Synopsis:
Claire struggles with her demons as a nefarious rumor begins to spread on the Ridge. Tensions rise as the residents fear there is a dangerous person in their midst.
I felt so bad for Claire in this episode. Fraser’s Ridge took a downward spiral after hearing about Malva’s death, and everyone was pointing the finger at Claire. Not that Claire hasn’t had this happen to her before, but this time, also her PTSD is running wild.
Accusations:
Like Claire said to Lizzie, everyone on the Ridge knows about everyone else’s business, and it’s unfortunate because there are a few certain people that are trying to blend in with the rest of the world and not make it apparent that they live from a different time. And even though Claire thinks she’s been selfish for traveling back in time and living a life with Jamie, I can see where she did have some slip-ups. Having Marsali help Claire in surgery is one thing because Claire has already let Marsali know that she’s not a witch and that she could be trusted, as we’ve seen with their close bond. But when she let Malva into her surgery room, she was showing Malva things that couldn’t even be fathomed during that time. So I’m sure Malva was skeptical of Claire because she knew things that no one else did. Also, Malva was familiar with witchcraft, so that also didn’t help. And beyond that, Claire was sharing these ideas with other people on the Ridge and even trying to perform them on patients. I know that Claire and even Bree want to help the people on the Ridge with their knowledge, but there comes the point where you have not to seem so obvious that your knowledge is beyond the normal persons.
At the beginning of the episode, Malva shares that she thinks the Devil came to her, and I’m wondering now if the people on Fraser’s Ridge think that Claire is that person. She’s a witch and also the Devil. The Christie’s believe whole-heartedly that Claire is dangerous and probably killed Malva because of the time she spent with her, but also, since Malva confessed that Jamie got her pregnant, she killed Malva to protect him. This has Claire shaken up because with all the accusations coming her and Jamie’s way, her PTSD is at a full-time high, and she’s second-guessing her life and also what she’s done while on ether. Seeing Claire’s PTSD this season has been interesting. I get why she would have stress because of her time being assaulted by Lionel and his men, but I wish we could get inside Claire’s mind more because she’s been through a lot, but we haven’t seen the stress wash over her as bad as it has this time. She was locked in a prison for being accused as a witch and beaten. She’s been in a lot of dangerous situations, but why now is it all flooding to her mind? Malva was just as bad as Laoghaire, maybe a little worse, but I guess when you have the Christie men watching your every move, I guess that can be stressful. I just feel like we needed more to the hallucinations to explain the big explosion of them in this episode. Also, I thought it was a little far-fetched that Claire thought she killed Malva. I get that she had that dream about wanting to slit Malva’s throat, but Claire should know the effects of ether and that you fall into a deep sleep. And she’d never slept walked before while on it, so it’s not believable.
I was so relieved that Claire finally told Jamie that she was taking ether to ebb the PTSD symptoms and that she had PTSD in general. She was probably ashamed, but it just killed me that Claire tried to help Jamie so much when he was going through his PTSD that she couldn’t muster up the courage to tell him about hers. This could have been solved long ago. However, I did love the speech Jamie gave Claire about selfishness, and I wish he would have prodded her more when he saw that Claire was in distress.
I’m super nervous for the final episode because the Browns are back and are arresting Claire for the murder of Malva. But, unfortunately, that’s not going to help Claire’s PTSD because she’s going to have to deal with the other Brown brother.
Ménage à trois:
Well, we got a surprising storyline with Lizzie and the Beardsley twins. We knew that Lizzie fancied the twins, but who would have thought she would get pregnant from sleeping with both of them. Yet another scandal on Fraser’s Ridge. It was funny, though, that Lizzie outsmarted everyone by getting handfasted to both Josiah and Keziah on different occasions, and it was comical to see how irritated Jamie got by learning what happened.
