to combat the Regulators; and we learned that Claire was attempting to find penicillin (157 years ahead of time).

As the third episode opened, Marsali was asking Claire just how she knew what to do with the mold study; and of course, Claire couldn’t tell her the truth so she turned that conversation into a teaching lesson. Marsali is a smart woman, determining that it could have been due to an experiment or reading it in a book or perhaps she learned it in Boston. They continued to discuss the various colors they need to look for in good and bad mold; and then Claire told Marsali she will teach her how to examine the specimens under the microscope. The biggest fear for Claire is, of course, “daring history to try and stop her.”

Then Jamie returned in the wee hours of the night, riding up to the big house and walking into the quiet of his home. Naturally, he found his beloved wife Claire asleep in bed, and he thanked God for her being there. She heard him whispering in the night, and they shared a few rare moments together before he had to break the news about his latest order. She was firm with Jamie that she needed to go with them as the physician, and despite his obvious apprehension, he agreed.

The next morning Fergus was dispatched to create broadsheets in order to call all able-bodied men from 16 to 60 to join the militia. A few days later, Jamie and Claire were preparing to depart for Hillsborough with Roger and Fergus directly behind them followed by the men of the Ridge.

Claire reminded Marsali to continue her studies and to keep an eye on the mold specimens while Bree was asked to help Marsali; after all, she was put in charge while Jamie is gone. In fact, Bree joked with Roger that she was having a Scarlett O’Hara moment with all the men “living the plantation.”

When they made camp that night, Jamie broke the news to Claire – as confirmed by a letter from Lord John – that Stephen Bonnet is, indeed, alive. Claire was relieved to learn from Jamie that Bree doesn’t know (if only that were true, though).

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The next morning a young man was being chased by one of Jamie’s men through the camp as he yelled “thief” at the young man. When the lad was caught, they all thought it was Josiah, the new hunter on Fraser’s Ridge; but when Jamie practically dragged Josiah into the camp, it was clear he and the young man were twins.

Soon enough Josiah explained their past. They were indentured, for 30 years, to an Indian trader, who lived nearby to their current location. They were orphaned when they were 2 years old, after their parents and siblings perished during the journey across the sea to the Colonies. Unfortunately, the Indian trader was abusive toward them, even starving them. Josiah ran away a year earlier, but he had to leave his twin behind because he is deaf (something that was caused by the Indian trader who boxed the boy’s ears one time too many). Josiah had every intention of returning for his brother when he had a way to take care of him, which he now does because of Jamie.

Jamie knew he would have to take Josiah’s brother under wing, but that would require getting the indenture papers from this Indian trader. It was decided that Roger would continue with the rest of the men, mustering more men as they continued toward Hillsborough while Jamie and Claire sought out this Indian trader.

That is when everything went downhill…at least for Jamie and Claire. They found the dilapidated cabin and foreboding barn with an emaciated horse. What they found inside that cabin was even more unsettling. Not only were there several goats being kept inside but also young Fanny Beardsley, the clearly sloven and abused wife of the Indian trader: Aaron Beardsley

The rest of the episode was almost like a horror show – which may seem strange to non-book-readers – but this story is directly out of the pages of the fifth book. Fanny claimed that her husband died, but that was not the case. Claire found him lying in his own filth on the second floor of the cabin, suffering from the after-effects of apoplexy (I.e. a stroke) brought on by chasing his young wife presumably to rape her. Fanny claimed that he was very abusive toward her, but that particular time he fell to the floor, writhing in pain, and she left him there, torturing him over and over again much like how he treated her.

The creep-show didn’t stop there. Fanny tried to kill Aaron once he was brought down to the kitchen to be treated by Claire. In the scuffle with Jamie (while he was trying to stop her from killing the Indian trader), she crashed against one of the walls, causing her water to break – she was pregnant! Now Claire had to bring Fanny’s child into the world; and as it turned out, Aaron was not the father. The child was clearly sired by a black man, who Fanny claimed was a good man.

Given the hour, Jamie and Claire had to spend the night in that horrible place with Aaron lying on the kitchen table and Fanny on an old mattress on the floor. In the middle of the night, Fanny left the cabin, leaving her child behind with the deed to the cabin and Josiah and his twin’s indenture papers lying beneath the little baby girl. Now Jamie and Claire would have to safeguard the child until they could get to the next settlement as well as find a nursemaid to tend to her.

But the hardest part was yet to come. Jamie couldn’t stay because of his orders to gather a militia; he couldn’t leave Claire alone with Aaron and the child and Aaron wasn’t going to last much longer because of his current condition. The choice was left up to Aaron himself. His decision was death, which had to be administered by Jamie with a bullet to the head while Claire remained outside with the baby.

The end scene was that of passenger parrots flying out of the trees in droves as the bullet went off in the quiet of the morning, making an ominous vision as the episode came to a close.