Outlander: Season 2, Episode 7: 'Faith'

The emotional toll of this week’s episode of Outlander is staggering, but Jamie’s right: We should bear it all together now.

Though we are first given a hopeful preview image of the future Fraser child, who’s got her father’s unmistakable red locks, the same scene is also quite unsettling because the girl is living in 1954 Boston, and she has absolutely no idea about her biological father or her own temporal uniqueness as a transplant of the eighteenth century. Oh, and she also doesn’t know the story of Faith, her mother’s other little “bairn” that never got to be.

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That, dear child, is a story for another day (or even another century)[/caption]

Yes, things were as bad as they looked for Claire and her baby when she chased Jamie down into the woods just as he put a blade in Black Jack Randall’s manhood. Not only was the baby a stillborn, but, as was all too common in this time period (an estimated 1 to 1.5 percent of all mothers died in childbirth then), Claire’s on the brink herself thanks to an infection secondary to retained placenta. The only solution Mother Hildegard can offer is to bring in a priest to absolve her of her sins in preparation of the end because “it is wise to prepare the soul.”

Mother Hildegard has broken the law by baptizing the baby and naming her Faith so that she may be buried in hallowed ground. This news is of little comfort to Claire, who is now childless, dying, and unable to seek comfort in her husband since he broke his promise to delay his duel with Randall and is now locked up in the Bastille indefinitely (or until the King sees fit to release him, which may be never).

So, when Master Raymond shows up and performs some of his “dark magic” to rid her of the bacteria that threatens her life, he proves himself to be the only useful person in her life. And since he is fully aware of King Louis XV’s ongoing search for practitioners of dark magic, he’s practically laying himself at the executioner’s feet with a smile because, in his words, “these are the things you do for your friends.” Just like that, Claire is physically healed -- although her emotional and mental well-being are still a long way off from recovery -- and now she owes the man a life debt.

Her heartbreak, by the way, is intermixed with sheer fury for the broken promise. Jamie’s decision to fight Randall that day has cost her everything. “He may as well have run his sword through me,” she says bitterly. Indeed, the entire estate is crestfallen, but Fergus has hidden his own devastating source of grief: Turns out, it was his honor which Jamie fought for that day, after finding Randall abusing Fergus at Maison de Madame Elise that day. Fergus blames himself for Jamie’s arrest (because this show’s treatment of rape victims is consistently bereft), but Claire now realizes that Jamie wasn’t just abandoning his promise to her that day.

She asks for Mother Hildegard to use her regal connections -- she’s the goddaughter of the Louis XIV, “The Sun King” -- to arrange an audience with the sitting King, fully aware that there may be a major price for his favor.

As Claire traipses the halls of Louis the Beloved’s ornate Versailles Palace and sips on warm chocolate from New Spain (then under Bourbon reform), she’s well aware that she and Jamie both now exist at his mercy, and whether Jamie helped to cure his bowel issues earlier in the season or not, he rules with an “absolute” fist. He agrees to free Jamie under two conditions: (1) She’ll help to determine the guilt of Master Raymond and Comte St. Germain, who’ve been accused of sorcery and use of the dark arts, and (2) bedding him.

As much as she despises the Comte -- especially after she’s able to coerce a confession that he was indeed the one to poison her before -- she doesn’t want to condemn him to death, she really doesn’t. But when Master Raymond slips some poison into her harmless bitter cascara brew by his signature slight of hand, she has no choice but to give him a cup of death. And he has no choice but to drink it and accept his final judgment.

As a token of the king’s, um, appreciation for her visit, he will not only pardon Jamie, but he will ensure that they may return to Scotland as well, so when Jamie returns home, fully-scruffed, heartbroken, and trembling that his great love is lost forever, it’s already pretty clear what they must do next.

They have to say goodbye. Goodbye to the baby, whose lifeless body Claire nuzzled for hours to soak up every agonizing detail she could. Goodbye to the optimism and innocent joy they once had together. Goodbye to grudges. Most importantly, goodbye to France.