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Outlander Recap for Season 7, Episode 10 “Brotherly Love”

By Rueben | December 3, 2024

The episode opened with a flashback to Jamie and Old Ian as young boys together, getting a swordfighting lesson from Ian’s father, who told them they needed to protect each other just like brothers. And then the scene was whisked to their current time with the men standing on the moor together for the last time, talking about the true age difference between Jamie and Claire as well as remembering when they promised to be brothers in blood. It wasn’t long after that that Jamie placed Old Ian in bed; he and Jenny each took one of Ian’s hands and he gasped out his last words to them both. We then saw Jamie digging a grave for Ian talking to Jenny about leaving soon for Philadelphia to be with Claire and that she could go with him, but Jenny said she wouldn’t go until the “weans” no longer needed her.

As the episode got underway, we saw Claire and Young Ian riding together in a carriage in Philadelphia, clearly on their way to Lord John Grey so that Claire could help his severely injured nephew and so that Young Ian could find Rachel Hunter, the young Quaker girl who he fell for and for whom was tending to his dog, Rollo. It was during this carriage ride that it was made clear that the British were occupying the city, that they were suspicious of spies – at least according to what the porter at the docks had told Young Ian – and that the British seemed nonplussed about checking the identification papers of any women.

A short time later Claire was dropped off at the home of a Mrs. Mercy Woodcock (more on her shortly), where John’s nephew had been convalescing since his THREE surgeries, two at the hands of the surgeons on the battlefield and one at the hands of Dr. Denzell Hunter (Rachel’s brother). It was also revealed that while Lord John had resigned his commission, he continued to wear his British uniform as a means to an end, primarily safeguarding Mercy who was for “independency.” As it turned out Mercy was the wife (nee widow) of Walter Woodcock, the man who Claire had treated at Fort Ticonderoga back when Jamie was briefly conscripted into the “war.” Mercy not only assisted Claire and Dr. Hunter with a successful surgery on Henry, Lord John’s nephew, but she later revealed herself only to Claire that she was a spy, passing letters between an unidentified man and General Washington (more on that later too.)

Elsewhere in Philadelphia, we saw Rachel and William, Lord John’s “son” (and as viewers will remember Jamie’s biological son) at the market with Young Ian’s dog Rollo, who – soon enough – ran off, making Rachel think that perhaps Young Ian had finally arrived; but it took time for them all to converge in the same place. However, Arch Bug – the widower of the woman who Young Ian had inadvertently killed after the Big House on Fraser’s Ridge had been burned down – was there to exact his revenge against Young Ian. That revenge culminated in Arch attacking Rachel in the barn of her home with her brother Denzell only to be caught in the act by not only Young Ian but also by William. As Young Ian fought off Arch, receiving an injury to his arm and then almost being killed by Arch, a shot ran out and Arch fell over dead. William had shot him! It was a short time after this troubling incident that Young Ian and Rachel confessed their love for each other, but they also tried to figure out how they could be together since she is a Quaker and Young Ian clearly is not.

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Meanwhile in 1739 Scotland, Buck and Roger were at the home of Geillis Duncan where Buck was receiving care from Geillis for his heart problems. They had an odd moment with each other (after all Buck is Geillis and Dougal’s son) and Roger eventually tried to find out if Geillis knew Rob Cameron – the man who took Roger’s son Jemmy. It soon became clear that Geillis did not know Rob, but she had an inclination that she knew Roger. Of course, they had met in 1968 before Geillis used the stones to travel back in time, but Roger was clearly not going to admit that to her. Soon enough, visitors arrived at the Duncan residence to see Roger: one of them being Dougal MacKenzie. He had learned that Roger was looking for the “fairie man” who had recently been seen, bringing a charm to Roger that the man had given the local tinker. Roger played dumb about what the charm was until Dougal and Geillis – who were meeting for the first time, I might add – left the room. Roger then told Buck that the charm was actually military ID tags that belonged to – of all people – Roger’s presumed dead father, a member of the Royal Air Force, who had disappeared during World War II, his body never being found. Roger was convinced that the “fairire man” was his father NOT Rob Cameron.

After Mercy had told Claire that she was basically a spy and believed that the British not only knew what she was doing but also knew her face, Claire volunteered to help drop the letters that would be taken to General Washington. Upon Claire’s return from one of those “drops,” she learned that there was a visitor with Lord John and they had news for her…very unsettling news for her. As it turned out, the visitor was Amias Ratliff, the Captain of the HMS Roberts, who was there to tell them about the ship Euterpe – the very ship that Jamie was aboard, according to a letter Claire had received from Jamie; a letter that told her he was coming to her in Philadelphia. That ship, sadly, had been lost at sea during a horrible storm and the crew of the HMS Roberts had searched for two days, finding no survivors. Claire, of course, told Lord John that it couldn’t be true that Lord John was wrong. “I would feel it. I would know,” she said. “I would feel it in my heart if his had stopped. Mine would stop too.” But those ominous words of Lord John rang out, “He’s dead, Claire. He’s gone.”

We then saw Claire’s despair as she lay in bed, crying and writhing in agony as words and visions of her life with Jamie played out in her mind. It was a short time later that a British officer, known to Lord John, came to the house stating that he was there to arrest Claire as a spy – for passing those letters. Lord John held the man off stating that Claire, recently widowed, was at church. The officer gave Lord John one day to turn Claire over. Lord John immediately ran upstairs where Claire had locked herself in her room, telling her in no uncertain terms that in order to protect not only her, Young Ian, Mercy as well as Rachel and Denzell – that she had to marry him or British would arrest and then hang her.

Borrowing a line from Roger from last week’s episode as well as his utterance when he came face to face with Dougal MacKenzie within this episode, “Oh, Christ!”