But this episode proved to me (maybe I’m the last one who needed more evidence?)
that Caitriona Balfe should be in the awards season discussion too.
Her performance heregrieving the death of her stillborn childwas exquisite.
Credit: Ed Miller/Starz
Because in 18th-century France, Claire is in a bad way.
She’s been taken to the hospital where Mother Hildegarde and Monsieur Forez are tending to her.
After a period of woozy, wrenching fits, Claire awakenssans baby bump.
She screams for her child.
Mother Hildegarde breaks the news: Claire’s baby is now with the angels.
Claire is clearly in turmoiland not just the emotional kind.
Her body is ravaged by infection and she’s running a very high fever.
Later that night, the watchdog sounds the alarma hooded stranger has approached.
But the man means Claire no harm: It’s Master Raymond and he’s come to heal Claire.
He asks what she sees, and she responds with “blue wings.”
The apothecary explains that blue is the color of healing and that the wings will carry away her pain.
He begins to massage her body, and the infection miraculously dissipates.
At the healing’s climax, Master Raymond instructs Claire to yell out Jamie’s name.
A revelation that gives Claire some bit of relief.
Frank will live another day.
He tells Claire he expects a favor for a favor.
Spying physician-by-day, executioner-by-night Monsieur Forez, Claire immediately gets a bad feeling.
The sentiment is only heightened when Master Raymond and St. Germain are ushered in.
The pair are being charged with various crimes, including sorcery and exploration of the dark arts.
The King has enlisted Claire as a sort of lie detector.
Never one to avoid a show-stopping flourish, the King proclaims that he has something to aid their truth-seeking.
It’s a snake.
Apparently somewhere in the Bible it says that a true-believer can handle a serpent without getting bit.
If they both survive, they both will be released.
(Which is her aim.)
The King agrees to the test, but says he will ultimately decide the prisoners' punishments.
And so both Claire and St. Germain know the merchant’s fate.
If he drinks, he will die.
The Comte’s final words to Claire before swigging: “I’ll see you in Hell.”
The King tells the still very alive Master Raymond to leave and never set foot in France again.
He couldn’t agree to the terms more quickly.
He hitches up her skirt and the debt is paid with a few quick thrusts.
“I closed my eyes and thought of England,” Claire muses in voiceover.
He asks whether their child was a boy or girl.
He then explains the reasoning behind breaking his promise which Claire, of course, already knows.
She admits that she had hated him for it, recounting the moment she met their daughter.
But in hindsight, Claire realizes it isn’t Jamie’s fault.
She was the one who asked the impossible of him.
She was the one who put Frank before their family.
She was the one who went to the woods.
And she was the one who slept with the King to get Jamie’s pardon.
“You did it to save my life,” Jamie says.
“Just like I gave myself to Randall to save you.”
Claire asks how they can ever be the same.
“We can’t be,” Jamie answers.
“The weight of what has happened here is too much for anyone of us to bear alone.
The only way we can live with it is to carry it together.”
And so Claire asks to be taken home to Scotland.
What did you think of tonight’s episode?
