Episode 711: "A Hundredweight of Stones" (SPOILERS!)
Here are my reactions to Episode 711 of the OUTLANDER TV series, titled "A Hundredweight of Stones".
*** SPOILER WARNING!! ***
There are SPOILERS below! If you don't want to know yet, stop reading now.
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The episode opens with the wedding of Claire Fraser and Lord John Grey. It would be difficult to imagine a more reluctant bride. Claire looks numb and exhausted, going through the motions because she has no choice. You get the impression that her body is there, but she's not really taking in any of this. Notice William, in uniform, standing as witness.
Claire hesitates for a long moment before she can bring herself to recite the vows, and when she does, she speaks in a low voice, almost inaudible. Watching this, it's impossible not to recall the day she married Jamie in Episode 107, "The Wedding". This is just heartbreaking!
"To love and to cherish, until...." She breaks off, unable to finish the line, "until death us do part." Little wonder, with her grief over Jamie's death so raw and painful! She looks at William, and somehow that gives her the strength to say the words. Lord John places an expensive-looking ring on her finger, next to Jamie's silver ring, and it's done. Claire climbs the stairs to her room like a sleepwalker, carefully removes the new ring and puts it aside, then collapses on her bed, immersed in grief again.
The title card of this episode is a white deer. Very appropriate!
In the next scene, Ian is praying over a cairn of rocks, in the woods near Philadelphia, which he has built in memory of his Uncle Jamie, presumed lost at sea in last week's episode. This is the basis for the episode title, "A Hundredweight of Stones", which is also the title of the opening chapter of WRITTEN IN MY OWN HEART'S BLOOD. The rest of this scene is based on the book as well.
Ian asks Rachel if Quakers believe in heaven.
"[We] consider our life here on earth to be a sacrament, lived in the light of Christ. There may be an afterlife, but as no one has come back to say so, it’s a matter of speculation, left to each person individually.”In the next scene, we're back in 1739 with Roger and Buck, riding on horseback in search of Jerry MacKenzie (Roger's father), a World War II RAF flyer whose dog tags Roger obtained in last week's episode.
They had paused in the shade of a small walnut grove, and the soft green sun that fell flickering through the leaves gave Rachel herself an unearthly glow that any angel might have envied.
“Well, I havena been there, either, so I’ll no just say that’s wrong,” he said, and bent to kiss her just above the ear. A faint rush of tiny gooseflesh stippled her temple for an instant, and the sight touched his heart.
(From WRITTEN IN MY OWN HEART'S BLOOD by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 16, "Room for Secrets". Copyright © 2014 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)
"Jeremiah MacKenzie disappeared without a trace. These tags are a trace." This line isn't in the book, but I liked it. Without any evidence of Jem in the past so far, these dog tags are their only clue to his whereabouts.
Bree's struggle with the stuck kitchen drawer is based on this incident in the book:
Her hands were shaking; it took three tries to open the sticky drawer in Mandy’s dresser, and after the third failure, she pounded it in fury with the side of her fist, whispering through gritted teeth, “You goddamned f*cking bloody buggering thing! Don’t you dare get in my way!” She crashed her fist on top of the dresser, raised her foot, and smashed the sole of her sneaker into the thing so hard that it rocked back and thumped into the wall with a bang.I've always liked that bit and I was glad to see it included here. Unlike in the book, Bree appears to have injured her hand in the struggle with the stuck drawer.
She grabbed the drawer pulls and yanked. The terrorized drawer shot out, and she snatched the whole thing free and flung it into the opposite wall, where it struck and exploded in a rainbow spray of underpants and tiny striped T-shirts.
She walked over and looked down at the battered drawer, lying upside down on the floor.
“So there,” she said calmly. “Teach you to get in my way when I have things to think about.”
