Outlander – S4E12 – Providence

Previously on Outlander, “If Not For Hope”

Last week, Murtaugh was arrested by the Red Coats in an effort to let Fergus get away without getting caught; he might have tried a little harder to not get caught himself if he’d realized they were also going to hang him. Fergus, who is feeling a little guilty about the sacrifice and has a lot of unemployed time on his hands, comes up with a plan to save their leader. Surprisingly, Marseli is 100% on board with it. She does owe Murtaugh a solid, plus city life has not been all it’s cracked up to be. If they can get away with saving Murtaugh and get out of town with their skins, now seems like a fine time to claim a plot on a particular 10,000 acre ridge in need of residents. There is a beauty in the simplicity of their plan, I guess: break in with guns, get Murtaugh, create an explosion-themed diversion, and get the hell out of town.

This must be the episode for hare-brained schemes. Bri, with her newly-minted fiancé Lord John, is desperate to get an audience with one Stephen Bonnet when she learns he’s being held in the Wilmington prison. Jamie, in the very letter Grey delivered, has promised her that forgiveness is the only way for her to get over it, and Lord knows Grey won’t refuse her if she invokes the name of Jamie Fraser. They spend a lot of time on the “You can’t” and “I must” and “Are you sure”? and “OH MY GOD I’M GOING” before they finally make for the prison’s visiting hours. Brianna, in a dress that I’m almost completely sure my American Girl Felicity doll owned, does at least take a moment to acknowledge what we all are thinking: Mr John Grey, you are a delight.

Grey pulls his Lordly strings to get her an audience with Bonnet, and before you know it she’s alone in front of him with not much to say except “I forgive you”. Weird thing about forgiveness is that it seems like a ridiculous thing to offer someone who isn’t even looking for it. Bonnet leers and scoffs at Bri, and her forgiveness starts to get a little louder and more aggressive; it’s sickly satisfying to watch him get under her skin and then have her go into detail about how he’s going to die and be forgotten. But you know, forgiveness. It’s not until she tells him about the baby that he really bothers to take any of this seriously, and he presses a ruby on her that he pulls out of a tooth socket to help with his baby’s upkeep. Classy until the end, that guy.

Brianna runs into Fergus as she’s leaving the prison and their two ridiculous plans converge. There’s a little bit of convincing John Grey not to tell on them, what with him being in tight with the Governor (and him and Murtaugh not being in the best standing), but Grey keeps his word and helps get everyone—even Murtaugh—out of the prison alive. The gunpowder diversion works exactly as they’d planned by blowing everything up, and Fergus and Murtaugh make a French exit in Marseli’s covered wagon as the building goes up in flames. Lord Grey comes in clutch when he tells the Red Coats he has no idea about anything, giving the Regulators time to get away safely. That man is impossible not to like.

Roger makes it out of the gauntlet alive, though not unharmed, and the Mohawk name him a captive—I wonder if he had just gotten back up, if they would have made him an honorary Mohawk instead? That story Young Ian told a few weeks ago about Mohawk adopting new braves into their tribe seemed suspiciously foretelling at the time… although since Roger never gets back up, we may never know. He is christened Ehhaokonsah, which he eventually finds outs means “dogface”; it’s on account of his whiskers, but also might be on account of his being a Mohawk bitch, carrying their wood and keeping their fires lit and roaring. One sweet Mohawk lady takes pity on him, but the rest are kind of dicks. Although from their perspective, this man is so terrible that his own people sold him, so he’s most likely getting treated better than he deserves.  

He gets banished to a prison hut when he can’t stop accidentally being offensive, where he makes friends with a French priest who is also being held captive. The priest has his whole own backstory, where he was saved from illness by one sweet Mohawk lady whom we know already know, and once he broke his vows with her he’s been so consumed with guilt that he will no longer do his priestly duty like baptize babies. Roger presents him with a whole season 4 recap of reasons why doing things for love of anyone other than yourself makes you an idiot, but Father Frenchie cannot be swayed. Roger makes a secret escape as they drag the priest off to put his feet to the fire, but the screams of a man being burned from the bottom up keep Roger from sticking to his new “look out for #1” ideology. He actually sneaks back into the camp and rushes the pyre with a barrel of something super flammable. Rather than let his new friend die an agonizing death from 3rd degree burn-induced infection, he can at least grant him a quick and not remotely painless death. But who would have guessed that sweet Mohawk lady would also rather die than live without her baby Father? She jumped her ass on that pyre as well, leaving her little blue-eyed orphan baby to be raised by the tribe.