Outlander: Season 2, Episode 4: ‘La Dame Blanche’

Even the best-laid plans can backfire exquisitely.

Now that they’ve uncovered the Duke of Sandringham’s financial entanglement with Bonnie Prince Charlie’s rebellion-in-the-making, Claire and Jamie will rework their plan to bankrupt Charles’s war chest into showing the Duke, live and in person, just how much of a self-righteous lunatic (or as Jamie puts it, “delusional poppet”) his beneficiary happens to be. Which means a big fancy dinner affair is in order and Claire *finally* has a reason to be grateful for all those house staffers she’s been rolling eyes over.

While they are spectacularly agreeable with one another when it comes scheming to thwart the Jacobite Rebellion, though, their romantic relationship has grown icier by the minute -- a great contrast from the fiery inferno that forged their bond in the first place. The distance between them has become so expansive during their tenure in French society -- thanks in part to Jamie’s nightly visits to the brothel in service of the double-crossing mission, of course -- that they don’t even know what each other might like to name their baby-to-be.

Jamie prefers the name Dalhousie as a nod to the Scottish castle which protected the Scotsmen during a lengthy siege by King Henry IV, but Claire thinks the word sounds like a sneeze. (She’s right.) Meanwhile, Claire’s been thinking of paying tribute to a family member -- who may or may not even exist yet -- named Lambert, and Jamie is not a fan of that super-English moniker either, alliance schmalliance.

The worst part? They find out this particular bit of discord exists during one of Jamie’s chess matches with Monsieur Duvernay, who can’t even accept his rare victory because of how distracted his opponent clearly is. Claire takes this as her cue to make herself -- the obvious third wheel here and everywhere, lately -- scarce, especially after the Comte de Germain arrives and makes his continued disdain for the Frasers crystal clear.

Claire goes off and takes a swig of some wine (note: alcohol wasn’t known as a teratogen until the ‘70s, well beyond the scope of even her mid-20th Century medical knowledge), and she falls ill fast and furiously. She doesn’t even need the Comte’s hawkish behavior to confirm what she already knows; she’s just been slipped some of that bitter cascara the apothecary mentioned last week, which means she’s not going to die, and neither is the baby, but their rivalry is more intense than she ever realized … and what of the apothecary’s obvious hand in the matter?

Before she can get to the bottom of that potential bit of betrayal, however, she’s gotta come clean about her own duplicitousness of late and tell Jamie that his tormentor Black Jack Randall is still out there in the world, above ground and drawing breaths. Much to her surprise, he takes the news incredibly well and is absolutely delighted to hear that he can be the one to end him, as he (and probably a thousand other people who’ve been and are probably still being wronged by Randall’s hand … or other body parts) deserves. He’s not going to go test his luck in Scotland or abandon their current effort, so she’s pretty much as off the hook as it gets. (But that doesn’t mean the couple has been “fixed” just yet.)

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Another day, another drool-worthy cloak on display.[/caption]

The thing that Claire can’t tell Jamie is that she actually needs Randall -- and not Alex, the cousin -- to stick around long enough that he can father Mary Hawkins’s baby and the lineage which will produce her future husband, Frank. So, after she clears things up with the apothecary (he admits to selling the faux poison to a servant whom he didn’t know was affiliated with the Comte, their supposed "mutual enemy"), she’s taken back to his secret wizarding world where he lets her play with his dino skull and bone divination kit. She expresses her concern for future Frank, but the apothecary assures her she’ll see him again (a spoiler which we’ve already been privy to, thanks to the season’s opener). She … is not thrilled by this revelation even now. As an freebie-slash-token of apology, he gives her a poison detection stone necklace to wear from here on out. 

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Conveniently, the apothecary is quite “fascinated by things not of this time” -- WINK WINK.[/caption]

Louise -- or, as history would regard her, Mary Louise de La Tour d’Auvergne -- has come to Claire for some advice on a delicate matter. She’s married to the Duke of Montbazon, but she’s having an affair with “a dreamer” whom she can never marry, since King Louis XV would annul it on the spot. Claire proposes that she raise the child with her husband (“all that matters is that the child is brought up with love,” she says), which is exactly what she herself will be charged with upon return to her home time; she just doesn’t know it yet.

