OUTLANDER Recap: (S05E04) Company We Keep

Leona Laurie

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Jamie and Claire keeping it hot (literally - he is holding a torch in front of a cross) in the Outlander Season 5 art.

A title does not a Captain make, or so Roger (Richard Rankin) learns in the fourth episode of Outlander Season Five, “Company We Keep.”

RELATED: Missed last week’s episode? Catch up here!

Before Jamie (Sam Heughan) and Claire (Caitriona Balfe) catch up to the growing militia, Roger and the men have some unexpected trouble in Brownsville. They’re just pulling up to the main house when a number of rifles poke out of its holes at them. It seems that one of the men in their company, Isaiah Morton (JonTarcy), has deflowered Mr. Brown’s (Ned Dennehy) daughter, Alicia (Anna Burnett). Her confession of their affair has cost her a suitor who was going to enrich the family, and they’re determined to punish Morton for it.

Roger decides that the best way to defuse the tension is by getting everyone drunk. He puts up his hands and convinces Mr. Brown to accept a drink and to talk with him. Their drink leads to the entire party, with militia and all the men of Brownsville, drinking and becoming merry… while Morton is bound in a shed, imprisoned to be dealt with later.

When Jamie and Claire ride up with their hungry foundling and small herd of goats, it looks as though they’ve interrupted a party. Jamie gets the gist of the situation quickly, clearly disappointed in how Roger handled the authority with which he’d been trusted. Several men had been so unhappy with Roger’s leadership that they’d left the militia.

Jamie confronts Morton about his obligation to marry the girl, and learns that Morton is already married. This revelation calls his character into doubt, so Jamie releases him from his bonds and tells him to disappear and never return.

Claire, meanwhile, finds a haven in the company of the family’s women. Alicia is in the doghouse (figuratively), but they don’t hesitate to help Claire with the baby. Lucinda Brown (Muireann Brown) has recently given birth and is able to serve as a wet nurse. All of the women are very welcoming of the baby, whom they know to be the half-black child Mrs. Beardsley conceived outside of her marriage. Claire has explained how she came to have the baby in a way that paints the Beardsleys rather favorably but leaves no question that the child has no family.

While she’s with the women, Claire sees a broadsheet (newspaper) that has a lengthy list of health tips from “Dr. Rawlings” in it. Now we know what was on the back of the militia flyer Jamie asked Fergus (César Domboy) to have printed up, but we don’t know who gave it to the printer for the broadsheet.

That night, the Frasers are given a warm bed in a loft room while the militia is invited to set up camp outside. Alicia is tasked with helping Claire make the bed, and when they’re left alone she shares some of her heartbreak with the older woman. Claire tells her that Morton is married, which crushes the girl… because she’s pretty sure she’s carrying his baby.

Outside, the whiskey continues to flow among the men (and women) into the wee hours. Someone produces two swords, and drunken men do ridiculous hopping attempts at the dance Murtagh (Duncan Lacroix) did when he and Claire were searching for Jamie in Season One, Episode 14, “The Search.” Jamie charms Claire when he does the dance passably well, and the two sneak off into the woods for some canoodling.

Over the course of the evening, the Browns have offered to Claire to keep the baby. It turns out Lucinda’s baby was born too small, and there’s a hole in their family that this little lass could fill. Claire tells them she’ll need to discuss it with Jamie, but she doesn’t know he’s been watching her with the baby and kind of liking the idea of finally getting to parent a child together. As soon as they’re alone, he asks if she’d like to keep the “Bonny.” Her heart overflows with love for him, but she believes the Browns would be a better situation for her. Jamie realizes that the deed to the Beardsleys’ property that comes with the babe will probably go a long way towards healing the strife over Alicia, too.

Their nice moment is interrupted by a gunshot, and they rush deeper into the woods to find Alicia trying to shoot herself in the heart with a pistol. Her first shot went wild and wounded her arm, and they’re able to stop her before she tries again. They take her back to their room so Claire can tend to her, and when Jamie steps out he finds Morton hiding in the shadows, unable to leave without seeing his love.

Jamie reluctantly brings Morton to see Alicia, where she confirms she’s carrying his child and he promises he loves only her. (His first, childless, marriage was arranged, and they’ve been living apart for two years because they don’t love each other.) Roger manages to walk in just then, finding out that Jamie is at least as much a sucker for love as he is, and they all agree to help the lovebirds sneack away at daylight.

In the morning, Jamie leads the pair through the yard full of sleeping men as Claire looks on from a window. When the horse the couple is on knocks over some barrels, Jamie slaps its behind to make it gallop away and then releases all of the Browns’ horses from their paddock to create some chaos to cover the escape. The patriarchs of the Brown family aren’t 100% fooled when Jamie blames the horses getting out on a goat, but they’ve already agreed to ride with him and lead their men for him.

Jamie has ordered Roger to escort Claire back to the Ridge with the now free twins, Josiah and Keziah (both Paul Gorman), so that she can safely perform tonsillectomies on both with her homemade penicillin. Roger takes offense, thinking Jamie has no faith in him, but the truth is closer to Jamie realizing he gave Roger a command with no training. The evidence of this is that he’s entrusting Roger with Claire, the thing he loves most in the world.

It’s a good thing they’re on their way home, too, because sh*t is going down on the Ridge. While Brianna (Sophie Skelton) is in town getting supplies, someone slips a silver coin into Jemmy’s bassinet. Brianna is sure (and is also definitely right) that it was Bonnet, and she is freaked the f out for the rest of the day. She decides to start sleeping at her parents’ house with everyone else for safety.

That night, she leaves Jemmy unattended for a moment to get firewood, and when she returns he is missing. She rouses the whole house with her hysterical search for him, and Marsali (Lauren Lyle) finds him outside where he chased his ball.

Marsali convinces Brianna to have a drink with her after they’ve put their kids to bed, and she tries to get Bree to tell her what waking nightmare she’s in. Bree can’t, so Marsali comforts her with assurances that her thoughts can’t conjure evil, confiding that she wished her abusive biological father dead for years before he died in prison. To Bree it is obvious that Marsali’s wishes were unrelated to the man’s death, which makes her feel like maybe her fears about Bonnet won’t manifest him. After Marsali leaves her, she burns all of her sketches of Bonnet.

RELATED: Read all of our Outlander Season 5 recaps HERE!

Leona Laurie

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