Outlander Recap: “Perpetual Adoration”

Sunday night’s episode of Outlander took a very circuitous route to tell its various stories, focusing once more on time travel with flashbacks to Claire and Brianna prior to their trip to London to a time when Claire unexpectedly lost a patient, who not only reminded her of Jamie but also who led her on the path to return to the love of her life.

There were many stories happening throughout this episode, in fact.

One storyline found Jamie and the militia riding into Hillsborough where they met up with Lieutenant Knox and the rest of the British soldiers. It was here that Jamie learned that Governor Tryon had unexpectedly decided to pardon the Regulators for their crimes – all of them except Murtagh, of course – and that Knox was awaiting prisoner records from Ardsmuir that would hopefully lead him to finally finding their quarry.

When those records finally arrived to Knox in his room at the local tavern – where he was playing a game of chess with Jamie – he finally learned the shocking truth that Murtagh is Jamie’s godfather. Needless to say, Knox was very upset by that revelation, holding a knife toward Jamie, telling him that he would have him arrested. Unfortunately, Jamie had no choice but to silence Knox by knocking his face into the wall and using brute force to snuff out his life. Once that deed was done, Jamie placed Knox in his bed, burned the prison records, opened the fireplace flue and climbed out the window, hiding in the dark as the British soldiers eventually pulled Knox from the tavern. It was an unfortunate turn of events, but one that had to be done to protect both Jamie and Murtagh (for now anyway).

It was during his brief hiding that Jamie discovered a small gray kitten, who he took home to Fraser’s Ridge. More on that kitten shortly.

As for Roger and Brianna, they were reunited once he delivered Claire back to the big house with the twins in tow. As the couple cuddled in bed, Roger spoke about his thinking about his former life as a professor, and what it would be like to teach again – perhaps at Mackenzie University. That brief mention spurred Brianna to think about teaching math, but those plans would have to be put on hold because of Roger giving his word to Jamie to serve by his side.

To make matters worse for the couple, Roger discovered the diamond given to Brianna by Stephen Bonnet when she visited him at the jail in Wilmington. We got another flashback this time to Bonnet and Roger playing a card game on board his ship. Roger knew that Bonnet would’ve never given up that gem so he was very upset when Brianna came clean about how she had it in her possession. To see his fear and anger was just as hard as seeing the trepidation and tears on Brianna’s face. This fight led Roger to spend the night out in the woods, finding him have an encounter with Claire the following morning as she was looking for herbs for Kezzie and Josiah (who she operated on earlier in the episode with assistance from Marsali, who is adapting well to her role of nurse).

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Upon returning to their cabin, Brianna finally made the revelation to Roger that Bonnet was very much alive – telling him what she heard Lord John telling Jamie at their wedding. Roger said they would use the gem from Bonnet for Jemmie so once they knew if he could travel through the stones – like both of them – then they would leave and go back to their own time, which is something Roger has been wont to do but there seemed to be some apprehension on Brianna’s face.

The flashbacks to Claire and Brianna to the time before their trip to London were very telling. We got to see behind the curtain, so to speak, of Claire’s time as a doctor after Frank’s death and Brianna’s time before she knew the truth about Jamie; and a time before they both met Roger. Claire’s patient Graham Menzies needed to have surgery on his gall bladder, but unbeknownst to the medical team, he had an allergic reaction to penicillin – which played a part in this episode as well, as it seemed that Claire had found the right mold as shown in the opening scene of Claire seemingly finding the correct strain.

Her patients Josiah and Kezzie seemed to fair well with the newly created penicillin and the surgery Claire performed on the twins’ tonsils; but Mr. Menzies was not so fortunate. His death led Claire to not only pay a visit to his Catholic Church – ergo, the name of the episode (Menzies wished to be back on his feet a few days after his surgery so he didn’t miss his perpetual adoration, something he hadn’t missed since losing his wife) – but also his death lead Claire to London, which had a ripple effect of finding out about Reverend Wakefield’s death, which lead to them meeting Roger, which lead her to telling Brianna about Jamie, which lead to them discovering Jamie survived Culloden (et al). If Mr. Menzies hadn’t passed away from that allergic reaction, Claire might never have gone back in time to reunite with Jamie. [How wondrous was that visual montage at the beginning of the episode, by the way, showing snippets of events in Claire’s life that all lead her to Jamie.]

One other flashback had Claire meeting up with the oft-missed Joe Abernathy (he was always such a great friend and supporter of Claire during her years in medical school and as a doctor!), who joked with her about picking up that romance novel in the surgeon’s lounge, which he claimed he left there because “it takes my mind off things.” He heard her out as she contemplated whether Mr. Menzies death was leading her down an unexpected path. He told her there was clearly something on her mind, but that it wasn’t a “problem in the brain, the problem is in the heart.”

Now let’s talk about that kitten! The little gray critter and Jamie “took a liking to each other,” and given that the kitten is identical to a cat Jamie’s beloved mother had when he was a lad, he named the kitten Adso – the same name as that long-ago cat. It seemed that Claire took quite a liking to the little kitten, and we will definitely see more of that little gray wisp of a cat.

What did you think of this episode? Share your thoughts with us below.

[Photo Credit: Starz]

The next new episode of Outlander will air on Sunday, March 22 on Starz at 8/7c.