Outlander Episode 3 Recap: Useful Occupations and Deception

Instead, Jamie’s social calendar is teeming, what with all the activities related to managing Cousin Jared’s lucrative wine business, attending late-night pow-wows with Prince Charles, and working double-time to thwart the plot he’s helping the prince concoct. While he’s flitting about doing that, Claire’s bump is growing, which means she’s spending more time at home and even more time having tea with catty gal pal Louise de Rohan and the ward she loves to tease, Mary Hawkins.
When Claire was first introduced to Mary, she recognized the name but couldn’t quite place it. As the ladies lunch, Mary, in her most tremulant stutter, recounts the reasons she’s terrified to marry a ravenous Frenchman. It becomes clear that no one ever had The Talk with young Mary. Claire volunteers, but something suddenly clicks in her memory. She remembers Frank pulling out a book of his family’s records and there, on one page, was the name Mary Hawkins—signed next to Jonathan Randall’s. Poor, pitiful Mary marries Black Jack! Claire does an admirable job of not tossing her cookies right then and there, but she starts to berate herself for not putting the pieces of her two lives together sooner: if Black Jack had been killed at Wentworth Prison, there would have been no Frank in the 20th century. This presents a rather sticky moral dilemma: is it OK to throw out the baby if the bathwater is putrid and festering?

She gets to strike up this debate with Murtaugh, once he’s finished frolicking between the sheets with her lady’s maid. (Claire acts real peeved about this, but her annoyance is less with the pair than with the aforementioned dilemma and her own sexual frustration.) It may be hard for Claire to live with a lie, but Murtaugh strongly urges her to do just that. Telling Jamie the truth leads to a decent chance he runs off to do something stupid, and that that stupid something winds up erasing her first husband from time.
At least Jamie’s having a decent day, demolishing Duverney, the French finance minister, at chess. Their play date, however, has a different motive. Jamie wants Duvernay to talk Charles down from the rebellion. He’s already let slip to Jamie that the king will never fund such an endeavor, but Duvernay’s dubious about having that same conversation with Charles. That is, until Jamie announces the meeting is to be held in the brothel, as is custom.
Later, during that discussion, Charles manages to divert Duverney’s attention from the establishment’s genial waitstaff long enough to drop some news: he doesn’t need French money because he’s got a network of secret donors among the British aristocracy. Once his country’s off the financial hook, Duverney seems amenable to striking up an alliance of sorts. This is turning into a no-good, very bad day of scheming for Jamie.

Furthermore, when he comes home for gossip and foot rubs, he finds an empty house. Earlier, on a trip to pick up some rudimentary birth control for Murtaugh and her maid, Claire had a heart-to-heart with her druggist. She’s been frustrated with her newly “conventional” life in France. The small-businessperson of the year suggested she lend her healing talents to the charity hospital down the street.
So she does just that, winning over skeptical nuns in the process by diagnosing “sugar sickness” (diabetes) after eyeballing some urine. Back to unconventionality indeed.
Claire’s elated as she waltzes in the front door and breathlessly utters the following: “I had the most wonderful day! I lanced two boils, changed filthy dressings, and saw my first case of full-blown scrofula.” Somehow, Jamie’s not as thrilled. Reasonably, he’s worried about the baby being exposed to such an infectious environment. He also doesn’t understand Claire’s sense of purposelessness; aren’t they here to stop a rebellion after all?
Jamie’s struggling with what most other men of his time would: having a wife who’s not content to stay home and tend house—or tend the servants tending the house. Though he’s typically an understanding beefcake, Jamie’s also a product of his era. On a more micro scale, he’s also grumpy because he had a tough day at the office and Claire wasn’t there to whine to. Plotting to alter the course of history can put a strain on a marriage.
In a fit of frustration, Jamie heads back to the office (brothel), where he takes in an elegant striptease and chases down a street urchin who picked his pocket earlier. Instead of turning the scamp in, though, he offers the lad a job stealing Charles’s letters. And thus, everyone gets a new purpose for their days: Jamie and Murtaugh spend their time copying and deciphering the letters their new hire pockets, while Claire continues her shifts at the hospital.

The two worlds collide when Jamie and Murtaugh find odd sheet music among the prince’s letters. Jamie’s forced to hightail it down to the hospital because Mother Hildegarde, Claire’s boss, is a trained musician and is apparently best friends with Bach. Yes, that Bach, whose music seems to be the inspiration for the mysterious music. She cracks the code by observing the key changes, and we learn Charles has secured 40,000 pounds from his mysterious allies. The deciphered letter is signed simply “S,” which Jamie and Claire immediately realize stands for Sandringham. Of course!
One problem though: if Jamie sits down with Sandringham, he’s going to see the duke’s young secretary, and he’s going to find out Black Jack is still alive. And then he’s going to want to go kill the man—again. Claire’s got a big decision next week. Too bad life isn’t always as simple as lancing boils.