Loyalties shift in a solid, literally eye-popping Outlander

Outlander has done some gross things in its time, medically speaking. Just a few episodes ago, Claire (Caitriona Balfe) thumbed through a guy’s intestines looking for a bullet. In season four, she performed hernia surgery on a crown official in the lobby of a theater in front of an audience of horrified spectators. She’s healed hands, delivered babies, set broken bones, performed a tracheotomy in the field on her son-in-law, and treated patients for countless viral illnesses. You would think viewers are finally desensitized to whatever she finds her hands in next, and yet this week proved the squeamish still have plenty of reasons to turn their heads.

Though, as the episode’s title suggests, “Ye Dinna Get Used To It” because war is hell, as they say, and there are bound to be plenty of battle wounds ahead as Jamie (Sam Heughan) assumes his new post as Brigadier General under the command of George Washington. But before the bombs start bursting in air, the most dire injury that needs Claire’s attention is one of Jamie’s own making : his battered best friend, Lord John (David Berry). When Jamie found out Claire and Lord John slept together as a means of mourning his “death,” Jamie punched him repeatedly in the left eye before handing him over to the Patriots.

When Lord John arrives in Jamie’s camp this week, Claire immediately recognizes the damage done since she last saw the man she was temporarily married to. Upon inspection, she reveals Jamie fractured the orbit around Lord John’s eye, and he can’t move it because the inner textual muscle is trapped in the crack of that fracture. I will take her word for it as long as she doesn’t show us proof. But it gets worse! Back at Lord John’s home, Claire directs Jamie to hold him down while she grabs his eyeball and twists it to free the nerve. The look of horror on his face matched the chill sent down my spine as she moved in for the painful procedure, becoming the second Fraser to assault his eyeball in a matter of days. Mercifully, the scene cuts away before any finger-to-eye contact can be seen.

But the only thing more painful for Lord John than the world’s worst eye exam might be the sight of the Betsy Ross-sewn stars and stripes that’s now hung over his mantle. Since his absence, there’s been a changing of the guard and the times. As Claire states when she is given the flag by George Washington earlier in the episode, “A nation without a flag is like a furnace without a fire.” America is finding its footing, and the British and its supporters are faltering. The reality of how quickly things can change is not lost on Lord Grey, but the sight of it under his roof probably doesn’t make it any easier to stomach either. Outlander spent seasons ramping up to the American Revolution and now it has to navigate the reality that as the war went on, loyalties changed. Allegiance is a living, breathing thing that evolves with the tides of war. The series dispensed rather quickly with its melodrama earlier this season (weddings, funeral sex, kidnappings, oh my!), and now, it wisely has to take a beat and find where its characters stand several years into this struggle. Lord John, for instance, swore allegiance to the Continental Army to keep himself alive this week, a decision that breaks the vow he swore to his brother Harold in the flashback cold open to the episode.

As Lord John’s stock falls exponentially, the Frasers’ has risen. Start to finish, the episode name drops more historical figures than a high-school history book, starting with the return of last week’s surprise guest George Washington, who commandeers the Frasers residence (a.k.a. Lord John’s residence) for a dinner as he moves through the newly captured Philadelphia. Also in attendance is the Marquis de Lafayette, the Frenchman who becomes a formidable force in Washington’s army; and General Charles Lee, Washington’s second in command, who believed he was better suited to lead the Patriot forces.

Also among the dinner guests is Percy Wainwright, who introduces himself to Claire and Jamie as Percy Beauchamp, which just so happens to be Claire’s maiden name. Percy returns later while Claire is doctoring Lord John’s eye and she immediately recognizes there are more than busted blood vessels between them. Percy and Lord John were lovers, and the latter sprung him from an English prison after he was caught with another man. In return, Wainwright has come to tell Lord John that William (Charles Vandervaart) is being set up by Loyalist officer/Patriot spy Captain Richardson (Ben Lambert) as leverage to force Lord John and his brother to fall back in line behind the British. Jamie would normally spring into action in a situation like this, but he has 300 soldiers at the ready for the impending Battle of Monmouth. So he sends Ian (John Bell) to escort Lord John to find and save William before he falls into Richardson’s trap.

Like last week’s lackluster outing, this episode plays out as a standard midseason installment meant to get you from point A to point B–with slightly more optical horrors than usual. The real value here is watching Lord John’s drastically deteriorating circumstances. What started as a kind gesture to save the wife of his best friend and life-long crush has nearly cost him his eye, his loyalty to his king, his freedom as an aristocrat, and, possibly now, his son. Few can charge Outlander with not moving the needle on its story, even if its obstacles and traumas can get repetitive. But the focus on Lord John this season has given the series a new perspective when it counts. Claire and Jamie’s story needs new voices, and the price being paid by Lord John right now affords him a loud one.

Stray observations

• • The episode was written by Outlander author Diana Gabaldon, and you can tell. There’s a sincerity and a voice that you only find in her books, which fans will probably love. She previously wrote the 11th episodes of both seasons two and five. 
• • Brianna (Sophie Skelton) was back to frantically trying to find Rob Cameron (Chris Fulton) before he found her this week, after she rescued her kidnapped son Jemmy. He’s recruited a goon squad now in his pursuit of the Spanish gold, but she’s still got enough Jamie and Claire Fraser in her to fend off a bunch of thugs, especially when her kids are nearby. Don’t remember what’s happening in this storyline? Don’t worry. It doesn’t have much bearing on the show right now.
• • After their wedding last week, this episode briefly checks in on Ian and Rachel (Izzy Meikle-Small) to confirm they are still in the honeymoon phase, mating like bunnies when he’s not out scouting for the Patriots. Once she let her hair down from that bonnet, she hasn’t looked back!
• • Claire married Lord John and therefore has a claim to his belongings while he’s “gone” (a.k.a. forcibly enlisted into the enemy’s army). But did Claire and Jamie really have to move in and make his place theirs so quickly? With Washington’s flag now hanging over the mantle, they are marking their territory to make Jamie feel more comfortable about squatting in the home where his wife slept with another man. It would be more subtle if he urinated on the walls.
• • Oh, and lest I forget, Jane (Silvia Presente), the sex worker William bedded last week, showed up at his camp with her 10-year-old sister Fanny. She’s running from the law because after William left, his pig of a commander Harkness went back to the brothel to sleep with Jane and her sister, but she couldn’t allow it so she stabbed him in the throat. Remember when William protested that she stole his honor last week by pressuring him into sex? Well now he’s harboring a fugitive, so it’s been a sinful spiral for everyone around here.