Outlander Finale Recap: A Pivotal Death Sends Jamie and Claire Back to Where It All Began — Plus, Grade It! (2024)

Sassenach, we’re home.

Outlander’s midseason finale finds Claire and Jamie back in Scotland, a place neither of them have seen in a very long time. (Along those lines: Doesn’t “Stop! Help! He’s going over!” seem like a million years ago?) But before they arrive there, there’s a lot of shooting, battlefield surgery and hat-trading to get through — and then Arch Bug makes things interesting by showing up exactly when he said he would.

Read on for the highlights of “Turning Points.”

JAMIE LIVES! | The good news: Jamie is merely knocked out, not dead, on the battlefield when Claire finds him. The bad news: A woman and her young son get to him first and prepare to kill him so they can more easily strip him of his valuables. But Claire isn’t having it, and she draws Jamie’s sword and holds it to the kid’s neck to get the woman to back off. When the robber finally does, Claire’s poking and prodding at her husband’s beat-up body makes him joke that she’s tickling him. She is NOT. HAVING. IT. He’s covered in blood, most of it from his mangled hand, and “You went and got yourself butchered like a sodding hog, trying to be a hero again is what it looks like,” she spits. She’s highly angry that he got involved in hand-to-hand combat despite being a sniper, aka someone who’s supposed to shoot from far away. “Oh you vainglorious, pigheaded, grandstanding Scot!” she hurls at him even as she’s retrieving the miniature portrait of William that the woman tossed aside. “You think I have nothing better than to trot around after you, sticking pieces back on?” Then just like that, her anger leaves her and is replaced by what’s really fueling this tirade: Her bone-deep fear that he could have died, and nearly did. Claire is crying as Jamie thanks her for his life and calls her “mo nighean donn,” then she helps him limp back to camp.

Once there, Claire helps a shellshocked Denzell come to terms with how many people he’s lost —and saved — that day, then attends to her husband’s bloody paw. In the interim, she’s learned that when he and his fellow snipers entered the fray, it scattered a British charge that surely would’ve done more damage if it had continued unimpeded. So the fact that he wound up taking a sword hit directly between two of his digits is a little easier to bear, knowing that his injury saved lives. She gets choked up over his selflessness as the laudanum hits and he falls asleep, but then she gets down to business and stitches up his hand. (Side note: In the book, Claire has to amputate one of his fingers in this procedure, but I can’t blame production for not wanting to deal with the ongoing VFX headaches that small detail would’ve created.)

IAN MAKES HIS MOVE | Two weeks after the battle, Ian volunteers to bring some medically needed goose grease to the Hunters; a patient of Denzell’s requires it, and you truly don’t want to know more on that front. Ian is hoping to see Rachel in the process, and he does. When they both reach down to pick up the container after it drops, their hands touch — and that’s the last straw for young Mr. Murray. He kisses her passionately… and she slaps him for being so forward. “Thee must know better,” she admonishes, prompting him to apologize in several languages. But it’s clear they’re both very taken with each other, drawing closer and closer until she once more says they can’t go farther. He tells her she loves him. “Does thee know how I feel?” she asks, amused and a little irked — because he’s definitely right. Know how I’m sure that she’s smitten? When he says (and I quote), “I think it’s best if ye dinna touch me, because if ye do, I’ll take ye here and now, and then it’s too late for both of us,” she doesn’t laugh out loud like I do. I know by this point we’re supposed to see Ian as a MAN, but… I’m not there yet. Rachel clearly is, though! She’s very hot and bothered after he leaves the tent.

Later, Denny offers to tell Ian to back off if Rachel isn’t interested, then kindly but firmly reminds her that “no meeting would accept it” if she chose to marry the Scot/Mohawk.

HEY, ARNOLD! | Claire is charmed when she’s pulled into conversation with a man who stops by her tent, asking to trade medical supplies. Jamie later arrives and greets the man, who is one of his superiors, but Claire doesn’t know the stranger’s name until he introduces himself just before leaving: Major General Benedict Arnold.

When she recovers from her shock, she explains Arnold’s whole deal (“His name will become synonymous with being a traitor”), and laments that she has no idea when he switches allegiance to the British. “All I know is he does this, and we win.” And if he doesn’t? Welp, that’s a time-traveling gray area right there.

But enough with the hypotheticals, because the very real Second Battle of Saratoga gets underway on Oct. 7, 1777. Jamie and the riflemen fire from behind a blind, but when Jamie is ordered to fire on Simon Fraser, he just can’t. So instead he aims for another man… and shoots William’s hat right off his head. One of Jamie’s fellow soldiers does get Simon in the gut, which brings things to a halt as the British retreat. The Continental army advances on the fort and eventually takes it, but not before Jamie is shaken when a redcoat-wearing William lookalike takes a fatal blow.

“I saw my son,” an upset Jamie tells Claire as she cleans him up after the battle. “I nearly shot him.” But they don’t have long to discuss the matter, because Simon has requested Jamie’s presence in the British camp so he doesn’t have to die without family nearby. Claire and Jamie go, and while Big Red is easing his cousin’s passage into the hereafter, Claire and William run into each other outside Simon’s tent. He’s on the verge of tears as they talk about all the stuff no one tells you about war, then Simon dies and Jamie emerges from the tent. “I believe I owe you a hat, sir,” Jamie says, handing him his own, then bows and leaves. Much later, Jamie tells Claire he only wanted to talk to his son once, as a man, in case they entered each other’s crosshairs again.

HOMEWARD BOUND | Good news on that front, though: The British surrender, so William is safe. And as a term of the capitulation, Jamie, Claire and Ian are given passage to accompany Simon’s body home. “We’re getting our wish, Sassenach,” Jamie says, eyes alight. “We’re going to Scotland!” And after a long voyage and a lot of seasickness on Himself’s part, they arrive. When Claire and Jamie go up on deck to see his homeland from afar, Jamie cries a little.

Lest you think this show was going to let its wayback timeline end on a happy note, keep this in mind: Rachel is watching Rollo while Ian’s gone, and she runs into an old man whom the dog seems to know. She casually mentions that Ian has gone abroad. “I hope he’ll return to you soon,” Arch Bug (oh no!) tells her.

GUESS WHO’S GOING BACK, BACK AGAIN? | In the 1980s portion of our story, Roger and Buck return to Lallybroch — and a distraught Brianna — to let her know that Rob took the boy through the stones. He angrily wonders why Cameron would do such a thing. “It’s the gold,” Bree says, quicker than her husband even when weighed down by crushing fear and sadness. (Sorry, Rog, but you know it’s true.) “I’m going to go after him,” Roger decides, and Buck will accompany him. “I want to help,” the time-transplant man says. “You’re kin.” Then it’s settled. Brianna (who’ll stay in the present with Mandy) gives them gems, takes them to the stones and cries bitterly after they’ve gone.

Now it’s your turn. What did you think of the midseason finale? Grade it via the poll below, then hit the comments with your thoughts!