RECAP: ‘Outlander Season 8 Episode 2’ — “Prophecies”

Outlander Season 8 Episode 2, “Prophecies,” has it all: Birth! Death! Weird neighbors! One of the Fraser men has a dumb idea for a baby name! In short: just another episode of Outlander.

Outlander Season 8 Episode 2 opens in London, 1775. William (Charles Vandervaart) congratulates his cousin Ben (Alex Bhat) on being assigned to fight for the British in Boston. As a good luck charm, William gives Ben a figurine of a general. Ben had given William the figurine as a child, and William figures it’s time for the toy to give Ben as much luck as it once gave him.

It’s on this melancholic note (Ben eventually dies in America) that we jump to the opening credits, and there’s a fun discovery there: this is star Caitríona Balfe’s directorial debut! Balfe is a swift director, eliciting some great emotion from her costars in Outlander Season 8 Episode 2.

Outlander Season 8 Episode 2 marks Caitríona Balfe’s directorial debut, and she nails it.

The action in Outlander Season 8 Episode 2 jumps to 1779, where Claire (Caitríona Balfe) teaches her ward, Fanny (Florrie May Wilkinson), about science. The conversation veers towards young Fanny’s life as a child prostitute. Claire is, rightfully, horrified by the nonchalance with which Fanny speaks about her former life.

She lets Fanny know that she can trust anyone in her new home, but to be careful about revealing her story to the people of Fraser’s Ridge, who might have nefarious intentions or cast a skeptical eye on the Frasers for taking in a child who once lived in a brothel. In short, anyone without the last name Fraser or Mackenzie probably shouldn’t be trusted. If that’s not a thesis for life on Fraser’s Ridge, I don’t know what is.

Meanwhile, Roger (Richard Rankin) tells Jamie (Sam Heughan) about meeting Buck (Graham McTavish), son of Dougal (also McTavish), during his time-traveling in Season 7. Buck had previously tried to hang Roger over a misunderstanding in Season 5, but Roger, ever the preacher, has forgiven him. Jamie’s not so sure he’d have done the same. “Sometimes good men do things thinking they were right, only to realize they were mistakes,” Roger points out. “Shouldn’t we forgive that?”

On that note, Jamie asks Roger’s advice on the tricky spot he’s found himself in: knowing, thanks to Frank’s book of Scottish history, that he will die in a battle in 1780. Roger doesn’t recognize the names of anyone else who was said to have died in 1780, but offers to read the book in case he can be of help. Before long, Captain Cunningham (Kieran Bew) approaches Jamie, revealing himself to be a Freemason, like Jamie. Jamie’s organizing a meeting, and invites him. Mostly to keep an eye on him. Because new, mysterious neighbors have totally never turned out to be a threat on the Ridge!

In Philadelphia, William attends the wedding of his cousin Henry (Harry Jarvis) and Mercy (Gloria Obianyo). William delivers the sad news of Ben’s death to Henry. While there, William decides to visit the camp where Ben died in custody, where he’s told Ben died of yellow fever. But some of the witness testimony doesn’t quite add up, including the fact that the little general figurine isn’t found among his belongings. So, William does what any good cousin/amateur sleuth would do: he digs up Ben’s grave. And the man in that grave is definitely not Ben.

Back in North Carolina, the young women of the Ridge – Brianna (Sophie Skelton), Lizzie (Caitlin Ryan), and Amy (Joanne Thomson) hang out in the woods, swapping stories about giving birth to prepare Rachel (Izzy Meikle-Small), who’s due any day now. Their jovial bonding time is cut short by a bear attack on Amy. Is it really an Outlander episode without a moment of joy interrupted by left-field drama? Amy’s quickly whisked to Claire’s apothecary, but dies of internal bleeding. Half of Amy’s face is scarred from the attack, leaving a gruesome scene for her grieving family to behold.

Impending death looms heavily, and a sudden departure is a reminder of what is coming for Jamie.

Mrs. Cunningham (Frances Tomelty) offers her services to help Claire prepare Amy for burial. She’s a pushy old lady, which Claire doesn’t appreciate, but Mrs. Cunningham’s tragic past helps Claire understand her prickliness. She asks for Mrs. Cunningham’s first name, which is Elspeth, and they prepare Amy together. Claire, having been told of the tradition of telling bees about important events, tells her beehive about Amy’s life on the Ridge and her tragic death. (The tradition of speaking to bees connects directly with the books; Book 9 is titled “Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone.”)

It’s not unlike Outlander to speed through major events, and as soon as Amy’s in the ground, there’s another event entirely: the birth of Young Ian and Rachel’s son! Young Ian suggests calling the baby Marmaduke. This is in keeping with the Fraser tradition of the men having awful name suggestions (remember when Jamie wanted to call his and Claire’s baby Dalhousie, back in Season 2?).

Other suggestions by Claire and Rachel are also rejected, and the boy is referred to as Oggy for the rest of Outlander Season 8 Episode 2, a reference to a nickname from Rachel’s pregnancy. Young Ian tells Jamie he’s grateful to him for being his father figure. Jamie tenderly tells Young Ian he’ll get more of a chance to be a father than he’s ever been. Poor Jamie – he didn’t get to raise Brianna or William, and never knew Fergus as a baby.

Jamie’s approached soon after in Outlander Season 8 Episode 2 by neighbor Benjamin Cleveland (Turlough Convery), who’s aggressively anti-British. He’s made a sport of killing British sympathizers, or “Tories,” and claims responsibility for hanging a few of them. Jamie, who’d seen the hanging bodies, questions the ethics of killing someone with a different perspective from your own. Cleveland says that he knows Captain Cunningham’s a Tory and invites Jamie to join his group of anti-British neighbors, and names a few. Jamie recognizes their names from Frank’s book.

Jamie rejects the offer, but wonders to Claire if he eventually joins Cleveland, since his name mingling with their own in the book confirms that he really is the James Fraser that Frank wrote about. Claire wonders why Frank would never mention Jamie in the 20 years they lived together, if Frank knew Jamie’s fate. She had agreed not to search for Jamie as a condition of Frank taking her back and raising Brianna in the 1950s.

Jamie points out that if Frank loved Claire half as much as he does, maybe he was researching Jamie out of fear that Claire had gone back to him eventually. It’s the tenderest part of Outlander Season 8 Episode 2, and Caitríona Balfe, as director, brings out the best in her and Heughan’s acting abilities here. For all the jokes here about Outlander being true to melodramatic form, their chemistry really has remained the heart of the show.

So much remains unknown that it is unclear which direction the series will take regarding Jamie’s fate.

At the Freemason meeting, Captain Cunningham tells a story about how his son Simon died in his arms two years earlier when they both fought for England in the Battle of Saratoga. The captain says Simon briefly revived to say that he would see his father again in seven years’ time before dying again. Cunningham takes this as proof that a soul never truly dies, and that he will not see death before that day. Jamie and Roger are rattled – how do you deal with a neighbor who’s convinced he cannot die?

Jamie’s kept up all night by Frank’s voice in his head. He wakes Claire up for comfort, and they have sex. As Claire falls back asleep, Jamie can hear Frank again, saying, “You are going to die. Who will hold her once you’re gone?” Jamie pulls Claire tighter. It’s an ominous note to end Outlander Season 8 Episode 2 on.

Since the show will surely deviate from the plot of the still-incomplete book series, will Jamie really die in 1780? Who knows what the future holds? In Outlander Season 8 Episode 2, it’s unclear. Until next time on Outlander, which will surely double down on the drama again.

Outlander Season 8 Episode 2 is now streaming on Starz, with new episodes dropping every Friday.

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