Outlander Recap: How I Met My Father

A Roger Mac storyline making me all misty-eyed? I never thought I’d see the day. But here we are! After last week’s insanity, Outlander is rightly letting our 1778 contingent cool their jets a bit with a low-key wedding and putting Roger’s search for his father in 1739 front and center. The short but moving encounter really works.

Roger and Buck are still roaming the Scottish countryside when Roger realizes they are standing right where the Loch Errochty Dam will be built in the future, which means they must be close to that time portal Bree felt while in the tunnels under the dam. That portal — in this time period, it’s still standing stones — must be where Roger’s dad, Jerry, came through. They confirm as much when they reach the stones and find Jerry’s survival pack and flight goggles stashed nearby.

Thanks to a real piece-of-shit kid who, admittedly, is pretty helpful, Roger and Buck learn that the local villagers have caught wind of Jerry’s presence, know he’s stealing from them (a time traveler’s gotta eat!), and are most likely going to kill the guy if they track him down. The last time the kid saw the strange man, he was running into the woods to hide. And wouldn’t you know: When Roger and Buck run into those woods, there stands Jerry MacKenzie, RAF pilot and Roger’s dead dad.

Roger makes a smart calculation: Learning that he traveled back in time 200 years is going to be a lot for Jerry to take in, so it’s probably best not to add on to the mind warp that Roger is Jerry’s grown son. Jerry’s too rattled to ask many questions anyway, so Roger gets away with pretending to be just another friendly time traveler here to help him. Sure, we never get a teary, melodramatic father-son reunion, but it’s still really moving to watch Roger interact with his dad, who “died” when he was very little. So much of that is due to Richard Rankin’s performance. The relief that he’s tracked Jerry down, the excitement to meet his dad, the bittersweetness that runs throughout all of it is there in his face. He’s trying so hard not to give too much away as he cleans his dad’s wounds, they share a drink, and Jerry tells him about how his plane went down in the Highlands during a covert MI6 mission that involved trying to take aerial photos of Nazi labor camps in Poland. When Jerry starts worrying about how to get home to his young son, Roger assures him that his son will be okay; he knows it. The emotional moment is fleeting, however, since it’s not long before those pesky villagers have tracked them all down and they need to make a run for it.

Roger makes another calculation: As hard as it is to say good-bye so quickly, he knows he needs to get Jerry out of 1739. The three men race back to the stones, and Roger has to do some quick Time Travel 101 before handing over the gem and practically pushing his dad back into his own time. Before Jerry goes through, though, he wants to know who Roger is. How does Roger know Jerry’s wife’s name? He needs some sort of answer! Instead of answering that question and blowing his cover, Roger tells Jerry that they win the war and that blows his mind enough that he forgets everything else and goes on his way, just as Roger whispers, “I love you.” Okay, admittedly, that phrasing does make it sound creepy, but Rankin gives it such a childlike reading that you can feel all that pain he’s been carrying around — he’s just a guy who misses his dad.

What really makes this little adventure gutting, however, is Roger’s reaction after Jerry gets through the stones. He expected to be flooded with memories. He thought if his father got back to his own time, it would’ve changed everything — he would’ve grown up with his dad around. Outlander’s time-travel rules have always been, to put it mildly, murky, but for the most part, it has operated under a very Lost-esque “what happened, happened” and “you can’t change history” sort of understanding, so Roger’s hope that his entire upbringing would be changed seems very much like the guy kidding himself, but who can blame him.

If the one new image Roger gets the moment his dad leaves 1739 (again, the rules are murky — too murky, one might say!) is really supposed to be a new memory (debatable!), that means Roger sent his dad back to his time just to die holding him in the London Underground during the Blitz (like his mother did). Any way you slice it, this whole thing is depressing. Roger tries to assuage any fears in regards to his father’s fate by reminding himself that wherever Jerry went, it had to be better than being strung up by a bunch of Highlanders. It doesn’t make me rest easy, personally, but these aren’t my daddy issues. One wholly positive development to come out of this father-son reunion is that by realizing he was brought to 1739 to help his father, Roger starts to believe that Jem might not be in this time after all — maybe it means a quicker return trip for our travelers.

