Murtagh proves he’s incapable of keeping a low profile, Jamie is in a bind and Claire, as usual, is throwing caution to the wind.
Despite Jamie’s (Sam Heughan) request to Murtagh(Duncan Lacroix) to be hard to find, Murtagh does the exact opposite when he becomes the ringleader of a group of Regulators who storm into Hillsborough where they riot as well as tar and feather a couple of court officials. Needless to say this doesn’t go down too well with the authorities, and, in particular, Lieutenant Knox (Michael D. Xavier). This, in turn, complicates matters for Jamie who is, in theory, on the Government’s side but whose natural loyalties lie with the Regulators.
Jamie is further compromised when he and Lieutenant Knox interrogate three captured regulators and despite Jamie’s best attempts to get rid of Knox, Jamie has to question the men in front of him. After all, these are men who know full well who Jamie is and his close connection with Murtagh. Provoked by one of the prisoners who claims to be Murtagh, Knox loses his temper and runs the prisoner through with his sword. Despite Knox executing a man without a trial, Jamie seems to be defending what he did much to the consternation of the other prisoners. However, as per usual, Jamie is one step ahead of everyone else and while on the surface pretending to be in the government’s pocket he’s presumably already planning how to affect the escape of the other two prisoners.
The escape proves surprisingly easy. Luckily for Jamie, the prison proves to be unguarded just at the very time he turns up to free them. Presumably security had been outsourced to the private sector even in those days. Be that what it may, Jamie finds out that Murtagh was involved in the recent shenanigans. Jamie tries to warn the men off but again with little success. But it’s not just the Regulators who believe war is on its way. Knox packs Jamie off home to gather a militia for forthcoming operations which begs the question: will he be able to keep Roger out of the fighting? After all, Roger is a dab hand at the guitar less so when it comes to hand to hand combat.
As for Roger, he has been left at home to look after the ridge, while the ‘real men’ are away with Jamie, and is feeling rather emasculated as a result. A feeling not helped by the fact when he and Brianna (Sophie Skelton) go on a shooting practice, it is evident that Brianna is a much better shot than he is. This brings home to Brianna one of the reasons why Roger may want to go back through the stones: his unsuitability for life in the 18th century. She confronts him about this. Roger, aware that Brianna wants to stay, doesn’t plead his case but it’s obvious that nothing else is keeping him there besides Brianna and their son.
What came as a surprise (at least to me) is that Claire (Caitriona Balfe) doesn’t want Roger & co to stay. In what I presume is a fine example of a mother putting her offspring first, she would rather they returned to a much safer 1960s future. Given this means she would miss out on seeing Brianna and her grand-child grow up, that’s quite altruistic of her. No doubt, her desire that they return is exacerbated by her awareness that if war is coming, Roger will be totally out of his depth.
Meanwhile, Claire has frustrations of her own. She not only has to deal with 18th century illnesses, diseases and a lack of 20th century medicine but also with 18th century cures which tend to make things worse if not fatal. For a conscientious doctor such as Claire this proves an intolerable situation as we are soon to discover.
Claire has always been headstrong and despite the fact that 18th century folk won’t appreciate her doing an impromptu autopsy on the body of Mr Farrish, Claire being Claire goes ahead and does it anyway. To hide her tracks she inveigles Roger into helping her go through a sham burial where to all intents and purposes Mr Farrish has been buried when in fact it was just a pile of rocks. One thing you can say about Claire, she doesn’t do anything by halves. But she doesn’t stop there. Deciding she needs an assistant, she lets Marsali (Lauren Lyle) into her secret whose first reaction, not surprisingly, is to suspect her mother might have had a point about Claire being a witch.
Yet again, Claire doesn’t leave it at that. Of course she doesn’t. She writes out a list of things not to do when someone is ill, thereby going against the received wisdom of the day. It’s very pro-active of her but it does beg the question how many of the settlers can actually read. Secondly, she knows no one will take advice from a woman seriously so, as many a woman has done over the years, she pretends that the recommendations are from a man so that her advice will be acted upon.
And you’ve guessed it; Claire doesn’t leave it at that either. Claire bakes bread, loaves and loaves of the stuff. Jamie has presumably included an industrial bread oven as part of the spec for their house. As she explains to her daughter, she needs all this bread as she is in the process of trying to make penicillin. Even if she succeeds, I can’t wait for her to try and explain that wonder drug to the locals. Brianna, for her part, is concerned that her mother is not only playing God but playing with history, given that penicillin wasn’t discovered until 157 years later. Claire, of course, is having none of it and Brianna begrudgingly gives in.
In the final minutes of episode 2, things take a much darker turn. Firstly, Roger realises that his wife is haunted by the spectre of Stephen Bonnet (Ed Speleers), having discovered some nightmarish drawings she has made of her attacker. Then we see the man himself. On his uppers, dressed like a dandy, he hasn’t changed: He’s still a bastard. Challenged to a duel, his opponent yields but never the gentleman, he blinds his opponent with his knife. (At least I think that’s what he did as I had my hands in front of my face at that point). Moreover, he mentions he showed ‘mercy’ as he is now a father and then leaves. The viewer is left in no doubt that he is in search of his son. This does not bode well for the MacKenzies and Frasers.
Yet again, another episode which contains a lot of scene setting and not much action. It will be interesting to see if and how things hot up in next week’s episode.
