Outlander Heals Its Biggest Rift As The Ridge Readies For Battle — Read Episode 8 Recap

**FIX HED**

INTRO

Unfortunately for all of us, Master Raymond hasn't somehow worked his magic on Fergus in the time between the last episode and this one. As the hour opens, he's still very dead, and Jamie and Marsali share a sad dram at his grave.

"I'm thinking about taking Percy Beauchamp up on his offer," she tells Jamie through tears. She wants to rebuild the print shop and "keep up the work of fighting the war with words," because she believes in the cause. She says she left Scotland, in part, because she wanted freedom. "That's what America wants," she says. And if she's going to risk her life, "I want it to be for something that matters." Jamie validates her decision, but she confesses that she's been thinking about Fergus' opposition to claiming the Comte St. Germain as his father. Jamie thinks she means because St. Germain was such a jerk. But she rolls her eyes and sets him straight: "He never wanted to call anyone but you his father. Thinking of himself as your son meant everything to him." 

Jamie is touched — though he doesn't cry aside from getting choked up a wee bit, which we'll talk about in a minute — and he states that Fergus will be a Fraser forever. Then he steps away so that Marsali can be alone with her husband... which is when she reveals to him that she's pregnant. "Ye couldn't resist leaving me with a parting gift, could ye?" she says, crying through her joy that "I'm so happy to have more of ye."

After hearing that Frank used to call Brianna "Deadeye," Jamie realizes that the book was written for her. He and Claire discuss how Frank taught Bree how to ride a horse, made sure she had a broad education about life in the olden times, etc. — "he armed her with the knowledge of how to survive in this time," Claire says. Claire muses that maybe Frank's withholding the knowledge that Jamie survived Culloden was a good thing, because it meant she stayed in the 20th Century and became a surgeon, which means she might be able to save him if he falls at Kings Mountain. (Side note: A lot of magical thinking going on around these parts lately, no? And that's saying something for a time-travel romantic drama.)

Jamie reminds her that they've tried to change history before, but it hasn't worked. She corrects him that they've changed small things — insignificant to world history, but still — and maybe his eventual survival will be one of those? He teases her for obliquely calling him "insignificant," and they kiss.

In the months leading up to the Battle of Kings Mountain, Fraser's Ridge prepares for war. Claire and Fanny prep bandages. Brianna turns her engineering knowledge toward making their weapons the best they can be. Jamie and Buck drill the men on how to fight.

One afternoon in the makeshift armory, Buck catches Roger up on what he did after Roger left the past. Turns out, he went back to see Geilis, in hopes of getting to know his mother better. But Dougal assumed Buck's interest was romantic, which made things awkward. It turned even more awkward when Geilis also thought Buck was into her. So he came back to Craigh na Dun and threw himself on the mercy of the stones, which deposited him in the 1980s. The first person Buck saw was Rob Cameron, whom he observed buying a gem stone. "I followed him home," Buck says, and then a flashback shows the confrontation. "I owe Roger MacKenzie a life," Buck tells the slimeball, moments after headbutting him. Rob comes at him with a knife, but it's mere moments before Buck angles the weapon back at Cameron and shoves it into his chest, killing him. Then he grabs the satchel Rob was preparing to bring into the past, as well as the tricorn hat he'd been ready to wear, Roger's book, and the aforementioned gem, and goes on his time-traveling way.

Brianna interrupts with good news: She's retrofit at least one of their guns so it'll load much faster than usual — and, hopefully, at least as quickly as the British troops' weapons.

Amaranthus is worried that William hasn't been home since the events of the last episode, and she thinks her deception is the reason why. Lord John is all, "Weeeeeellll, there may have been other factors at play. Who can say?" I'm kidding: The Notorious LJG admits that he and William "had words" over a private matter, resulting in a rough father-son moment. "But I deceived him," Amaranthus says. "Girl, same," Grey thinks. But he reassures her that his son is a man of honor who has the capability to forgive.

Percy sends Lord John a letter saying that he's located Capt. Richardson, and to meet him at his lawyer's office in three days' time. And that turns out to be both true — he did find the Redcoat — and false: Richardson hits John in the head with his pistol, knocking him out before John even knows he's been tricked.

Lord John assumes William went to Mount Josiah, and he briefly does. But afterward, he winds up at Fraser's Ridge. Everyone is happy to see him — Jamie is definitely beaming as his kiddo walks up the stairs to the big house — but William's manner toward his dad is polite at best. He immediately seeks out Brianna ("the only member of my family who has never broken my trust") to tell her about the Amaranthus kerfuffle. She sympathizes, adding that some time on the ridge might be good for him.

