Outlander: Season 2, Episode 6: “Best Laid Schemes”

Warning and Spoiler Alert: This recap DOES contain plot points from tonight’s episode: “Best Laid Schemes”

The Comte St. Germain really doesn’t get enough credit for being directly on the ball at almost every turn -- especially not from Bonnie Prince Charlie who would greatly benefit from his intuition, if he had even half as much faith in him as he does Jamie (or, as he prefers to call him, Lord Broch Tuarach). The man’s BS radar is constantly running at max, but he might as well be warning a brick wall for all the good it ever does him.

See, Claire and Jamie have put together a solid plan to sabotage Charles’s sure-to-be-profitable wine shipment -- a faux smallpox elixir that Jamie himself plays guinea pig with -- but when that falls flat and they’ve got to resort to more dangerous measures to sully the shipment, Comte’s the one who sees through the idea that any of this is “mere coincidence.”

He’s not the only one calling into question Jamie and Claire’s motives in all of this, either. Even Murtagh “Third Wheel” Fraser has had quite enough of being a blind fellow to all of this deception, especially when Jamie declines his opportunity to duke it out with Black Jack Randall on account of a “sound reason” he refuses to explain. If they want to keep their most faithful ally on board, they’ll have to give Murtagh a long overdue vote of confidence and clue him into what’s really going on … and why.

Perhaps surprisingly, Murtagh’s stomach for weird is strong indeed. Sure, he greets the news that Claire’s a time-hopping “witch” (Murtagh’s word, not ours) with a jab to Jamie’s jaw, but that’s basically the Highlander version of a noogie, so as is well with the Fraser clan once more.

Murtagh even goes so far as to express empathy for the burden of truth that Claire must bear by knowing the outcome of the Jacobite Rebellion and how it may or may not impact the lives of those she now loves here on this timeline. What a guy. As he says, they probably should’ve just trusted him with this knowledge a while back and made things easier on everyone, but you live and you learn (or as the French might say, vous vivez vous apprenez).

Meanwhile, as the newest member of the Fraser fam prepares to make his or her arrival -- with daddy-to-be just glowing with anticipation, especially after feeling “him” (Jamie suspects a boy, while Claire’s sure it’s a “her”) move -- Claire’s exhaustion and refusal to yield to it are reaching new peaks, and her days at L’Hopital are becoming rather problematic … and not just because of the fact that she has to stay overnight after she begins to bleed. Mother Hildegard suspects it’s nothing of major concern, but … that’s a lot of blood. There’s also the not-so-small matter of Monsieur Forez, who seems wise to her familiarity with “the dark arts” a la Monsieur Raymond and his apothecary shoppe.

You might recall that in addition to being one of the more capable healers to walk the halls of L’Hopital, Monsieur Forez is also the King’s official executioner, and he’s been called upon to execute the crowd-pleasing drawing and quartering of several practitioners in the area, of which he’s all too happy to explain in graphic detail the gruesome methodology:

“First the man or woman must be hanged, but with judgment so that the neck is not broken. As death approaches you must reach inside the cavity and grasp the heart. The main difficulty lies in severing the heart vessels quickly so that the organ may be pulled forth whilst still beating. As you wish to please the crowd, hm? As for the rest, mere butchery. Once life is extinct, there is no further need for skill.”

Seeing as he actually name-checks Monsieur Raymond at the end of this shudder-inducing diatribe, Claire takes this warning directly to the apothecary and insists this is no repeat of Louis XIV’s more merciful approach to ridding the city of “heretics.” Raymond agrees he better skedaddle but promises this won’t be the last Claire sees of him.

Claire is also asked me to make a major promise -- this time, to Jamie, who insists she agree to return to Frank if (and, as the season opener showed us, when) their attempts to thwart Charles’s rebellion are ultimately fruitless.

While the feigning smallpox approach was a swell idea and all, Jamie and Fergus are able to plan the potion a little too easily for this show’s taste, so of course it didn’t do the full trick. Instead, the “outbreak” causes Charles and Comte (who reads Jamie’s hesitance as the lack of cause dedication it is) to quarantine their ill and transport the shipment immediately for sale. Murtagh’s able to gather some opportunistic highwaymen right away to storm the carriage en route -- quick thinking, although Jamie does have to literally jump in and save him from catching a bullet from the Comte during the siege -- and Charles is still willfully none the wiser about the deceptor in his midst.

All he’s concerned about now is where he’ll go now that he’s “persona non grata” to the bankers of Paris; “Mark me, I will take my own life if I am forced to live in God-forsaken Poland,” he weeps, while Jamie’s only consolation for his despair is a pair of wickedly raised eyebrows. Success is written all over his face, but only the Comte seems able to read it.

Again, it’s all *still* too easy: Prince Charlie’s fortune has flounced from his fingertips, Murtagh doesn’t even so much as second-guess Claire’s future roots, and Jamie’s simple “no thanks” to that duel with Black Jack Randall sufficed … oh wait, spoke too soon on that last bit.

Jamie and Fergus are summoned to the Maison de Madame Elise to spring Charles from a kerfuffle over his salon debts, but along the way, who do they run across but Randall himself, ready to hit the woods and settle his own death debt right then and there.

Jamie, of course, can no longer deny his impulse (read: NEED) to relegate the creep to his rightful place six feet under, and Claire finds out about their on-going battle by way of a brief, albeit beautifully scripted, note from “J.”

Claire, despite having spent the night at L’Hopital due to her own worrisome distress, refuses to wait at home and hear the results of “which of my men would die, Jamie or Frank.” So she takes a carriage as far as she can, lamenting Jamie’s broken promise all the while, and then struggles on foot through the wooden trail to find him and Randall in the throes of their sword fight.

Just as Jamie puts a sword into Randall’s groin -- it’s not death, but it’s certainly a fitting form of revenge for his crimes -- and law enforcement arrives to arrest Jamie and Randall for violating the no-dueling rule, Claire begins to bleed out again, this time more violently and with a vicious faint spell which follows to assure us that this time, Mother Hildegard might not have such reassuring words about her (or the bairn’s) condition.

(The Diana Gabaldon faithful will already know that next week’s episode will require a stockpile of Kleenex and/or chocolate. Prepare yourselves accordingly!)