Roger is not meant to be the one who saves his son — nope, that job falls to Bree back in 1980. We discover that after knocking Rob Cameron unconscious with a frying pan, Bree tied the guy up and tossed him into what I regret having to remind you is referred to as a “priest hole.” Rob Cameron sucks for so many reasons, but especially because he, the man who kidnapped a time-traveling child to help him find gold, has the gall to call Bree a bitch. I mean, I don’t totally buy Sophie Skelton’s strangling skills in this scene, nor do her hard f’s land as well as, say, Lord John Grey’s do, but her swift kick to Rob’s face does seem to do the trick in shutting him up. With the kidnapper unconscious again, Bree grabs Mandy, and the two head out to alert the local police. On the way, however, Mandy starts to feel that connection with Jem again and they wind up on their own little adventure, playing “hot or cold” to figure out where Rob took the kid. It seems like a hard game to play in a car, but what do I know? And also, it works! Jem, who has been stashed in the tunnels under the dam, remembers a very detailed story his mother once told about her own escape from those tunnels and uses her route to make his own way out.

Reunited with her son, Bree turns to the police to deal with Rob, but he has somehow escaped without a trace. The police are of no use to Bree, partly because of misogyny and partly because she can’t exactly explain what’s really going on here without being like, Uh, so time travel is real. Instead, Bree enlists the help of our old pal Fiona, who, along with her husband, takes the two kids and the chest of Jamie and Claire’s letters from the past so Bree can figure out what to do next. She decides to head back to Lallybroch by herself, even though not one person thinks that’s a good idea. Fun!

And what of our group hanging out in 1778? The big news: Ian and Rachel get married! They have a Quaker ceremony, which is almost the same as a meeting but people wind up married at the end, so it’s no-frills as far as weddings go. It does, however, mean that not only do we get to hear Jamie say some lovely things about his nephew (a nice reprieve after their awkward as hell uncle-nephew pre-wedding sex chat!); we also get a big moment for the Hunter siblings. Denzell is moved by the spirit to apologize to his sister — because he wanted to join the Continental army, he was kicked out of meeting and she, being loyal and loving, followed him. She gave up her life and reputation to be there for her brother, and he has felt guilt and regret every day since. For her part, Rachel says she would make the same choice again and would be happy to do it. Denny is moved now, though, seeing that Rachel’s path has led her to love and a home with Ian. It’s all very sweet. It’s tough to arrive seven seasons into a show and find a way to make yourself feel like an integral part of the group, but Denzell and Rachel have really endeared themselves to me. Nobody hurt them!

After Ian and Rachel get hitched, they have the obligatory Outlander Night of the Wedding sex scene, which isn’t something I exactly needed for this pairing, but they are very cute together — even if I wish I never had to hear them talking about each other’s butts. Meanwhile, in another bedroom, Jamie is stressing about the mess he’s created with his arrival in Philadelphia. William is MIA, but Claire tells her husband not to worry about him; eventually, he’ll realize that Jamie and John had to lie to protect him because they care about him. It seems to calm Jamie a bit. There’s less assurance when it comes to Lord John. Denny filled Jamie in on what happened at the Continental army camp, and Jamie finally feels guilty about tossing his friend over to a less-than-friendly party. Still, he tells Claire that while he can forgive her for what happened when they thought he was dead, he can’t bring himself to forgive John. So I guess the other news out of this time period is that Jamie is still kind of a dick. While he’s making out with his wife, Lord John is found hiding in a ditch by yet another group of Continental officers. This time, though, he’s able to sell his story more convincingly: He tells them that his name is Bertram Armstrong and he was arrested by British officers on his way to enlist in the Continental army. They buy it, and off he goes with them because apparently this man’s nightmare is never-ending!

It seems like at least one more Jamie and John confrontation — and hopefully some emotional mending of fences — is imminent now that John will be buying some time trying to stay alive among the rebels nearby and Jamie and Ian have to report for duty in their fancy new Continental army uniforms. The Revolutionary War is raging on, and all of our favorite people are about to walk right into it. Will we ever know peace? Just kidding, this is Outlander; the answer to that question is always no.