It certainly seems that way at dinner that evening. William happily gives Rachel and Ian an update on Denny, then raises a glass to their marriage and baby. When Jamie privately grouses to Claire that his son seems happy "as long as he's nowhere near me," she tells him to chill: The kid came to them, right? That's something!

Roger then announces that he's been accepted by the Presbytery of Savannah, and he's going to be ordained as a minister soon. Jamie toasts everyone's health and happiness, but doesn't miss how uncomfortable William looks when he does so. Later, Jamie invites William to go fishing with him in the morning — William remembers the last time the went, when he was a boy, and how Jamie told the Cherokee he was his father — and he declines. But the combined machinations of Jamie, Brianna, and Roger conspire against him, and it's settled: He's going.

"May I ask," Jamie inquires the next morning, while they're both casting their lines in the river, "have you had a falling-out with Lord John?" William confirms that he has. And when Jamie presses just a little, suddenly William is spitting out the word "sodomite" left and right. He realizes that Lord John's gayness isn't news to Big Red, then he asks his dad the same thing he asked his other dad: "You and he, at Ardsmuir: Were you lovers? Is that why he agreed to raise your illegitimate son?"

Jamie says no, and that while he won't condemn nor defend John's private life, "he's one of the best men I know." William gets all huffy about how both John and Jamie lied to him his whole life blah-blah-daddy issues and storms off.

Later, Claire catches William  trying to leave without saying goodbye. And when he is a giant stinkface to her, Dr. Claire Beauchamp "I've time-traveled multiple times so don't mess with me" Fraser WILL NOT HAVE IT. He's immediately chagrined and asks her forgiveness, which she grants. She's like, dude, we all know you were here to see Jamie. And given that we're in the middle of a war, who knows how many more chances he'll have? "Before you leave here," she says, "I want you to think, I mean really think, about if this morning was the last time you ever see your father."

Just then, William sees Jamie leading Mandy around on a pony and has a flashback to when Jamie did the same for him at Helwater... and how devastated he was when Jamie left. So he seeks out Jamie, who's training his men in the woods. They're met with Mr. Whitaker and some other free Black men, who want to fight at Jamie's side. He welcomes the reinforcements.

Jamie is about to walk away with Whitaker when William blurts out that he wants to hunt with Jamie. Jamie is surprised, but eager, so they make plans to go out the following morning. "In the woods," Jamie says, gently teasing his son for the nervous way he went about asking.

During the outing, William apologizes for what he said while they were fishing. Jamie gladly accepts and bends to clean the carcass of the buck they've just dropped, unaware that William has decided it's Feelings Day. He talks about how much he looked up to Jamie, whom he knew then as "Mac," at Helwater. "You were the one person in my life i wanted to emulate when I grew up. I worshipped you like a hero, as only a young boy truly can. I loved you," he says, getting all mad again when he thinks about the way Jamie took off. "How could you leave me?"

"I loved you, too, but I had nothing to give you," Jamie says, eyes teary. William's verklempt, too. Jamie reasons that he was a Jacobite and he didn't want William tainted by the association, but it took everything in him not to look back as he left, lest it "shatter my reserve." He acknowledges how much pain William has gone through because of him, and asks if he can forgive him. William launches himself at Jamie and sobs into his shoulder while Jamie hugs him back.

OK, my thoughts: I know that writing and acting are full of choices, and those choices may not always align with what I — an Oldlander book reader and general fan of Men Showing Emotion — think should happen. That's cool! And I think both Sam Heughan and Charles Vandervaart did a great job with such a weighty interaction. But I feel similarly about this scene to the way I felt about Jamie's response to Fergus' suicide attempt in Season 6: Given that he's deep in fresh grief over the death of one son,  I think Big Red would've been more undone by the long-awaited reconciliation with another. 

The last time I talked about this kind of thing, half of you agreed and half told me I was too attached to the books. I look forward to hearing what you thought this time around in the comments!

After some boys tell Fanny that Jane is in hell because she was a murderer who killed herself, Fanny has a hard time being happy for Roger in his new position with the church. He eventually talks her through it, getting her to a place where she has hope she might see her sister again some day in heaven. Truthfully? I was going to skip recapping this part, because zzzzz but when Fanny goes to Jane's cairn to tell her all about it, she asks her sister for a sign. Immediately afterward, Fanny finds a geode on the riverbank. But when she picks it up, it cracks, and she drops it as though it bit her. A buzzing sound fills the air — sound familiar? — and she covers her ears as though in pain.

Now it's your turn. What did you think of the episode? Have you reckoned with the fact that we only have two more to go?! Sound off in the comments!