Saying farewell to a pregnant Marsali in Wilmington sends Claire down a guilt spiral about Brianna, who is far more separated from her mother than Marsali is from hers. The only one missing from the family portrait is Brianna. He has turned into a handy surgical assistant, and Claire is clearly fond of his cheerfulness. (Jamie’s surprise housewarming gift for Claire: a clinic.) In particular, Claire and Ian have settled into a comfortable rhythm. Claire, Jamie and Ian gut trout, chop trees, mend nets and plan for the settlement. We get plenty of the Frasers in woodsy domestic bliss.
After all, “There is the law, and there is what is done” is good news only to people in power.Īnd “Outlander” is clearly ready to put its tangles with race and colonialism behind for a while and settle into its settlers’ lives. The governor’s warnings alone suggest Jamie and Claire may yet struggle with their privileges in this New World. But the Cherokee will be in ever more danger as more settlers arrive, and Jamie and Claire will have plenty of chances to prove their commitment to the new friendship. The Frasers welcome the Cherokee visitors to their fire (a Cherokee elder even tells Claire she “has medicine” and gives her blessing) and all, it seems, is well. Jamie is honored with the name Bear Killer. Apparently, that move is heroic enough to end the territory dispute with one stroke. But the upshot is still that Jamie did what the Cherokee were unwilling or unable to do. We see them here in the context of a community rather than as mere antagonists for our heroes. This reconciliation is clearly meant to undercut the image of Native American characters as the “savages” the governor described. So Jamie kills the violent “bear spirit” roaming the woods - a Cherokee outcast who has lost his mind - and wins the respect of the tribe. There’s just no easy way out of the position they’re in: Eventually, the episode has to find some other way to resolve the tension. “The Cherokee gave you a warning,” he explains, and then suggests that Jamie reconsider this whole homesteading gig: “Next time they might not be so courteous.” ‘The Underground Railroad’: Barry Jenkins’s transfixing adaptation of the Colson Whitehead novel is fabulistic yet grittily real.‘Succession’: In the cutthroat HBO drama about a family of media billionaires, being rich is nothing like it used to be.
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Now it’s his land, and they’re a problem. When they first rode through this land, Jamie nodded when he heard it was Cherokee territory, sympathetic to their fight. “So no matter where we settle we’ll have the same problem.” Whether he likes it or not, Jamie is buying into the English mind-set. “From what you’ve told me, there are Indians all over these lands,” he says. And the Jamie who refused to buy the governor’s opinion of “savages” is the same Jamie who refuses to move when Claire suggests they build further from the shared border. They’re understandably unhappy about the Frasers moving onto their ancestral lands. Jamie’s reply, as he stares the governor down: “Savagery can exist in many forms, Your Excellency.” It’s a beat of Jamie at his best: a natural leader, keenly aware of injustice, and determined to speak truth to power.īut his early days with Claire and Ian on the homestead are punctuated by warning visits from the Cherokee. In this week’s episode, it is drawn by the governor as he gifts Jamie 10,000 acres of His Majesty’s land - and warns him about the welcome he can expect. “Outlander” has several times drawn parallels between the Scottish Highlanders, who fought English occupation of their land, and Native Americans, who are fighting occupation by the English and other newly-minted Americans. “It’s said the Highlander has much in common with the Indian savage.