Outlander: Blood Of My Blood: Julia's Fate Is Confirmed, But What Does It Mean For Henry? — Read Episode 7 Recap

Get comfy in the 1700s, Julia Beauchamp, because it looks like you live here now.

This week's "Outlander: Blood of My Blood" confirms what I'd feared in Episode 2: Julia cannot time-travel, and the only reason she was able to tumble through the years the first time was because baby William has the ability to slip through centuries — making her a one-time time-traveler transportation mechanism, for lack of a more elegant way to put it.

The reality of the situation (if Maisri's explanation is to be believed) is a rough thing. Rougher still is what goes on elsewhere in Castle Leathers, once Brian learns that his own father was responsible for the death of Brian's unborn child.

Read on to see how it all shakes out in "Heart of the Highlands."

Brian and Murtagh accompany Dougal home from Fort William, where the women sit in the great hall and sew burial shrouds. Colum vibrates with anger when he sees his brother, calling Dougal selfish (and then some) before Maura goes to her husband's side and says she's glad to see him.

Dougal soberly acknowledges Angus' sacrifice in his own survival, then makes sure that his new buds Brian and Murtagh will be welcome at the castle. Which is good and all, "but you canna stay here," Colum spits to his brother, reasoning that the British will be looking for Dougal after his escape. Instead, he's to stay in a nearby crofter's cottage.

Once that's sorted, all Brian wants to do is go see his wife. "Steel yourself," Mrs. Fitz tells him. (Side note: MUST you always be so dramatic, woman? A little more info/context might've been nice here, all things considered.) So Brian rushes to Ellens' room to find her wrung-out and still in bed; she starts to weep when she sees him. Between sobs, she chokes out that she lost the baby and that she'd already fallen in love with the child, whom she imagined was a girl.

Brian is definitely affected by the news, but he draws her close and whispers that they can try again once she's healed. Ellen grows even more agitated as she fills him in on what Simon did, and how the doctor says now it's not likely that she'll ever have a child. "I understand if you want to leave me," she whimpers, heartbroken. Brian is definitely having THOUGHTS upon learning that his own father was behind this attack, but he takes Ellen's face in his hands and reminds her that he loves her. "Remember that," he says, then leaves abruptly.

Ellen knows Brian is heading to Leathers to end Simon's life, and she plans to try to stop him. But Jocasta makes a very good and poetic point: "Not even the hounds of hell could stop him now."

Later, elsewhere in the castle, Dougal is on top of Maura in their bed, halfheartedly thrusting, when they both kind of give up and he rolls off, looking dejected. After a moment, Maura gets off the bed and stands in front of him, tenderly touching his face. "Be with me," she says quietly, and kisses him. The gesture shakes him out of his despondence, and he kisses her back, then they return to their previous activities but in a far more reverent way.

In a post-World War I flashback/forward/whatever the heck you want to call it in this upside-down show, Henry and Julia go to the movies and are cutely besotted with each other. But their happy bubble pops in the lobby when the run into Henry's ex, Lottie. Lottie mocks Julia, calling her a "dowdy little clerk" and a gold digger for whom Henry threw away everything he had. But Julia isn't bothered. "I have something you'll never have," Julia says confidently as the Beauchamps take their leave. "His heart." 

At dinner after, Julia wants the details. Lottie was Henry's first love, he admits, but "I knew it wasn't right long before I left for the war." So he broke it off before he left for his military service.

Henry recalls nights like that at the cinema in his next 1700s-era letter to Julia, deposited in the stone wall by a dutiful Arch Bug. "I will be at the wall in three days' time," he writes in closing. "Find me there."

Back at Castle Grant, we meet Uncle Mac's sister, Margaret, who is beside herself because — she says — a Redcoat patrol stopped her carriage and took her pearl necklace. Both Mac and Margaret are especially cheesed off because the Grants are loyalists, but his umbrage is assuaged when she produces a royal invitation that one of the British soldiers handed her.

We later learn that Margaret has been living high in London, spending her family's money and hobnobbing with the elite. She says the expense must've been worth it, given that the invitation was for Malcolm to attend an upcoming investiture at the Duke of Sandringham's place.

Arch Bug tells Henry that Margaret likely has the necklace, and that the story about the Redcoat robbery is probably a lie. Which works out well, because although Henry told Uncle Mac that he and Arch would go look for the soldier who nicked it, Henry has other plans.

