Outlander Confirms That [Spoiler] Survived Against All Odds — Read Episode 6 Recap

This week's "Outlander" gives us a tiny but important piece of closure about a character we haven't seen in a while. 

Roger's father, Jerry MacKenzie, plays an important role in Episode 6 — though in a way you might not expect. Elsewhere in the hour, Jamie tells his traitorous tenants to skedaddle, and William gets himself punched, thrown in the stockade, and diagnosed with smallpox. 

Read on for the highlights of "Blessed Are the Merciful."

The morning after the attack on Jamie, Capt. Cunningham is alive but unable to move his legs. "It's extremely unlikely that you'll ever walk again," Claire tells the captain as his mother helps her tend to him.

Jamie, Josiah, Buck, and Cleveland debrief on the porch. Jamie is taken aback to learn that they killed the Loyalist militia that was coming to Cunningham's aid, and both he and Buck are pretty put off by Cleveland's reveling in the deaths, but what's done is done — and Cleveland makes sure to remind Jamie that he owes him, big-time.

Inside, Cunningham wonders if Jamie is going to kill him (answer: not while he's in Claire's care, and probably not ever), then laments that he'll be unable to walk for the rest of his life. When he asks Jamie his plan, all Big Red says is, "You will remain in my custody here until I can determine a more appropriate fate for you." Make 'em squirm, Big Red!

Ian and Rachel enter the region where he lived with Emily/Wahionhaweh and her tribe. They run into his friend Ahroniawonrateh and ask about Wahionhaweh and her children. "Do not go there," Ahroniawonrateh says, and at first I think he means it in a talk-to-the-hand way, which is weird, but he literally means that Ian and Rachel shouldn't proceed to the village: "Nothing left but ashes." Some Mohawk were able to escape the carnage, though — but Ahroniawonrateh doesn't know if Emily and her family were among them.

He points them toward Joseph Brant, who might know what became of Emily. Joseph is hesitant to help Ian, whom he sees as a traitor who left the Mohawk to become a rebel. Ian clarifies that he was ordered to leave the tribe — "I didna want to go at all" — and then he and Joseph go back and forth about how the Continental Army destroyed the villages but that was in retaliation for the massacre at Cherry Valley, and it's all very sad and terrible. "All who take the sword shall perish by it," Rachel pipes up, unable to keep her Quaker sensibilities quiet while the men snipe. "War is an endless perpetuation of violence." 

The conversation is uncomfortable, but eventually Joseph's wife, Catherine, lets them know that Emily is still alive... and she and her children are on the property. But Joseph states that Ian can't see them, because it's time for him to go. Later, Rachel tearfully admits to Ian that she's wondered whether he would've left Emily if he didn't have to, and that she's irrationally jealous of her. For the first time, Ian seems to realize that his (current) wife is in pain, and he decides that he doesn't need to see Wahionhaweh and the kids; it's enough to know that they are alive.

Still, Rachel knows that's just not true. So she privately meets with Joseph and beseeches him to allow Ian to see his former wife and the children. She shares that Ian and Wahionhaweh share a son — a fact of which Joseph was unaware — and how can she stand between a parent and his child? "I risk losing Ian, perhaps, but it is a risk I must take," she says, unhappy but resolute.

Brant relents, and the meeting takes place; Ian insists that Rachel and Oggy be present. Emily is troubled: In addition to the death of her husband, Kaheroton, she has had a recurring dream in which their son is captured by soldiers, forced to fight in battle, and killed. "Will you take him to live with you? He will be safe by your side," she begs. Ian and Rachel agree, and they bring Swiftest of Lizards (and one of Rollo's grandpups!) with them back to the ridge. In return, Emily gives Oggy his name: Hunter — which, as we know but Emily doesn't, happens to be Rachel's maiden name.

During a quiet moment alone, Roger tells Brianna that, when Frances Marion refused to help with the guns, Roger was overcome with a sense of purpose that made him stay with the men. The desperation there "reminded me of going through the stones, actually," he says. "That fear of being torn apart, of something pulling at you." The experience made Roger realize that he wanted to be ordained, which surprises Brianna, given how torn he's been in the past about becoming a minister. He tells her how the blast that knocked him down triggered a memory of being caught by his father the night Roger's mother died. 

