‘Outlander’ Season 3, Episode 9: Jamie and Claire Sail Toward Jamaica

On Outlander, after Ian was kidnapped last week, Claire and Jamie must find jobs on a new ship bound for the West Indies, aka Jamaica.

OUTLANDER SEASON 3, EPISODE 9 RECAP

While Claire becomes a surgeon and Jamie a supercargo, he makes her touch the ship’s lucky horseshoe for good luck. “Women are bad luck on ships,” he tells her. “Redheads too.” She reluctantly obliges. With them, they brought a few of Jamie’s men from Ardsmuir, as well as Fergus and Marsali. Turns out the latter two have been married, but Jamie finds out the marriage has not been consummated. He makes sure that Fergus stays with him on the ship, and his stepdaughter with Claire.

Claire is none too happy that Jamie forces this arrangement, but again, she obliges. Because Jamie is so sick from the ship’s movements, Claire attends dinner with the captain by herself. He wants to speak with her about respected the superstitions of the ship and crew by traveling the entire way bare-breasted.

Meanwhile, Jamie speaks with Fergus about married life and tells him he has to tell his bride how many women he’s slept with. But even after doing so, Jamie still won’t recognize their union.

The days keep coming and going on the ship until suddenly the wind pretty much stops, the ship is stalled at sea. The mission becomes to find who did not touch the horseshoe before getting on the boat. The crew chooses one of Jamie’s Ardsmuir men as a scapegoat and threatens him. He can’t take the torment, and tells Jamie he plans to jump ship. Jamie follows him and talks him down, but the rest of the crew encircle the man.

It’s then, though, that Mr. Willoughby, the ship’s acupuncturist of sorts, rings the ship’s bell and begins to tell his life story. He sees a bird in the distance, and as he tells the crew how he was once offered a position with a Chinese emperor but turned it down so to not become a eunuch, and then he jumped off the side of the ship. A storm had began brewing, and Willoughby sacrifices himself so that the crew wouldn’t need a scapegoat.

Claire and Jamie finally get some alone time to celebrate the way they’d hoped, but bad luck continues to haunt them. A ship in the distance approaches and Jamie is afraid they will forcibly recruit soldiers – instead, they need a surgeon and Claire volunteers. She tells the captain that she wishes to stay and help the dying crew, but before she can board the other ship, hers starts to move away. The captain needs her on board more than she knows and he races toward Jamaica.