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So much for small talk and tea.[/caption]

Later, Claire’s stunned with another shocking confession as Jamie admits to getting himself to an almost THERE situation with one of the women at Maison de Madame Elise, after he shows up itching to have a bed row with Claire after so many months of sleeping in other chambers and she finds teeth marks on his thighs that he can’t fully explain. He tries to convince her it’s a good thing he was so raring to go with so-and-so at the brothel, but she’s not biting, so to speak. It’s not until he finally explains the true nature of his torment that she can even begin to grasp how good it feels to finally escape from it (none of which explains the dentition damage on his legs, but okay).

“There was this place inside me, a place I think everyone has that they keep to themselves. A fortress … after Wentworth, it was like my fortress had been blown apart,” he explains as poetically as he can. “That’s where I’ve been ever since, Claire. Naked, alone, trying to hide under a blade of grass.” Afterwards, they finally manage to “find each other” in the primal sense again, and we’re back in business. Oooh la la!

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Paris *is* for lovers, after all.[/caption]

They now coupley-again-couple put their post-coital heads together when a wee hours visit from none other than Charles Stuart reveals he’s suffered a “ghastly and painful injury” to his hand thanks to his lady lover’s menace of a pet -- which Claire immediately realizes must be Louise’s devilish little monkey, who she often brags will bite everyone but her. Which means Louise’s mystery man is none other than the Prince Regent himself, and this is explosive new ammo to use at their dinner party. If they time it just right, they can reveal the (not-so-) happy news right there in front of everyone, hopefully causing Charles to make a scene and expose his lack of kingliness to the Duke in the process.

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Plus, look at all this handsome![/caption]

But they hit a rather horrifying snag in the process. Claire, who’s not taking no for an answer (attagirl) about spending time a L’Hôpital des Anges, even on game day, finds herself, Murtagh, and Mary in a jam after their carriage loses a wheel before they can get back for their fateful supper. Rather than waiting on a repair, Claire insists that they walk home, and it’s then that they’re attacked in an alley and Mary is brutally raped in the street (could it be … Jack Randall? We see a defining mark on her attacker, but the face is mostly obscured by shadows). Not only is she injured and traumatized, but she also stands to be socially ostracized for her new status as a “maiden no more,” whether it’s her fault or not (ughhhhhhhh). Alex Randall, already her swoony somebody in secret, promises to take care of her while Claire forges on with her oh-so-important dinner plans because, unlike Jamie predicted, someone might still love the poor girl even after she's been violated like this. Harrumph. 

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Don't forget these two are first cousins, guys.[/caption]

Meanwhile, the formal introduction of Louise and Charles is about as awkward as expected, if not more so, since Charles essentially licks Louise’s hand right in front of her husband (quick, someone introduce him to Jamie's toothy friend from earlier!) while things couldn’t be any more terse between the Comte and Claire, especially since he definitely knows what her necklace is about (seriously, how does the Claire trust anything the apothecary says or does at this point?!).

Between the Prince and the Duke, relations are rather estranged as well, with Charles completely unamused by the Duke’s satirization of the Vatican and non-politically correct jokes. And Jamie’s planned revelation that Louise is now expecting sets Charles in the tizzy they’ve hoped it might (he even insults her husband by saying, “Yes, I believe you are a man in the dark indeed” when he asks for parlance clarification for his response).

Before it can get to the critical next level, though, Mary storms in, trying to escape Alex (whom she must be confusing with her attacker -- yet another reason it’s probably Jack), and winds up stirring up a brawl in the middle of the dining room. The Prince, at the Comte’s insistence, is scurried away from the scene, and the Duke takes his leave as well. Yikes. 

Claire originally kept her suspicions about the Comte’s access to the bitter bark to herself in order to avoid scandalizing the Fraser name and alienating Jamie from his access to Charles, but this incident with the “ruffians” could have the same effect, right? Or will it only redouble his belief that the Scottish are just the right kinda scrappy for his cause?