(From WRITTEN IN MY OWN HEART'S BLOOD by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 32, "For Many Men Who Stumble at the Threshold Are Well Foretold That Danger Lurks Within”. Copyright © 2014 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)
The next scene, with Ian and Rachel walking in the woods, comes straight from MOHB chapter 16, "Room for Secrets". I have to say again, Izzy Meikle-Small is wonderful as Rachel! When I look at her, I don't see an actress playing a part. I see Rachel, coming to life on screen. That's amazing to me. <g> And she and John Bell are terrific together.
“In point of fact,” she said thoughtfully, “thee never has asked me to marry thee.”Ian tells Rachel that he was married before, to the Mohawk woman called Works With Her Hands, aka Emily. Rachel is surprised, but willing to hear more about her.
“I didn’t?” he said, staggered. “Are ye sure?”
“I would have noticed,” she assured him gravely. “No, thee didn’t. Though I recall a few very moving declarations, there was no suggestion of marriage among them.”
[....]
“Did ye not say ye loved me?”
Her mouth turned up just a little, but he could see her laughing at him at the back of her eyes.
“Not in so many words. But I did give thee to understand that, yes. Or at least I meant to.”
“Oh. Well, then,” he said, much happier. “Ye did.” And he pulled her into his one sound arm and kissed her with great fervor.
(From WRITTEN IN MY OWN HEART'S BLOOD by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 16, "Room for Secrets". Copyright © 2014 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)
The next scene, between Lord John and William, is not in the book. William is upset that Lord John actually went through with the marriage to Claire.
"She is a Rebel. And by tying your name to hers, you've put that very name in jeopardy. What will your comrades say?"
"James Fraser was...my friend. And he loved his wife more than anything in this world. I owe it to him to protect her."
I like that. It's the honest truth, if not the complete truth. He can't very well admit the depth of his feelings for Jamie, after all. John seems completely at peace with his decision to marry Claire, convinced that he did the right thing.
Back in the woods, Ian tells Rachel an abbreviated version of the story of his relationship with Emily, as we saw in Episode 604, "Hour of the Wolf". Then he tells her about Emily's son, whom we met in Episode 705, "Singapore".
"Emily chose me. I was grateful. But Rachel, with my whole soul, I choose you. I hope you will choose me."
Her answer comes straight from the book (MOHB chapter 16): "Oh, Ian! I do love thee." And she kisses him. Awwww!! What a sweet moment.
The next scene shifts the focus back to Claire, lying in her bed at night, unable to sleep. She takes out her medical chest and looks through it, first examining the little bottles, then taking out a scalpel with a sharp blade. As she sits contemplating suicide, she hears Jamie's voice in her head, from Episode 401, "America the Beautiful: "Don't you see what a small thing death is between us? When my body dies, my soul will still be yours."
She makes a small cut in a vein in her arm, but immediately applies pressure to the wound (indicating that she's not actually going to commit suicide), screaming at the top of her lungs in a burst of pure rage and grief. This reminded me vividly of the scene at the beginning of Episode 201, "Through a Glass, Darkly", where she lets out a scream like that when she realizes that she is back in the 20th century, and Jamie is dead.
Her rage is understandable. She wasn't there when he died, couldn't do anything to save him, and now he's gone, leaving her without even a body to bury. How is she supposed to go on living in these circumstances? But somehow she finds the strength to do just that.
The mark was still visible on the mound at the base of my thumb. A faint white “J,” the mark he’d left on me on the eve of Culloden, when we first faced the stark knowledge of death and separation.Alcohol will numb the pain, at least for a while. She reaches for a decanter of brandy and gulps it down, seeking oblivion. It doesn't help, and she keeps screaming.
I traced the thin white line with the tip of the knife and felt the seductive whisper of metal on my skin. I’d wanted to die with him then, and he had sent me on with a firm hand. I carried his child; I could not die.
I carried her no longer--but she was still there. Perhaps reachable. I sat motionless for what seemed a long time, then sighed and put the knife back on the table carefully.
Perhaps it was the habit of years, a bent of mind that held life sacred for its own sake, or a superstitious awe of extinguishing a spark kindled by a hand not my own. Perhaps it was obligation. There were those who needed me--or at least to whom I could be useful.
