Outlander Recap: “Temperance”

Sunday night’s episode of Outlander opened with newborn Henri-Christian floating down the river in a small basket, which was placed in that fast-moving water by five of the young boys of Fraser’s Ridge (one of which was the grandson of Jamie and Claire, Henri’s own big brother).

Why would they do this?

They were told by some of the adults on the Ridge that he was the Devil’s Seed, and the boys were testing the wee baby to see if that was true or not. Thankfully, Roger was nearby and was able to rescue the child from the clutches of the rapids before any undue harm could be caused. The same could not be said about those five young boys, who received a tongue-lashing from Roger. Later on, the boys had to face Jamie himself at the big house where he gave the boys two options: touch a red-hot poker or touch the child. Wisely, each boy gingerly (and still in fear of both the babe and Jamie) touched the little boy, learning quickly that nothing happened except for Henri to squeal in delight.

Once Marsali and Fergus learned of the involvement of their oldest son in this foolish quest, they naturally were furious at Germain. This situation only drove Fergus further into a drunken stupor, which not only caused a big fight between him and Marsali (to the point that she told him to leave their home) and then later caused a scene at the gathering of the rents at the big house, but also caused Fergus to attempt to take his own life – feeling that he was nothing, that he was useless. Thankfully, Jamie was there to stop him and was able to reason with him about all that he has done for his family and for Jamie over the years.

As for Tom Christie, now that his injured hand, from attempting to chop down trees, was now healed, he came to Claire for the surgery of his other crippled hand. As we all saw in last week’s episode, his primary purpose was to be able to punish his wayward daughter Malva – although he lied to Claire about why he consented to the surgery – and that is exactly what he did near the end of the episode. A week after his surgery, Claire introduced him to some novels [something that he had never been highly in favor of until his time at Ardsmuir), but the book – “Tom Jones” – upset enough that he returned it to Claire with a note stating, “This is Filth. I thought better of you.” [This will assuredly cause problems for Claire and Jamie]

RELATED: Outlander

There was also some discussion between Jamie and Claire about Malva; mainly about her birth, which left some doubt as to whether Tom is actually her father since he was still in Ardsmuir when Malva was born. Speaking of Malva, she had several encounters with Ian where viewers learned that her mother was burned as a witch (that explains why her “father” seems to have such disdain for her); and then Jamie encountered Malva looking for mushrooms for her father, and Jamie then showed her an even better location for mushroom picking. [As book readers know, this is only the start of the troubles that Malva will cause for Jamie and Claire.]

We also got to see some glimpses of Marsali at a spinning wheel that Brianna had a major hand in creating (along with help from some of the other men on the Ridge); and even a small wheeled-car that Roger and Brianna’s son called his “vroom.”

The closing scene found Major MacDonald arriving on the Ridge with a large collection of guns for the Cherokee as requested by Jamie of the Governor. He also arrived with a newspaper that included an article about the “Boston Tea Party,” which caused Claire even more concern about the impending revolution.

“It’s starting. It’s almost here.”

Did you watch the episode? What did you think of it? Please share your thoughts with us below. Make sure to watch the next episode of Outlander on Starz on Sunday, March 27 at 9/8c.