Another flashback to that night after the cinema informs us that the ring Lottie mocked has an amethyst stone; Julia tells Henry that there's a vein of in the heart of the Highlands. And now he's going to look for that gem-filled treasure trove. Arch scoffs, but Murdina Bug thinks Henry is on to something. "Find the place where two lovers were petrified in stone by the Fair Folks' might," she advises, adding some more details to help him find the spot. She also asks Arch to bring back some amethyst to help them in their quest to have a baby.

After she leaves, Arch gets verklempt talking about the baby he and Murdina lost. But I WILL NOT HAVE FEELINGS ABOUT OR IN RELATION TO THIS MAN so let's keep it moving.

The pair make it to the gorge Murdina described. Henry ties a rope around his waist and Arch helps lower him down, but the rope breaks and Henry winds up in the creek at the bottom of the ravine. He quickly locates a purple gash in one of the rocks and starts chipping out the amethyst while Arch prepares the rope to help him back up.

He brings a bunch of the gems to Julia soon after and wants to leave right then, but she persuades him to wait until they can make a plan at the investiture — which Simon has deigned to let her attend. And she's very happy about the whole thing... until she goes back to Leathers and finds Maisri tooling around in the kitchen. Julia is very mad at the seer's role in the poisoning, but Maisri says she was just doing her job. She tells Julia that she sees Claire every time she touches her. "She is in a far away place where the lamb has become the shepherd," she says, and how fun that this mystical woman engages in confusing wordplay as well! (Here's hoping that Julia makes the Lamb/lamb connection.)

But then Maisri's got another bomb to drop: "Your son, he can travel. He can pass through the veil. But unfortunately, you have no such power." Julia's like, but the gemstones? "They willna help you," Maisri says. Long story short: Julia only could make the leap before because "you were carrying a traveler within you."

Murtagh seeks out Grace, showing her that he still has the flower she gave him before he left for the battle. During the fighting, "I'd touch it to remind myself... that I'd left something unfinished," he says. Though she's clearly enamored, she points out all the reasons that a relationship between them might not work — not least of all the fact that her indentured servitude to the Camerons has six-and-a-half years to go — but he's undeterred. He asks to steal whatever time they can, and she lets him know that he can find her in the threshing barn near House Cameron most days around noon. Gah, these two are so cute.

They meet there the next day. "This is foolish," she says. "Then I'm a fool," he quickly replies. It's not long before they're kissing, and then she's unbuckling his belt, but he stops her and makes mention of her "virtue." She matter-of-factly informs him that it was taken from her a long time before. "I want to know what it's like to give myself freely."

So she does. They take off each other's clothes — all of 'em, which seems foolhardy for a situation in which someone could walk in on them at any moment, but then again Murtagh did say he was a fool — and have sex on top of the hay. At one point, Grace drags his hand from her hip to somewhere more pivotal, and while I'm happy for her at how things play out, from everything we know about this sweet, awkward boy, I very seriously have my doubts about how Murty wouldn't need much, much more guidance to land the plane here. Regardless, mazel tov, kids!

Brian confronts Simon, who explains his prophecy-informed reasoning for napalming Ellen's uterus. He also calls Ellen a "MacKenzie hoooooooooor," which — as you might expect —leads to Brian's attempting to strangle and/or neuter his dad. Julia and Davina enter the room and beg a very upset Brian to let Simon live, because killing him a) won't change what's done, and b) will only lead to more badness. So a tearful Brian holds his knife to Simon's throat and forces him to give him "the house by Broch Morda" and its lands as restitution. Also: Simon can never go there for as long as he lives. "Come near Ellen again, father or not, and I will kill you," Brian promises.

He returns to Ellen at Leoch that night with a stone he dug out of the bridge "that brought us together." It's going to be the hearthstone of the home he's going to build for them, he tells her, reassuring her that her reproductive ability is of no concern to him. But it IS a huge concern to Colum, who laments to Ned that Lovat "took Ellen's worth. A woman with no womb is worth nothing at all." And yes, while I understand this statement in the context of the time, boy does it make me hate Colum more. Ned says there's nothing they can do, no way they can prove what Lovat did. "I'm afraid we must let the man live," the lawyer says.

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