Outlander Recap: “La Dame Blanche”

Claire and Jamie have obviously settled into their ongoing undercover world trying to stop the Jacobite Rebellion on Outlander; and perhaps they are settling in just a little too comfortably.

As the episode opened, Claire joined Jamie and the Minister of Finance, Joseph Duverney, at their regular chess game where the Minister inquired of the couple if they had chosen names for their unborn child. Not surprisingly, Claire and Jamie had not discussed names and they both had very different opinions. Claire wanted to use Lambert if it is a boy – in honor of her uncle; but Jamie felt that was far to English (your wife is English, Jamie, what do you expect?!).

What was Jamie’s choice, though? A name I can neither spell nor pronounce. And while Claire could clearly repeat the name, she was not a fan of it either. I have a feeling at some point the couple is going to have to sit down and discuss this (and many other things) before too long.

But trouble looms close enough because Claire quickly becomes ill after sipping on some wine, making it necessary for Jamie to carry her out of the grand “play room”. The problem with all of that – her quick illness not withstanding? The Comte St. Germain was there not only watching over the chess game played between Jamie and Duverney but also glaring at Claire throughout. Could he be the culprit behind Claire’s poisoning?

At home, Claire and Jamie discuss that possibility as well Jamie’s thought to host a dinner in honor of the Duke of Sandringham (especially in light of them figuring out he is the mystery man behind the financiers who have aligned themselves with the Bonnie Prince Charlie). But if they do have this dinner party, Claire is going to have to reveal what she knows about Black Jack being very much alive.

Thank God she doesn’t hold back, telling her husband the truth. But his reaction – to say the least – was far from what she (or viewers) expected. He was actually pleased with the news not because Black Jack is alive but because he hasn’t missed out on the evil man’s demise. He wants to witness the man’s death – be it at his own hands or anyone else’s for that matter.

The following day Claire paid a visit to Master Raymond wanting to know who he sold the poison (Bitter Cascara) to in the recent past. Ironically (or not) they had talked about the laxative-like poison during her previous visit to his apothecary. Sadly there was no definitive proof that it was sold to a servant of St. Germain or not, damn it!

During that same visit – mainly because of the King’s guard who seem to watch Master Raymond’s apothecary far too carefully – the medicine man invited Claire into his secret back room where she found a dinosaur skull and a mysterious empty cup presented to her by Master Raymond. Long story short, the cup contains bones that can be shaken inside the cup, tossed onto the hide of a zebra and read much like the tea leaves that Mrs. Graham read for Claire.

Claire thought about Frank (who she mentioned worrying about to the apothecary) and he read her “fortune” (so to speak) from the tossed bones. “You will see him again,” he told her. Say what? Granted, we know that is true from the season premiere, but the Claire from that precise moment did not know about that future outcome. Fortuitous, no?!

There were so many other things happening in this episode so let’s condense:

• Louise de Rohan is pregnant, but not to her husband and she wants Claire’s help in getting rid of the baby. She asked Claire how she could raise another man’s child with her husband (sound familiar at all?);
• Jamie came home from the brothel very amorous – but with bite marks on his thighs – setting the couple into yet another fiery argument, which – after many months of them struggling to work their way back to each other after Jamie’s horrific experience with Black Jack at Wentworth Prison – thankfully led to tender lovemaking between the couple;
• Then the couple was interrupted, oddly enough, by the Bonnie Prince, who arrived at their home – from the direction of the couple’s roof – because he had to leave his lover’s home secretly;
• Claire quickly surmised, based on the injury on the Prince’s hand, that he and Louise de Rohan are lovers;
• A week later the dinner party has arrived, but Claire goes to the charity hospital to help with an explosion that took place at the Royal Armory; and when she was finally able to return home, their carriage had a broken wheel (of course!), making it necessary for Murtagh to walk Claire and Mary (who was there helping with the sick and injured) home;
• But that ended horribly as they were set upon by brigands, who beat Murtagh down, attacked and raped poor Mary and attacked Claire, but when the hood of her cloak was removed – and they saw her face – they quite literally freaked out, yelling “La Dame Blanche” and they ran for their lives.
• Once at home, Mary was taken to their guest room to be watched over by Mary’s secret love – Alex Randall – and the dinner party got underway, but even that didn’t go as planned – because the Prince didn’t quite react the way Claire and Jamie hoped and Mary created quite a ruckus, which ended in a fight between Jamie and Murtagh and the visiting General, Mary’s uncle and her older (frumpy and rather unpleasant looking) fiancé. Meanwhile Fergus enjoyed the abandoned wine and food while Claire and Mary looked on in concern over the fighting and the Duke, St. Germain and the Prince left.

The next new episode of ‘Outlander’ will air on Starz on Saturday, May 7 at 9/8c.