Jamie’s Back, Indentured Servants, Child Brides, A House of Horrors, but where’s the plot?
Jamie (Sam Heughan) is back at the Ridge (not a euphemism) but not for long, as he explains to an understandably disappointed Claire (Caitriona Balfe). He’s stopping just long enough to gather a militia and then returning to Hillsborough. Ever the strategist, Jamie is hoping if he can put on a strong enough show of force, this in itself will prevent war from breaking out.
The problem is that unlike with the Jacobite Uprising, Claire is none the wiser as to what happens next despite coming from the future. Claire knows nothing about the Regulators (she’s not alone) and therefore is hoping that as it doesn’t tend to feature in the history books then nothing will come of it. Jamie isn’t so certain. However, one thing Claire does know is that she is determined to remain by Jamie’s side (who can blame her?) as he marches into possible conflict. Jamie doesn’t argue the point. After all, it’s Claire so she’d just go anyway.
As always with Claire and Jamie, their journey proves eventful. Firstly, Jamie informs Claire that Stephen Bonnet is very much alive. News which Claire, not unreasonably, finds upsetting. Secondly, they come across Keziah (Paul Gorman), Josiah’s (Paul Gorman again) deaf twin brother. It turns out that both Josiah and Keziah, when aged only two and recently orphaned while travelling to America with their family, were sold by the ship’s captain to a term of 30 years as indentured servants to a brutal master who has mistreated the half-starved Keziah so badly that he has ruptured both his eardrums during a vicious beating. Jamie and Claire learn that Josiah had run away the year before and had gone back to save his brother now that he has a secure position as a tenant of Jamie’s. Half-starved, his brother had been unable to keep away from their camp and its provisions and had thus been caught.
Needless to say, Jamie decides not to send them back but aware of the intricacies of 18th century law knows he has to buy their indentures from their master, Mr Beardsley so the latter has no future claim on them. Thus packing Roger (Richard Rankin) off with the rest of the men to muster troops for the militia, Jamie and Claire head off to what turns out to be a house of horrors.
Informed by the unfriendly Mrs Beardsley (Bronwyn James) that her husband is dead and that Jamie is welcome to the servants, Jamie insists on entering the house in order to get his hands on their papers. By the look of it, the Beardsley home could win the 18th century version of Home from Hell, Hoarders from Hell, Tenants from Hell or even Animals in Houses hands down. Given Claire and Jamie’s reaction, we can only be thankful that Smellovision never became a thing.
Worse is to come, following up on a particularly rancid smell, Claire goes upstairs only to be told by Mrs Beardsley not to go up there. As we all know, telling Claire NOT to do something means she will invariably go ahead and do it. There she finds the body of Mr Beardsley (Christopher Fairbank). Only it turns out he’s not quite dead. Struck down by a severe stroke, his wife is enjoying keeping him barely alive, allowing him to lie in his own mess while torturing him.
Aware that the man was a brute, Claire knows that as a doctor she still has to tend him even though it may mean having to part ways with Jamie for a while. (That’s dedication for you). While discussing this conundrum with Jamie, Mrs Beardsley, worried that Claire might bring her husband back to good health, tries to strangle him. While Jamie wrestles with Fanny to stop her, Fanny’s waters break and Claire is soon busy helping Fanny give birth to a mixed race baby. I’m no geneticist but I think it’s safe to say that Mr Beardsley isn’t the father.
Faced with this house of horrors along with the day-to-day horrors of 18th century life such as indentured servants and young girls married off to much older men, Claire finally tells Jamie that she wants Brianna and her family to head back to the future where they will be far safer. Jamie, at heart a family man, denied having his family near him for most of his adult life, is not so convinced.
During the night, however, Fanny disappears but not before leaving the baby with Jamie and Claire, along with the deed to the property and the indenture papers of the two boys. This leaves just one loose end to tie up: Mr Beardsley. Ever practical, Jamie decides to put him out of his misery. Give the state he is in and the fact he faces his foot being amputated without general anaesthetic, Mr Beardsley concurs. Thus one of the final scenes is that of Claire outside, holding Mrs Beardsley’s new born babe in her arms, while waiting for her husband to blow someone’s brains out. It’s scenarios like this which makes it all the more understandable why Claire wants her daughter to go back to the 1960s.
But Mr Beardsley’s stroke (or apoplexy as Jamie would call it) had made Jamie think about his own father’s death from apoplexy and whether he may end up suffering the same fate. He asks Claire that if that should happen to him that she promises to put him out of his misery. Clare reassures him that she will do what must be done (which is not quite the same thing).
Along with the previous two episodes, Free Will seems to be yet another episode where there is a lot of scene setting but not much happens as way of plot. Whether this is down to the source material (which I’ve still to read) or decisions by the scriptwriters I am not in a position to say. It felt a bit like the Crème de Menthe Episode in Season 3 where you felt the scriptwriters were biding time so they could end the episode with Jamie in hero mode and understandably have the Fraser’s time at Lallybroch start in a different episode, but nevertheless while watching Crème de Menthe if left you wondering why they were spending so much time and energy on depicting the non-story of Claire trying to heal her potential attacker. I appreciate it’s difficult to divide an arc of a book neatly into 12-13 hour episodes of television but I was left wondering why so much time was spent on this particular House of Horrors. It may be that the new born babe plays a role in future storylines but it seemed a lot of time and effort was spent on an storyline that, at first sight at least, did little to push the main story forward.
The main thing that this episode establishes is that the issue of Brianna and co returning to the future will presumably come to a head in this series, and that Jamie and Brianna may be at loggerheads with Claire and Roger on this particular point. It also makes clear that 18th century life leaves a lot to be desired, from lack of proper medical treatment to the position of children and women. Now with the scene truly set for the upcoming conflicts, my one hope is that Episode 4 leaves the scene setting behind and the story finally moves forward.
