Outlander Season 3 Episode 7 Recap: Creme de Menthe

To her credit, she gets a good jab in with her knife and, ultimately, she forces the guy off-balance. He stumbles and slams his head on the bottom of the fireplace. If things were that simple—if he died that easily—this episode would be far less complicated and frustrating.
A Life to Save
Things are not that easy, and the intruder clings to life with a brain injury that Claire is bound and determined to treat. This is to the befuddlement of Jamie, who returns home to find his wife (wielding a knife) and the prone body of a man on his floor. He gets more confused when Claire starts barking orders to people for the supplies she’ll need to operate on him.
“Because I’m a doctor,” she offers as an explanation. Jamie responds gently, “Sassenach, let God take him.”
I’m on Jamie’s side here, because this is not a complication any of us need. The man on the floor is identified as an excise man, “a crooked agent of the crown.” His presence indicates Jamie’s arrangement with the local authorities—namely, the fussy Sir Percival we met last week—is faltering.
Fergus and young Ian are dispatched to sell the telltale whisky currently stored in the brothel cellar. Claire dispatches herself to the apothecary to pick up a few items for impending brain surgery. There, she makes a promise to another customer in exchange for cutting the line. (We’ll get there.)
As she sets up her brothel-side O.R., Mr. Willoughby scrubs in as a most skeptical assistant. Jamie misses all the skull-drilling and bleeding because he’s downstairs diffusing a situation with Percival, here to search the premises for the illegal whisky. Mercifully, the whisky has been moved and Percival does not go upstairs.
What Claire means to do with the man on her operating table once he’s on the path to recovery is unclear. Ask him to pinky promise not to rat them out? Retrain him as a physician’s assistant? Speculate as you will because we’ll never find out. The patient does not survive the operation.
The tension here, however, is about more than a goon with a head wound. Claire’s spent the past 14 years training and serving as a doctor. Now, she’s returned to a place where she can’t practice those skills in any reasonable way. She’s essentially lost her livelihood, and she’s thrown a wrench into Jamie’s as well.
“Sassenach, you came thousands of miles and two hundred years to find me,” Jamie reassures her. “I’m grateful you’re here, regardless of cost.”
Secrets, Secrets
Fergus and Ian are having a better go of it. Ian turns out to be a master salesman, and they celebrate a profitable day with a couple of pints, lessons in seduction, and the revelation that Fergus once had a threesome. When Ian manages to woo the “bonnie” pub waitress, it’s clear this will not end well. No one can remain happy on Outlander—particularly when one of Percival’s men is watching from a nearby table.
Claire makes good on the promise she made at the apothecary, popping in to treat one poor Ms. Campbell. Margaret and her brother Archie are “fortunetellers,” which primarily means Archie uses his sister’s mental illness to line his pockets. It’s a depressing reminder both of the state of women and the perception of mental illness at this point in history. Claire prescribes some calming teas and departs, as we all are, slightly disappointed in the human condition.
All roads in this show lead to the brothel, and the latest weary traveler is old Ian, looking for his runaway son. Apparently, he and Jenny are unaware their son has been conscripted in the family business of smuggling. Jamie lies flatly, claiming he hasn’t seen the boy. Ian’s bewilderment at the sight of Claire helps conceal the lie.
The deception, however, sparks another spat between Claire and Jamie, with Claire upset at Jamie’s rogue decision-making and Jamie defensive about accusations against his parenting wisdom.
Burn Notice
This fight is interrupted, though it surely will continue, by a firefight—at the print shop. Remember when I said young Ian’s tryst would not end well? It did na. While it’s nice to see his spritely partner inform the boy that there is more than one sexual position, the two inevitably are interrupted.
One of Percival’s men is rifling through the shop, still looking for contraband. His dispute with Ian turns disastrous when a bullet hits one of the many flammable liquids lining the shelves. The fiend runs off and Ian’s trapped in the blaze. Fortunately, the Edinburgh social network gets word to Jamie quickly enough that he’s able to rush in for an heroic search and rescue. He’s able to retrieve Ian, but the shop itself is done for.
Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like a good thing that Jamie’s warehouse of sedition has been disposed of. Though, Percival’s man did make off with a handful of treasonous papers, which Fergus is sent to intercept. Claire also wins. The only sensible thing to do at this juncture is to leave the city, and that means there’s no reason not to return Ian home to his worried parents at Lallybroch.
Lest you think this episode is wrapping up too neatly, Fergus drops a bomb during the hushed whispers of planning outside the burning shop. “The lady does not yet know about your other wife?” he casually asks Jamie. Oh, the trip to Lallybroch is going to be a doozy.