(From AN ECHO IN THE BONE by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 94, "The Paths of Death". Copyright © 2009 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)
Eventually the sound of her screams rouses Lord John from his own grief-stricken, solitary mourning. We see that he, like Claire, has been drinking quite a bit. He looks at the chessboard, obviously recalling the times he played chess with Jamie. I liked the way he picked up the king and stroked it gently, as though it was Jamie's hand, before setting it back down, tears running down his face.
Meanwhile, Claire is still screaming, and suddenly John has had enough. He walks into her room without knocking and announces, "I will not mourn him alone tonight."
I liked the brief montage that follows. We didn't need to see exactly who did what, and indeed, it's not spelled out in the book. It's enough to know that a) yes, they did have sex, b) they both had had quite a lot to drink, and c) this sexual encounter was a means of letting out their tremendous feelings of grief and rage over Jamie's death.
Claire wakes the next morning to find Lord John lying in bed beside her. This was a HUGE shock to many readers, including me, when ECHO was first published in 2009. On TheLitForum (which is the online forum where Diana Gabaldon hangs out), we took to calling it "The Big Event", or TBE for short.
"I thought I must have dreamt that," is Claire's first reaction, when she wakes up to find herself naked in the bed with an equally naked Lord John beside her. I had to laugh a little ruefully at that. This line isn't in the book, but it's similar to my reaction on the first reading of this part, when I was in a state of shock, in Total Denial about what had just happened, and frantically reading as fast as I could in the futile hope that Diana would take it back. (Ha! As if she would do that in a million years!)
The rest of their post-coital conversation is taken almost verbatim from ECHO chapter 95, "Numbness".
“I am afraid I was perhaps not ...” he hesitated. “Very gentlemanly.”They were in fact both making love to Jamie. And no, Lord John is not bisexual! He was married for a time, to Geneva's sister Isobel, and evidently learned enough about how to please a woman in bed that he could at least perform adequately, but he isn't sexually aroused by women. Not even with Claire lying naked right next to him.
“Oh, you weren’t,” I said, rather tartly. “But I assure you that I wasn’t being at all ladylike myself.”
He looked at me, and his mouth worked a bit, as though trying to frame some response to that, but after a moment or two he shook his head and gave it up.
“Besides, it wasn’t me you were making love to,” I said, “and both of us know it.” He looked up, startled, his eyes very blue. Then the shadow of a smile crossed his face, and he looked down at the quilted coverlet.
“No,” he said softly. “Nor were you, I think, making love to me. Were you?”
“No,” I said. The grief of the night before had softened, but the weight of it was still there. My voice was low and husky, because my throat was halfway closed, where the hand of sorrow clutched me unawares.
(From AN ECHO IN THE BONE by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 95, "Numbness". Copyright © 2009 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)
I like the story of Manoke and the white deer, which also comes verbatim from this chapter of ECHO. I've often thought that Lord John himself is like that white deer, in terms of his function in the series as a whole. He comes and goes, and when he appears, I'm happy to see him, but I don't necessarily miss him when he's not the focus of the story, because there's so much else going on.
For those of you who are having difficulty accepting this particular plot twist, I just wanted to assure you that you're not alone! I had a very strong negative reaction to this whole Claire/Lord John subplot when I first read it, and it took some time to get over it. When I first met Diana in 2009, a few days after ECHO was published, she signed my copy of ECHO with the inscription, "To Karen, who survived the shock." And it was this particular shock that she was referring to.
Those of you who've read chapter 24 in WRITTEN IN MY OWN HEART'S BLOOD have seen these events explained from Claire's point of view, and I'm grateful that we had that very explosive scene between Jamie and Claire to make it clear how they felt about it. But I thought it might also be helpful to share a few of Diana Gabaldon's posts from the old Compuserve Books and Writers Community (now TheLitForum.com).
Here are three detailed posts by Diana from a discussion in March 2010, almost six months after ECHO was published. They certainly helped me to come to terms with what happened, and I hope you find them useful! Feel free to share these posts with anyone who's interested.
