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Outlander Recap Season 7 Episode 2 “The Happiest Place on Earth”

By Rueben | June 26, 2023

The second episode of season 7 of Outlander opened back at home on Fraser’s Ridge, clearly a number of months since Tom Christie sacrificed himself for Claire, as her hair is slightly longer. Claire was gathering herbs and pondering on his fate when she glanced across their land and saw a figure in the graveyard. It was Allan Christie kneeling at the gravesite of his deceased sister and her child. He was clearly still grieving deeply for them, and during his uncomfortable conversation with Claire he explained they lived with his aunt while his father was in prison and that he was the one who took care of Malva. “She was perfect,” he said, as Claire watched him with concern since he had a gun lying on the ground next to him.

It was then that he revealed his incestuous relationship with his sister that resulted in her being pregnant. The whole truth then came flowing out of him: that he killed his sister, that she had lain with Young Ian and another man of the Ridge and that she would have to marry and make that man believe that the child was his (rather than her brother). “So you put her up to saying it was Jamie’s,” Claire said angrily. He thought that Jamie would simply give Malva money that would allow them to leave and be together, but she couldn’t go through with it. Malva, out of love for Claire, threatened to tell Claire the truth and that was when Allan stopped her in the garden outside the Big House. He tried to change her mind, but when she told him that she didn’t love him – shown in flashbacks – Allan sliced her throat with a knife and left her there to die. It was in that split second that he grabbed the gun, attempting to take his life, but Claire stopped him.

Claire told him to leave and never come back, but then he abruptly stopped talking and fell over dead with an arrow in his back; an arrow delivered to his body by the bow of Young Ian, who – for a short time thought they bairn might be his. So much death in one family in such a short amount of time. Together Claire and Young Ian started to dig a grave for Allan’s body only to be startled by the presence of Mrs. Bug, the Fraser’s housekeeper. She shared with them that she never trusted him, and began to help them “before someone else” came along and found them.

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After the opening credits, it was time for the birth of Roger and Brianna’s child with Roger and Jamie in the room along with Claire and Brianna. It was an odd way to introduce their baby daughter to the world – let alone the birthing chair that Brianna was in – but welcome to the world “wee granddaughter.” As the happy couple contemplated what name to give the bairn, Roger said Amanda, as it means “she who is loved” in Latin. Christened Amanda Claire Hope Mackenzie the happy family listened as Lizzie read the birth announcement that was placed in the local newspaper by Fergus.

Of course, Jamie wasted no time taking little “Mandy” out to the barn to introduce her to the horses; specifically a newborn horse that would be hers once she was old enough to ride him, being taught – naturally – by her grand-da. Then it was granny’s turn to show Mandy all through her surgery, proclaiming that maybe someday the wee child could one day be a surgeon just like her. That is when Claire noticed a discoloration to the baby’s fingernails and after listening to the baby’s heart, Claire diagnosed baby Mandy with a certain kind of heart condition. According to Claire, since she was already experiencing symptoms, it didn’t look good, meaning there was a good chance that the baby would die. The family was obviously heartbroken with that possibility, especially once Claire explained that she could not “fix it,” but she knew someone who could. But that meant that they would have to travel to the future; all of them not just Brianna and Mandy. Claire detailed what she could try to do on her own to Jamie, but without nurses and an operating theatre – like from her own time – she simply couldn’t do the surgery herself.

So it was off to Wilmington they all went to see if they could get gemstones from the silversmith so the family could attempt to travel through the stones on Ocracoke Island. While in town, Brianna was surprised to see Lord John Grey, uttering her mother’s saying “Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ” before approaching him. John was also surprised to see her there, then he introduced her to his son (nee Jamie’s biological son and Brianna’s brother) Lord Ellesmere, William Ransom, now a grown man in the British Army. During their conversation, Brianna told them she and her husband were leaving for Boston (“It’s a long story,” she said) and William explained that his father insisted on accompanying him from England to the Americas. It’s during this conversation that Jamie saw Brianna talking to them, and with a slight nod from both Jamie and John, Jamie walked away.

As William left them, the conversation soon turned to Brianna asking Lord John if he was ever going to tell William the truth about his parentage. He clearly thought she was mad, stating that only 5 people knew the truth about him and two of them took that truth with them to their graves. It was then that Brianna shared with Lord John about her father Frank and how her feelings changed about her “da” once she met and got to know Jamie.

