Synopsis:
A dysentery epidemic spreads on the Ridge, and Claire falls deathly ill. She is almost recovered when the Christies arrive and drop a bombshell. As nefarious rumors spread like wildfire on the Ridge, tragedy strikes.
That was a whirlwind of an episode. Illness struck the Ridge, and Malva also spread like a sickness, causing havoc on the Frasers and throughout the community. Talk about a turning point for all the people living on the Ridge. Rumors have spread, and no one knows who to trust.
The Flux:
The first half of the episode dealt with the flux that took over the Ridge. First, the McNeils got hit with the illness, which Claire later discovered came from contaminated water. That must have been a common occurrence throughout that time because I’m pretty sure they didn’t have filtration systems to rely on. And the sad thing was, like Claire said, there wasn’t a cure, so many people died. And with that, Claire came down with her own illness. The Fraser’s seem to never get a break. Malva wouldn’t leave her side, and Claire thought she was hallucinating that Malva was getting a little too close to Jamie. I want to know where this turn of events came from for Malva. Was she just jealous of Claire’s life, or was there something deeper? Also, I know that Jamie couldn’t do much for Claire himself, but I wish we had seen him fuss over her more when she was severely ill. It was sweet seeing him care for her when she was better, but I wanted to see more emotion from him. When Claire does get better, we see that some of the settlers had come to Claire’s side and thought that cutting her hair would make her feel better. It’s a new look for Claire, but I kind of love it. Jamie tells Claire that Tom is sick as well, so Claire takes it upon herself to visit him. Weirdly, she finds out that they both had the same illness, but they hadn’t seen each other in a while. I’m wondering how that happened. Claire said it was just a bacterial infection. At the end of Claire’s illness, we got a cute little throwback to when Jamie slept in front of Claire’s room back in Season 1. In this episode, Jamie was sleeping on the floor near his and Claire’s bed, just so that Claire could get some rest. It was funny because you could tell Jamie was super uncomfortable.
Rumors:
The second half of this episode had my jaw dropped. The Christie’s ride over to see the Fraser’s, and Malva accuses Jamie of getting her pregnant. I wasn’t ready for that, and I feel like that happened so quickly. I knew that she was lying, but why was she sabotaging Jamie’s reputation? To get back at Claire? In my head, I think Malva was grateful at first that Claire was so open with her and let her learn new things, but I guess jealousy took over. She wanted to live a full life, and since Claire told her about female pleasure, she took it upon herself to get that as well. She, of course, did it in the wrong manner, and once she got pregnant, she wanted to take it out on Claire because she knew she would get in trouble. Again, we saw Claire get mad and slap someone as she did with Laoghaire. So we know that Claire despises Malva. And when confronting Jamie, Claire finally finds out about him sleeping with Mary McNab. What was interesting was that Claire asked Jamie why he never told her about Mary, and he said that he didn’t know when would be a good time. When we look at Season 3, when Jamie tells Claire about William, later on, Claire asks him if there were any other secrets he was keeping from her, and Jamie says no. So that kind of was a red flag for me, even though I know he didn’t have sex with Malva and wouldn’t do it with anyone else. I just find it interesting that Jamie takes the time to let his secrets out to Claire when she already thinks he’s told her everything. Later on, Claire tries to make amends with Malva, but at this point, things are too far gone. Allan bad mouths Claire, and Malva again, starts pushing that Claire’s a witch.
Then we got another shocker when Ian tells Claire that he slept with Malva. He thinks he might be the father, and I knew that there was a chemistry between them, but I was surprised that Ian acted upon it. Now that some of the settlers aren’t taken kindly to Claire, I wonder what’s going to happen with the community. We better not get another witch trial for Claire’s sake. Lastly, towards the end of the episode, Claire goes out to the garden and finds Malva dead with her throat slit. Another shocker because how did this happen? Did she take her own life since she had created so much havoc? Or did someone else do it? And I wasn’t ready for Claire to slice Malva’s stomach open to try to save her baby. Sadly, it didn’t look like the baby could be saved, so it was another somber ending to an Outlander episode. I hope we find out what happened to Malva, and I’m pretty sure the Christie’s are going to be in a full-blown war with the Fraser’s now.