"I never understood how I got out alive," he explains, recalling how he'd been taken to shelter in the London Underground during a bombing. "She tossed me from the stairs as they collapsed, and he caught me," he says, tears in his eyes. "I don't know how, but he was there." He posits that he saved his dad by sending him back through the stones, "and he saved me." Now Roger is sure that he and Brianna are where — and when — they're supposed to be, and doing what they're supposed to be doing. And his certainty convinces her. 

Side note: The scene is a nice way to wrap Diana Gabaldon's novella "A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows" into the narrative of the show's final season. The book, which concerns Roger's father's trips through the stones, is definitely worth a read. (Tangentially related side note: If only they'd managed to sneak "The Scottish Prisoner" in there somewhere along the way, too!)

Anyway, it seems like Roger is feeling very divinely inspired indeed, because it's not long before he's pulling up Brianna's gown and ushering her along to a religious experience, standing right there at the foot of the bed. Once she's seen to, off go his clothes, and she rides him like Paul Revere galloping toward Lexington.

The MacKenzies later return to Fergus and Marsali's home, where a letter from Frances Marion awaits them: The Swamp Fox was so impressed with Roger's dedication in the battle, he's going to get them the guns they need, after all.

William is still really hot about Ben's betrayal; his cousin is going by the name Ralph Bleeker, and he's a general in the Continental army. Ben says that his father definitely would prefer him dead to a turncoat, and he refuses to feel guilty. See, he read Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" and it convinced him that the Americans were right. But he knew that the change of heart would shame his family, so he faked his death to save them the public humiliation. And Amaranthus? "It was her idea I pretend I was dead," Ben says, which shocks William. Then Ben, in turn, is irked that William even cares a whit about his widow. "Who do you think has been consoling her, comforting her in her grief?" William asks. Oh, so that's what we're calling it? Cool. Ben also reads between ye olde lines and starts a fistfight with his cousin, then has him taken away by guards, deeming him a traitor.

Denny visits William while he's in the stockade and pretends that the patient needs a clyster, a process both so involved and disgusting that it sends the young soldier guarding William out of the room for a while. When the two men are alone, Denny lays out his plan to lie that William has smallpox, which will earn him a place in the quarantine on the outskirts of camp. And then, oops, when he dies of the disease? He'll be free to go. "A fine physician you are," William says, smiling.

Jamie decides to evict the Fraser's Ridge men who organized against him, and he'll kill them if they return or try another stand. Claire wonders what will happen to their wives and children. "A good husband would've thought of that, and a wise one would've listened to his wife," Jamie replies. KING.

He writes out eviction letters and has them brought to the men, giving them 10 days to depart with their families. And if they return? "You will be shot on sight," the letters warn. He delivers Hiram Crombie's himself; the shopkeeper slinks up to Jamie and meekly says, "I regret what happened at Lodge." Crombie explains that Cunningham convinced him that there was no use in fighting against the British, and that several other ridge settlers feel the same way. Jamie doesn't care. He announces that the Beardsleys will take over the operation of the store, and then presses Crombie's eviction notice to his chest as he takes off in anger.

Mrs. Crombie and the other women affected by Jamie's eviction order come to him — without their husbands knowing — to beg him to reconsider. They promise to make their husbands be good and non-murderous. But Jamie knows that's a vow that will be very hard to keep, so he won't budge.

Still, after a while, Jamie softens... and comes up with a new plan. He calls the ridge's settlers together and announces that he's revoking the order of banishment: The families can stay, but he's voiding the land contract with the men and only dealing with the wives from now on. The men will relinquish all of their weapons and pledge their fealty to Jamie. "The land is yours, not his," he says to the women. The ladies, led by Mrs. Crombie, accept. Afterward, Claire assures her husband he did the right thing.

Elspeth Cunningham then asks Jamie to hand over the paralyzed Capt. Cunningham so she can take him home to England. She'll likely spend the rest of her life caring for him, but "I would do anything for my child. Wouldn't you?" she asks.

So Jamie lets Cunningham go, and after Claire bids Elspeth a bittersweet goodbye, the troublesome Tories are out of the Frasers' hair for good.

Now it's your turn. What did you think of the episode? Hit the comments, and let us know!