Outlander – S3E13 – Eye of the Storm

Previously on Outlander, “The Bakra”

Images: STARZ

With Jamie on his way to having his head forcefully removed from his body by the Crown, Claire is on her own to get Young Ian out of Geillis’ clearly evil clutches while Fergus and Marseli try to save Jamie. The newlywed couple enlist the help of Governor Adorable, John Grey, who pulls some major rank to get Jamie off the hook. Poor Captain Leonard, who is just trying to do his damn job, may or may not have the actual paperwork to keep Jamie under lock and key, and according to Grey’s tone of voice, has no choice but to release the prisoner.

Claire’s stealth mode needs a little work; she walks through the slave quarters practically yelling for Young Ian, and then is somehow surprised when she’s caught and taken to Geillis. The Scottish witch is getting a little paranoid in her age, and Claire has to convince her that she’s not following Geillis around the centuries trying to foil her plan. In fact, without a single drop of witch doctor truth serum Claire spills all of the tea about herself and Brianna trying to convince Geillis of the truth. With photo evidence in hand, Geillis finally reaches the conclusion we’ve all already come to: that prophesy about the 200-year-old baby could actually make some sense if it were about Brianna!

Whatever Geillis originally had planned for Ian, the new plan is to sacrifice him to get through the stones to kidnap Brianna to bring to her back to kill her to bring about the new Scottish King. It’s a surprisingly well-thought out plan to have been made on the fly. She steals Ian off to Abandawe, the Jamaican version of the traveling stones; once Jamie collects Claire from Rose Hall, the two of them are in hot pursuit. Or they would be, if they didn’t get sidetracked by a band of Maroons having a fire-side ceremony that looks eerily similar to the druid dance around Craigh na Dun. Also, Margaret Campbell and Mr. Willoughby appear in the Free Man’s camp, because why not? They’re actually there as guests of the Maroons, and it’s a good thing this white woman and her Asian boyfriend are there to vouch for the Frasers, otherwise there’d be trouble.

A little directional advice from the Free Men get Claire and Jamie to Abandawe, where they catch Geillis doing her best Gollum impression over a magical blue pool; in Jamaica, instead of stones, they travel through a Hot Tub Time Machine. Jamie fights off an enormous slave while Claire tries to reason with Geillis about sacrificing her nephew. When reason doesn’t work, she just straight up cuts her head three-quarters of the way off and is treated to a flashback of Dr. Joe and the broken skeleton they examined together back in Boston. That conversation about the white Jamaican skeleton seemed unimportant at the time, but now…nope, still unimportant.

Governor Good-Looking really pulled out out the stops in getting Jamie free—he can actually go back to Scotland and be a free man, which is the first time in probably twenty years. They carve out a minute for some well-narrated sexy time on the boat before The Artemis hits a wicked storm. The boat falls apart (in fairness, it’s probably still the DIY job they did back in Grand Turks) and according to her voiceover, Claire dies as she is pulled underwater by the debris. Jamie, who can’t hear the voiceover, jumps in after her and brings her back up to the surface, and after an undetermined amount of time they wash up on a sandy beach. A family finds them, both sandy but alive (if unreliable as narrators), and the entire crew of the The Artemis is also sandy but alive a few miles down the beach. Oh, and that beach? Georgia. The Frasers have landed in the New World.

Things and Notes

So that was the finale, huh? That was a lot of work to bring back Geillis, make her over the top and glorious, cover her in goat’s blood, and then kill her off in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene. I mean, really anticlimactic and disappointing; basically, she’s alive, and then she’s not, and it’s not even until you see her lying in her own arterial pool that you realize she’s dead. Another great villain brought down in her prime. It’s just wasteful.

Mr. Willoughby and Margaret are eloping, so we can only assume we won’t be seeing him again. Not that he contributed a ton to this season—they both could have been way more interesting but were reduced to one-dimensional plot devices—but hopefully no one was attached to either of them.

It only took all season, but Jamie finally seems to be in a better mood. It’s probably wrapped up in that not being a fugitive anymore. The point is, he needs to narrate more things. Any things.

Governor Handsomepants, though, needs to make it a point to be a recurring character. I can’t think of a logical reason that he would need to get from Jamaica to Georgia, but I’m sure they’ll come up with something that is neither logical nor necessary. As long as he gets there, though, that’s all that’s going to matter for Season 4.