‘Outlander’ episode 10 review: Claire, Geillis Duncan learn of consequences

“Outlander” can at times be a very entertaining show, and then at others be somewhat bizarre. Tonight, we bore witness to poisonings, drunken swordplay, and a woman doing some sort of spell ritual in the middle of the night while taking her top off.

This woman was Geillis Duncan, who may be to Claire the somewhat-popular girl who you could never tell if they liked or loathed you. Geillis did have some explaining to do, given that she was the responsible party seemingly for giving Laoghaire a.k.a. “Jamie is mine!” her little slice of witchcraft to plant in the bedroom. However, what she learned through this feels like a pretty hefty secrets: She is pregnant, but with Dougal’s child rather than her husband. Then, their spouses turn up suspiciously dead. It’s not too difficult to figure out what happened here … right? The same goes for at the episode’s end, when both Geillis and Claire are arrested for “witchcraft.” After that confrontation with Laoghaire, Claire should have further realized the potential trap that she was being thrown into by being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

This action on Claire’s part was further proof that her ambition does sometimes supersede her sense of political maneuvering, and you also have her meeting with the Duke of Sandringham as evidence. That did not go nearly so poorly, but we do feel as though it did force her to play her hand very quickly in terms of how intelligent she truly is. The Duke later nearly set up Jamie to be killed, but in true jaw-dropping force he pulled out some awesome fighting-game-worthy moves. Jamie is still in fairly huge trouble with Black Jack Randall, and while Claire’s actions were fascinating, they hardly change anything.

Claire’s sadness began even before her arrest, as Colum decided to punish both Jamie and Dougal for their actions, separating them at least temporarily from the women they love. Let’s just say that nobody is in a great place going into next week … even Colum, given that his brother is a tad embarrassing.

This episode was for the most part entertaining, though we cannot sit here and say that there was anything of great emotional resonance within. Grade: B.

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