We have a new opening sequence this week as "Outlander" enters into a new world, The West Indies.
Claire and Jamie are at the Edinburgh docks arranging a boat to take them to find young Ian who was taken last week by pirates. We learn from the dock master there was only one foreign ship in the harbor as of late and it had a Portuguese flag. Its next stop is its home port of Jamaica so it’s off to warmer seas for our lovebirds. Healthy men can be sold for a nice purse in Jamaica, therefore, it’s not expected Ian would meet any harm in transit-unless he causes a stink.
Willoughby and Fergus are back. Not so smooth sailing for our "Outlander" and crew.
The horseshoe
The crew gives the side eye to double bad luck: a woman and a redhead – Jamie and Claire, despite leading this expedition, aren’t a power-couple the crew is happy to serve. Touching the ships horseshoe mounted on a pole is required by every shipmate at the start of the voyage to ensure smooth sailing. Claire failed to do this. Double oops.
Marsali (Laoghaire’s eldest daughter) appears, having been snuck on the ship by Fergus. Oh, and they are married now. Jamie isn’t pleased to hear this and declares to keep the two apart so they cannot consummate the union. Marsali and Claire, full of venom for one another, are decided to room together so Jamie can keep his eye on Fergus.
Not one of the four is happy about this.
Weeks pass aboard the ship and Claire is the ship physician tending minor day to day wounds. The men sing songs and play games to kill time while Jaime gets acupuncture from Willoughby to ease his seasickness.
A Chinaman brings the wind
The ship has lost the wind entirely for a few more weeks and the crew becomes anxious.
Mutiny is at hand and the captain tells Jaime he won’t be able to stop it. The sailors go on a witch hunt for a “Jonah” (one who brings with him ill luck) and pick Hayes. Hayes feels rightfully chosen because he was the only one who failed to touch the lucky horseshoe on board when they left the dock. Not one to let any of his crew become a sacrificial lamb, Jamie goes against the angry crew and saves a drunken Hayes from the mast that would send him to a watery grave.
To quiet the crew, Willoughby distracts them by loudly ringing the bell and telling a cliff’s notes version of his life story beginning in China. His story was so fantastic you knew it seemed like a fairy tale to the Brits on board. He told Claire he had been writing it for some time but didn’t want to tell it just yet. Weeks of no wind and a willful crew changed his mind apparently.
Willoughby, born Yi Tien Cho in Guangzhou, the city of Rams was his start in life. As a child, his skill as a poet caught the eye of the second wife of the Emperor and she invited him to join her household in Pekin, the Imperial City. It’s a great honor to bestow but he’d have to lose his manhood as a condition to live among the royals wives in the Imperial City.
Tempted, because he grew to love women. All women. He poetically described their bodies in intimate detail. Mind you this is a boy in puberty living among the most manicured spectacular specimens in all of China. Imagine a boy entering puberty in the Playboy mansion? That’s some Helen of Troy level right there.
He opted to flee the city of these spectacular women instead and come to the "Outlander" world of Edinburgh. His gifts are not appreciated in this dirty inferior place. The women are not the glorious beings he grew to love but rather he finds them to be unworthy of love. They are “coarse creatures of no grace” and they look down on him like he is nothing but a “yellow worm”. So the very women he is repelled by are repelled by him.
The catch 22. Live without your manhood among beautiful creatures or live as a man among no beauty at all. Purgatory indeed Mr. Willoughby. He tosses the pages of his story to the sky and there it is - the wind. The crew rejoices, isn’t terribly impressed with his fairytale and down come the sails. All is well again. For a rainy moment. Long enough for Claire and Jamie to get it on below deck. They haven’t been sharing a cabin at night after, all so they have to get it where they can.
Divided again
A new day, rain is gone, hopes are high and the sun is shining. A British naval ship fires at them. The captain knows the ship may be in distress because it’s a signal fire and likely they are in need of men.
By law, they are allowed to take British crewmen from other ships in their service. The signal is returned and a lieutenant, who is acting captain boards. He states he doesn’t need men but is in dire need of a surgeon, which Claire happens to be. He is sure it is “ship plague” but after hearing details of the suffering Claire knows otherwise. Typhoid fever has taken many lives onboard so far and many more are violently ill. She is immune thanks to inoculation back in modern times. Claire goes alone with the understanding she will assess the conditions, give protocol to manage the disease spreading, then be returned to her ship.
Once onboard the naval ship "Outlander" Claire is shown to the lower deck where the wretched men are.
The stink of sick is so overpowering Claire can barely contain herself. There is profuse vomiting, diarrhea and moaning in agony like a symphony of death calling. She checks to confirm her suspicion and it is correct. It will take more time to manage the situation but rather than take her guidance the captain kidnaps her – although she does have orders given by the captain to the crew to give her whatever she asks for. The ship swiftly sails off with a message sent back to Jamie and the Artemis captain that she will be returned to them in Jamaica after she’s seen the sick men back to land. Once again the lovebirds are apart.
"Outlander" airs on Sunday nights on Starz
