'Outlander' Season 3, Episode 7 Recap: A Fight, a Fire, and a Bombshell Revelation About Jamie

This article centers on Season 3, Episode 7 of Outlander, “Crème the Menthe.” If you’re not yet caught up with the show, be warned: Spoilers abound.

Now that Claire and Jamie have reunited, all I need from this show is for them to have hot sex from the beginning of each remaining episode until the end. Alas, this is Outlander, so instead, there will be melodrama. And tonight’s episode, “Crème de Menthe,” felt more like an average one, filler to end the first arc of the season and transition into the next.

As the episode opens, Claire is fighting off the man she found in her room because, again, this show loves nothing more than to imperil women to create plot points. We must never forget that to be a woman is to live in a perpetual state of vulnerability. Got it? Good. Claire manages to fight off her attacker, wielding a knife. (See, women are vulnerable but they are also empowered!) The attacker falls, hits his head, and is seemingly dead when Jamie enters the room and sees his wife over an unconscious man, panting heavily, knife still in hand. That’s when I knew there probably wasn’t going to be any sex in this episode. I was mostly right. Despite being apart for 20 years, Claire and Jamie don’t spend this entire episode in bed. They don’t spend any time in bed. It makes no sense.

When Claire realizes her attacker is still breathing, she immediately shifts into surgeon mode and insists on saving his life. (“Because I’m a doctor,” she explains when Jamie understandably asks why she wants to save her attacker’s life.) As usual, Claire is instantly able to translate twentieth-century knowledge into whatever might be available in the eighteenth century and makes various people get her various things, including hot water. No matter the time period, whether in television or film, anytime something vaguely makeshift medical is going to happen, there must be hot water.

It turns out the attacker was looking for Jamie’s ledgers at the behest of Sir Percival Turner, who suspects Jamie is selling more than he claims and consequently is not paying Percival enough of a bribe. (Corrupt government agents are so greedy and suspicious.) Jamie realizes he’s going to have to move the booze he has hidden in Madame Jeanne’s basement and dispatches Fergus and young Ian Fraser to make a quick sale of the hooch, which they do at handsome profit.

Meanwhile, Claire goes to the apothecary to get some laudanum and who knows what else so she can perform surgery. In a hurry, she bargains with a man in front of her—who was looking for something to calm his sister—to go ahead of him in return for looking in on his ailing sister. As she places her order, Claire informs the chemist that a man’s life is at stake…which is so weird. Why is she broadcasting her business, particularly when so much is at stake? It makes no sense!