Post # 66755.50: Diana on why knowing that Jamie was not actually dead caused some book-readers (including me!) to have such difficulty with this whole plotline.
Post # 66755.28 (scroll down on that page to see it): Diana on why Claire's actions that night are not "out of character".
Post # 66755.576 (scroll down on that page to see it): Diana on why Claire and Lord John had sex.
Moving on.... In the next scene, we're back with Roger and Buck, on the trail of the mysterious "faerie-man", aka Jerry MacKenzie. The scene with the tinker comes straight from the book.
It must have been Cumberpatch’s description of the disks as a jewel--a common way to refer to a pendant ornament--that had made his mind sensitive. He stopped and, stirring the dish with a forefinger, drew out a small pendant, blackened, cracked, and with a broken chain--it looked as though it had been in a fire--but set with a fairly large garnet, caked with grime but faceted.A gemstone, in a remote location like this? That's very lucky!
“How much for this?” he said.
(From WRITTEN IN MY OWN HEART'S BLOOD by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 96, "Nay Great Shortage of Hair in Scotland". Copyright © 2014 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)
Meanwhile, back in 1980, Bree is bandaging the cut on her hand and having a glass of wine when Rob Cameron suddenly appears, startling her badly. He holds up the letter he took from Jemmy's box. "I came for you, hen, and for the gold," he says.
Bree demands to know where Jem is.
"He isn't in the past, if that's what you mean." Rob is grinning at her, but the look of triumph on his face makes me feel sick, thinking of this bit from the book:
But now Brianna’s mind was moving at the speed of light, bounding from one horrifying realization to the next, making connections that might have taken hours to make in cooler blood.Rob Cameron threatens her with a large kitchen knife, trying to force her to come with him to make Jem divulge the location of the hidden gold. Eventually he lets down his guard a bit, turning away just long enough for Bree to pick up something heavy from the kitchen counter and hit him over the head with it. Rob falls to the floor, unconscious.
Horrifying Realization Number 1: Jem hadn’t gone into the past, after all. While by itself this was undeniably a good thing, it made Horrifying Realization Number 2 that much worse: Roger and William Buccleigh had undoubtedly gone through the stones, searching for Jemmy. She hoped they were in fact in the past and not dead--traveling through whatever sort of thing the stones were was a bloody dangerous proposition--but, if so, that brought her back to Horrifying Realization Number 1: Jem wasn’t in the past. And if he wasn’t there, Roger wasn’t going to find him. And since Roger would never give up looking ...
She pushed Horrifying Realization Number 3 aside with great force, and Mandy blinked, startled.
(From WRITTEN IN MY OWN HEART'S BLOOD by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 26, "A Step Into the Dark". Copyright © 2014 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)
The next scene, with Ian and Claire, is not in the book. Ian, too, is grieving -- both for his father and for his Uncle Jamie. He says he's come to see Claire in case it was his last chance before she goes back, through the stones. Claire is a little startled by this, because she hadn't actually been planning to leave.
"The truth is I don't feel like the future is my time anymore. Jamie and I, we built our life here. We wanted to be part of creating this new nation. Now he'll never have a chance to finish that fight, but I can see it through. For him, for Bree, the children, and Roger. For all of us."
OK. That's plausible, and I can accept it.
The next two scenes, in which Lord John and Claire go to visit Henry Grey and Mercy Woodcock and ride home in the carriage afterward, are not in the book. Lord John's nephew Henry has almost recovered from his surgery, and he declares his intention to marry Mercy, a free Black woman. Lord John's vehemently negative reaction took me by surprise.
He objects on the grounds that a) marriages "of this sort" (interracial marriages, he means) are illegal -- I have no idea if that's historically accurate or not -- and b) that Lord Henry Grey is the son of a Duke. Then he turns to Henry. "You will return to England and do your duty, to your title and to your father's name."
In the carriage on the way home, Claire says, "I never would have taken you for a bigot." Lord John insists, essentially, that he interfered for Henry's own good, to prevent a scandal.