A short time later, Jamie arrived at Lord John’s room where they talked about the brewing conflict between England and the Americas as well as about William’s determination to fight. They also briefly spoke about Brianna’s desire for William to know the truth and also about Jamie’s association with the Sons of Liberty. “The day I carried my godfather from the field of Alamance, I swore I’d never fight alongside the British Army ever again.” That said it all. Sadly, this would be the last time Jame and Lord John would see each other with Jamie saying they “would need to sever ties” between them because of the opposing sides they had to be on, but that would never end their friendship. It was then that Lord John gave back the gemstone that Jamie gave him after escaping from Ardsmuir. One more gemstone for them to use. It was soon revealed that Roger had been able to find two other gemstones during his travel through Wilmington so now they were set to travel through the stones.

It was then that Jamie asked Brianna to go for a walk with him, and they spoke of her meeting her brother. Then they sat down to talk, while watching fireflies, which reminded Brianna of Disneyland. She explained what Disneyland was to Jamie, sharing that “when you are there it’s like the real world disappears and nothing bad can happen there. They call it the happiest place on Earth, and for a little while it seems that way,” she said to him. They spent a wonderful, albeit small amount of time talking together about what Jamie could be if he were able to travel to her time, maybe a printer or a farmer. She even joked about him being in a 3-piece suit.

Later that night, Jamie told Claire that he “saw” her there “in your proper time.” He saw her “in light, sitting at her desk and there was light all around you, shining on your face and hair, but it wasn’t candlelight or firelight”…he believed it to be the electric light that she told him about. He told her he dreamt of things he has never seen all the time, but it had only happened in the last few years. He never shared that with her because he didn’t want her to think he was “daft.”

The next morning,the family rowed out to Ocracoke Island to the circle of stones so that the family of four could go through the stones to save little Mandy’s life. As they said their tearful goodbyes to each other, it was touching and heartbreaking at the same time; and with that Brianna and Roger walked hand-in-hand towards the stone with their children in their arms and disappeared, waking up on the other side, all together and in their own time, as an airplane flew overhead – and not just the wooden one in Jemmie’s hand as he circled around them with the toy.

Back in the past, Jamie and Claire rode home to Fraser’s Ridge, where they lay awake clearly broken-hearted over losing their family to time and distance. “We’ll never see them again,” Claire said. She wept deeply in his strong arms, but in the weeks that followed, Claire took what comfort she could in knowing that Roger and Brianna were not dead, only “elsewhere.” Lizzie gave birth to her child, and they made new memories every day and added them to ghosts of old ones. They counted their blessings, and Claire said – in voice over – “it really was the happiest place on Earth.”

But then we saw Claire as she walked home to the big house as dusk was falling only to find the door open. She walked inside and that was when a matchstick was lit in her surgery. Wendigo Donner was inside their house with one of the matches that Brianna had created, asking her “where did you get this?” He then told her he was there because he needed her help. He wanted answers, he wanted to know how “it worked” so he could get back to his own time. She explained that he couldn’t be drunk (which he was the last time he attempted to travel through the stones), that he had to think about someone or something that tied him to his own time. He soon raised a gun against her and revealed that he wasn’t there on his own. He had brought some “friends” so he could get more than one gemstone.

It was then that his friends pushed Jamie, with a wound to his forehead, into the surgery, and then they started to ransack the house, looking for gemstones. Two of the men shoved Mr. and Mrs. Bug into Claire’s surgery, dumping out Mrs. Bug’s yarn bag, which contained an unexpected piece of gold. It was at that moment that Jamie yelled in Gaelic to Mr. Bug “where did you get that?” [the gold was probably stolen from Aunt Jocasta, whose husband had taken the gold that King Louis had sent to the Jacobites before the Rising]; and Donner yelled at his friends that gold wasn’t what he needed. He demanded they find him gemstones so they began ransacking Claire’s surgery, fumbling around in the pitch black, breaking bottles of herbs and medicine on the ground. Unfortunately, some of the bottles they smashed contained the ether that Claire had created, and like the idiot she accused him of being, Wendigo Donner lit a match and a huge explosion rocked the Big House, as seen from afar before the screen faded to black.