Outlander Recap: “Uncharted”

Last week’s episode of Outlander left viewers with a bit of a cliffhanger as Claire jumped overboard off the Porpoise, hoping to make it to land in order to eventually make it to Jamaica to warn Jamie that Captain Leonard and the British Army were planning on arresting him once he hit land.

As the new episode rolled out last night, we saw Claire struggle to shore, and the rather horrific experience she had in finding “civilization,” as well as being reunited with Jamie and the crew of the Artemis, who had a bad experience of their own.

The official description for the episode, entitled “Uncharted” follows:

“After making a leap of faith, Claire washes up on an island where survival is her only option; Jamie devises a joyful moment for his crew in the midst of setbacks.”

Survivor

As if she were a contestant in a 17th Century version of Survivor, Claire washed up on the beach of an unknown island after who knows how much time adrift at sea after jumping overboard. With only her meager belongings in tow, she headed inland with the hopes of reaching any kind of village or perhaps even reaching a port on the other side of the island.

But as time went on, Claire went through a pretty horrible experience, finding little to no water to drink, food she could not reach and, worse yet, being attacked by ants [that left horrible bite marks all over the lower parts of both her legs] and waking up to a very large snake crawling across her body. [I must say I was crawling out of my skin over those scenes, how about you?]

After what seemed like at least several days of lost wandering, Claire finally stumbled upon a rather unexpected find: Father Fogden.

Coocoo for Coco the Coconut

Much like the Tom Hanks character in the box office film Cast Away and his “friend” Wilson the Volleyball, Father Fogden was a bit off his rocker (to say the least). Before we delve more into the priest, let’s take a look at what Claire experienced while under his roof.

Claire collapsed in front of his “home,” being found by his dog, and some time later she woke up tied to a bed with what appeared to be green slime all over her ant bites. We learned that Claire was being tended to by Mamacita – who tied Claire down in order to keep her from scratching her legs raw.

As her condition began to improve, Claire desperately wanted to make it to Jamaica, but she could not convince Father Fogden of the urgency. In fact, he not only startled her by talking to Coco the Coconut [who does that?] but also telling Claire that Coco would make the final decision on when he could accompany Claire to get to the nearby village.

Just as Claire thought she had finally convinced Father Fogden to leave for the village, though, Mamacita [who seemed to hate Claire on sight, calling her a whore and a Jezebel] came screaming to him, holding the butchered head of their beloved goat Arabella, which had been cooked over a pit by a “China man.”

Reunited at Last

Upon learning about the “China man,” Claire knew it had to be Mr. Willoughby and that hopefully Jamie was nearby too. She raced off in the direction pointed out to her by Mamacita, making it to the shore just as Jamie and the surviving crew members of the Artemis were rigging up the damaged mast [from a gale that caused significant damage to the ship and took the lives of Captain Raines as well as several other ship hands].

Obviously they were too far out to sea for Claire’s screaming voice to reach them so she used a small hand-held mirror – which she conveniently swiped from Father Fogden’s shack – glinting it off the sun to catch the attention of anyone onboard. As luck would have it, Jamie was the one who saw the glimmer and as he grabbed the spyglass, he realized it was Claire on the shore.

Finally the two lovebirds were reunited on the beach! And, Mr. Willoughby tended to the arm injury that Claire sustains during her harried race to the beach – more on this injury further below.

I Now Pronounce You

Since Jamie gave his consent for Fergus and Marsali to wed, and they were fortunate enough to have a Catholic priest on hand, the young couple was finally married. Although the ceremony was a bit unusual because of Father Fogden. It was touching that when asked for his full name, Jamie told Fergus to use the last name of Fraser. It was also nice that Marsali finally seemed to come to terms with Claire “not (being) the devil after all” after Claire helped her out with birth control issues.

Turtle Soup

This is THE scene that so many fans of the book have been waiting to see! Claire, recovering from her ordeal and burning with a fever, was eating turtle soup made by Mr. Willoughby, who added a whole bottle of sherry to the mixture, making her quite a bit tipsy, well more like it, drunk.

We learned that Claire had left her 20th Century supply of Penicillin on board the Artemis, which was at least fortunate for her, as she needed a good dose of the medicine. While Jamie couldn’t administer the miraculous cure to Claire [although you’d think he would want to get a “little even” with her from poking him with that needle in a previous episode], she showed him what to do.

The episode ended with Claire and Jamie making love, him entering her from behind [like horses, ya ken], with Jamie covering Claire’s mouth as Mr. Willoughby rapped on their door, asking if Claire liked the turtle soup and if she wanted anymore. It was a fitting ending to an otherwise, partially underwhelming episode until Claire and Jamie were reunited.

What did you think of last night’s episode? Please share them in our comments section below.

The next new episode – the penultimate episode – of Outlander will air next week on Starz on Sunday, December 3 at 8/7c.