"Some day people will be free to marry whoever they choose," Claire says. "And it's people like them who usher in the change."
I really didn't like this! I hate it when the show gets preachy. It reminded me of Claire in Season 2, attempting to break up Alex and Mary's relationship against their wishes. I think the writers were trying much too hard to make a point about how much things have changed in our own time, and I didn't care for it. In my opinion, John's vehemence (and intransigence) on this subject seems far more likely to push Henry away permanently than simply to get him to break off his relationship with Mercy Woodcock. I wouldn't be surprised if Henry and Mercy left for some other place less hostile to interracial marriages.
In the next scene, John brings Claire a present: a beautiful new green gown suitable for a formal dinner party. The party is based on a historical event called the Mischianza, described in ECHO. It's a party to celebrate Loyalists, so John worries that Claire will be uncomfortable.
“Why, knowing your loyalties, I must suppose that it would be painful to you, to see so much...” He made a discreet motion of the wrist, indicating the lavish displays around us, which were certainly not limited to the peacock. “... so much pomp and extravagant expense devoted to--to--”Claire flatly refuses to attend. John all but begs her to go, but she won't budge.
“Gloating?” I ended dryly. “I might--but I don’t. I know what will happen.”
He blinked at that, very much taken aback. “What will happen? To whom?”
The sort of prophecy I possessed was seldom a welcome gift; in these circumstances, though, I took a rather grim pleasure in telling him.
“To you. The British army, I mean, not you personally. They’ll lose the war, in three years’ time. What price gilded peacocks then, eh?”
(From AN ECHO IN THE BONE by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 98, "Mischianza". Copyright © 2009 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)
"All we have is each other. And if we have each other, then we have him." Jamie, he means.
This is a particularly clunky bit of dialogue, and it doesn't even make sense! That single night of grief- and rage- and alcohol-fueled sex aside, Lord John is NOT a Jamie-substitute!! Not in Claire's mind, and not for most viewers, either. If she won't attend, what's he going to do, tie her up and force her to come? Claire's stubbornness is more than a match for John in this instance, and he doesn't press her further.
The next scene brings us back to Roger and Buck, still roaming the countryside in search of Jerry MacKenzie. Suddenly Roger sees an RAF pilot's jacket hanging from the branch of a tree in the distance. What happens next is based on MOHB chapter 98, "The Wall". The man who found the jacket refuses to give it up. When Roger persists, he calls some other men to drive Roger and Buck away. The MacKenzies retreat to a safe distance and make camp for the night.
They are in fact making progress, but only in baby steps, a little bit at a time. Which may be realistic, but it doesn't always make for compelling TV.
In the next scene, which is not in the book, the party is under way at Lord John's house, where he is busy greeting the guests as they arrive. John is surprised to see Captain Richardson, who was not invited. Moments later, Claire appears at the top of the stairs, dressed in the new gown. John notices that she's wearing the wedding ring he gave her. Claire greets the guests cordially, but doesn't speak or even smile. One of the guests is Peggy Chew, a real historical figure.
William refuses to dance with Peggy Chew, because he misses Rachel. (Sorry, William, she's taken!) I didn't care for the way William talked Claire into dancing with Richardson when she clearly didn't want to. Also, the middle of a very public party where lots of people might overhear their conversation seems a very odd choice of setting for the serious talk between Claire and Richardson that's about to take place. In the book, they were in Claire's surgery with the door closed and no one else present.
“The essence of the matter, ma’am, is that I am a Rebel--and always have been.”This scene works in the book because Claire and Richardson are having a private conversation in a place where they're unlikely to be overheard. I don't believe for a minute that Richardson would be talking about this sort of thing in public on a dance floor, let alone declaring himself publicly to be a Rebel while in the midst of a party in support of Loyalists! Whatever else he may be, the man's not a fool. The incongruity of the setting distracted me very much, keeping me from focusing on what Richardson was saying. The gist of it seems to be that Richardson wants Claire's help to gather intelligence on the Greys, and she declined.
“You--what?”
