Outlander season 3, episode 4 recap: ‘Of Lost Things’

A blue-eyed son is welcomed, a new romance begins, and Claire and Jamie decide it’s finally time to go home in an eventful and frustrating Outlander.

First things first: “Of Lost Things” didn’t end the way I expected it to. Since it’s the last episode before the famed reunion, I figured it would conclude with Claire victoriously discovering Jamie’s whereabouts through some old document and saying something passionate and definitive like, “Finally,” while heart-pounding Gaelic music swells.

Yeah, that’s not what happened.

Instead, this episode ends with a hard rain falling. Jamie leaves his blue-eyed son at Helwater and heads home to Lallybroch. Claire, meanwhile, leaves the idea of finding Jamie again behind in Scotland as she and Brianna fly back to the U.S. Frankly, it’s a real bummer.

This doesn’t make “Of Lost Things” a bad episode. On the contrary, it’s very emotional and entertaining. But its overall effect is that it made me even more impatient for next week’s “Freedom & Whisky.” Claire and Jamie are both emotional wrecks; it’s time Outlander allowed them some happiness again.

Adventures in Helwater

Most of this week’s Outlander takes place at Helwater, home to the noble Dunsanys and where Jamie works while serving the remainder of his prison sentence. Jamie being the awesome person he is, he makes the most of his posting, does well, and manages to become friends with his master, Lord Dunsany, who lost his son at Prestonpans. Jamie seems content enough until the lord’s daughter Lady Geneva decides she wants to experience real passion before being married off to a “depraved old goat” who’s old enough to be her grandfather.

Which leads us to the most troubling arc in “Of Lost Things.” Lady Geneva — who’s like Lady Mary turned up to 11 — coerces Jamie into sleeping with her. She finds out his real identity and instructs him to come to her room. When he resists, Geneva threatens his parole and family. This is sexual assault — Geneva is knowingly putting Jamie in a position in which he feels he has no choice — and the show initially treats it as such. Then, when Jamie does report to Geneva that night, it turns into a clichéd scene straight out of a romance novel: the strapping, experienced Jamie teaches the virginal, nervous Geneva everything she needs to know. (By the way, this is the type of trope Outlander brilliantly turned on its head in the season 1 episode “The Wedding.”)

When Geneva tells Jamie, “I’m doing this for myself,” and Jamie tenderly shows her what to do in bed, it feels like the series is letting Geneva off the hook. So it’s fine that she forces Jamie to have sex with her because she’s actually taking ownership of her body and sexuality? No, of course not. But that’s what it feel like when you’re watching. For a show that is so sensitive in the way it depicts sexual violence, this subplot came off as very tone-deaf.

Chasing ghosts

Ultimately, the purpose of the Jamie-Geneva plotline was to introduce Willie, Jamie and Geneva’s illegitimate son, to the story. After Geneva dies in childbirth and Jamie kills her husband in order to save the baby, Willie is raised at Helwater and knows Jamie only as Mac the groomsman. Everyone else, however, knows about his parentage. But, as John Grey points out, it won’t be long before Willie figures out the truth. He looks more and more like Jamie every day but is an earl in the eyes of the law. With that, Jamie decides to leave his son to be raised by Geneva’s sister, Lady Isobel Dunsany, and Grey, her husband-to-be. I’m sure this won’t be the last we see of Willie, but for now he’s another person Jamie will light a candle for as he prays to St. Anthony, patron saint of lost things.

Jamie’s system of praying to St. Anthony definitely seems to be emotionally healthier than Claire’s pattern of denial. He always remembers the people he’s lost but isn’t “chasing ghosts,” to use Mrs. Graham’s words. After she, Brianna, and Roger spend an episode hunting down Jamie’s whereabouts 20 years after Culloden, they hit a wall. They aren’t able to find the apparently very important ship manifests at the National Archives and Claire decides it’s time to let Jamie go and accept her 20th century life. As she licks her wounds in a bar later, she raises a toast “to all of those we have lost.”

Which, great, but isn’t this like the fourth time we’ve seen Claire vow to let Jamie go? We all know she doesn’t let him go and that she finds him again. This could be Outlander emphasizing that Claire is so stuck in the past that she literally makes the same decisions over and over again. It could also be the show’s way of demonstrating just how deep her connection to Jamie is. But it’s getting a wee bit tiresome at this point. Newsflash, Claire: You’ve been chasing ghosts ever since Jamie sent you back through the stones. Now stop talking about it and take some action.

A little romance

Brianna and Roger kiss. So, yay? Full disclosure: I truly do not care about these characters and find their scenes annoying. But I’ve heard enough about Diana Gabaldon’s books to know that they aren’t going away so I guess I need to get on board.

At this point, I view Bree and Roger’s romance as a half-baked retread of Claire and Jamie’s courtship. Brianna is opinionated and independent, and throws Roger off-balance when she blows into his life and impresses him with her non-traditionally feminine behavior (she can fix cars!). Huh, why does this sound so familiar?

Outlander also apparently has a love triangle quota since Mrs. Graham’s sweet granddaughter Fiona is obviously also very fond of Roger. So now that Frank’s gone the Brianna-Roger-Fiona dynamic can replace Claire-Jamie-Frank. Oh, and let me just say, after the way Bree sneers about her to Roger, I’m fully Team Fiona. Don’t be such a brat, Bree. Roger is into you and not her, okay? There’s no need to be such a Regina George about it.

Next: Outlander season 3, episode 3 recap: ‘All Debts Paid’

Misc.

Alias Watch: This week Jamie goes by Alexander MacKenzie in order to hide his real Jacobite identity from Lady Dunsany.

Jamie on Lady Geneva: “A boot on her hindquarters is what that one needs.”

A bit of foreshadowing when Earl Ellesmere insults Jamie: “My God, if a child of mine had hair that color, I’d drown him before he drew his second breath.”

John Grey continues to be amazing. True to his word, he checks in on Jamie at Helwater and even manages to squeeze in some chess. And he’s exceedingly noble when he agrees to raise Willie as his own once Jamie leaves.

Maybe part of my dislike of Brianna comes from Sophie Skelton’s sub par performance. This line reading is particularly terrible: “Hey! Good news. We just found out the National Archives has the most extensive collection of ship manifests in the country.” She sounds like she’s in a second grade play.

“I suspect no’s a word you’ve not heard much of, but you’ll hear it in the world and you best get used to it.” Oh, Jamie, thank you! There are so many people who need to be told that.

This is the Fraser Family Heirlooms episode. Jamie carves Willie a toy snake, like the one his brother Willie made him as a child. Meanwhile, Fiona returns Jamie’s mother’s pearls to Claire, who had left them years ago with Mrs. Graham.