“I am presently a colonel in the Continental army--but when you first knew me, I was working as an American agent in the guise of a captain in His Majesty’s army in Philadelphia.”
“I don’t understand.” I grasped what he was telling me but couldn’t grasp why the hell he should be telling me.
(From WRITTEN IN MY OWN HEART'S BLOOD by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 131, "A Born Gambler". Copyright © 2014 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)
In the next scene, Claire and Lord John are in her bedroom, and John is looking over the day's mail. Nothing of any importance. Suddenly, Jamie's voice calls up the stairs: "Claire!!"
She's not imagining things. It really is Jamie! This scene is straight from the book, and they did a great job with it.
He saw me, stood stock-still for an instant, and then I was in his arms, the overwhelming warmth and size of him blotting out in an instant everything around me.Things move very fast after that. Jamie explains that the Euterpe left earlier than expected, sailing off with his luggage and leaving him behind.
I didn’t know where my blood had gone. Every drop had left my head, and flickering lights danced before my eyes--but none of it was supplying my legs, which had abruptly dissolved under me.
Jamie was holding me up and kissing me, tasting of beer and his beard stubble rasping my face, his fingers buried in my hair, and my breasts warmed and swelled against his chest.
“Oh, there it is,” I murmured.
“What?” he asked, breaking off for a moment.
“My blood.” I touched my tingling lips. “Do that again.”
(From AN ECHO IN THE BONE by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 101, "Redivivus". Copyright © 2009 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)
"I hate to break up such a joyous reunion," Lord John says, "but your son is due home shortly."
"William? He's here?"
Jamie heads for the door, only to come face to face with William, who heard all of that last exchange. "Son??" William says, disbelieving. And just like that, the secret they've kept for 18 years is out, thanks to Lord John! Much as I enjoyed the scene that follows, which is very close to the book, I didn't like the fact that it was Lord John who let it slip out. He of all people, who has been keeping his own secrets all his adult life, should know better than that! But I realize the truth had to come out somehow, and this was the best option they could come up with.
Regardless of the details of how William found out, the secret is out now, and there's no undoing it.
Willie’s mouth worked, soundless with shock. He looked wildly at me, back at Jamie, back at me--and saw the truth in my face.William takes the rosary from his pocket and shoves it at Jamie. "God damn you, sir! I don't want anything of yours!" Then he turns on Lord John, furious, as he suddenly realizes that his stepfather has known the truth all along. But before John can say a word, Redcoat soldiers burst in, in pursuit of Jamie.
“Who are you?” he said hoarsely, wheeling on Jamie.
I saw Jamie draw himself slowly upright, ignoring the noise below.
“James Fraser,” he said. His eyes were fixed on William with a burning intensity, as though to absorb every vestige of a sight he would not see again. “Ye kent me once as Alex MacKenzie. At Helwater.”
William blinked, blinked again, and his gaze shifted momentarily to John. “And who--who the bloody hell am I?” he demanded, the end of the question rising in a squeak.
John opened his mouth, but it was Jamie who answered.
“You are a stinking Papist,” he said, very precisely, “and your baptismal name is James.” The ghost of regret crossed his face and then was gone. “It was the only name I had a right to give ye,” he said quietly, eyes on his son. “I’m sorry.”
(From AN ECHO IN THE BONE by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 101, "Redivivus". Copyright © 2009 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)
Fortunately, Jamie is a quick thinker. He grabs a pistol and aims it at Lord John's head. "One more step, and he's a dead man!" The soldiers back off, and Jamie makes his escape, with John in tow. I love the expression of pure joy on Claire's face as the episode ends. Jamie is alive, and so is Claire, and that's all that matters. Everything else can wait.
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I hope you enjoyed this recap. Look here for my recaps of all of the OUTLANDER episodes, and please come back next week for my recap of Episode 712.
Looking for a place to discuss All Things OUTLANDER? Check out TheLitForum.com, formerly the Compuserve Books and Writers Community. You have to sign up in order to read or post on the forum, but it's free. For more about the forum, look here.
Cheers
Leanne