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Directed by: Brian Kelly Written by: Ira Steven Behr First aired on September 13, 2014 The episode opens on the same beat that closed the last: Lieutenant Foster (Tom Brittney) asking Claire (Caitriona Balfe) if she's with the MacKenzies by her own accord. "I appreciate your concern, Lieutenant, but I can assure you, I am a guest of the clan MacKenzie," she answers. Foster takes her at her word but says that his commander would like to speak to her nonetheless. "If the lady goes, I go," Dougal (Graham McTavish) replies. So he and Claire follow the Redcoats into enemy territory, on the MacKenzie's own land. They arrive at Brockton, where the Redcoats have taken over an inn. Claire and Dougal are escorted into a dining room to meet Brigadier General Sir Oliver Lord Thomas (John Heffernan). Lord Thomas is dining on venison with about a dozen of his comrades and offers Claire his hand with "It's been far too long since I gazed upon a lovely English rose", and then offers her a seat at the head of the table. Dougal's teased over his incomprehensible accent: "I don't know about the rest of you, but I fail to understand a single word the creature said!", and what he wears under his kilt, which Lord Thomas acknowledges is a terrible insult! Dougal threatens one of the soldiers with "You pull that needle and we'll see who pricks who!" Claire says that they're both acting like children and calls for peace. "My word, madam, if I were brave enough, I would commission you a colonel in one of my regiments," Thomas says. "You do know how to order men about." "Aye, she does that," Dougal agrees, displaying just the slightest of smirks before going downstairs to nurse a drink (or five). Claire regales the table with her tales of Highland life and is promised safe passage to Inverness. All is well, until Captain Black Jack Randall (Tobias Menzies) barges in. Rebuked by Lord Thomas for endangering his claret with his muck-covered uniform, Randall doesn't immediately notice Claire. It's not until he goes to make his exit that his eyes land upon the Englishwoman. And she holds his steady stare, rousing Thomas' curiosity. "For a moment there, the lady did look familiar. But I can see now I was wrong," Randall replies in answer to Thomas' question. "I had the same exact experience," Claire says. "How unusual." Black Jack decides he isn't going to miss a moment of this gathering. He steps just outside the room to dust himself off (kicking his boots against the doorjamb like some petulant child) and walks right back in. He has a tale to tell about the Scot (Dougal) downstairs. Of course, Thomas knows all about that. And then Thomas comes up with the worst idea ever: It should be Randall who accompanies Claire to Inverness, so he can hear about "Mrs. Beauchamp Among the Savages!" Talk turns to a recently beheaded Private MacGreavy and those dastardly Scots who likely did it. Claire retorts with the hung Highlanders she and the MacKenzies found along the road just days before. Black Jack picks up on her Scottish sympathies and begins to use them against her. "All this time living with savages, I have to wonder if Dougal MacKenzie shared more than food and shelter with the lady. Perhaps he's also shared his bed," he says to the entire table, getting just the rise out of her that he wanted. "The Scots just want the same freedoms we enjoy," Claire huffs. "Freedoms we take for granted. They are not the aggressors, we are. It is their land, and we are occupying it." Which, of course, was not the right thing to say to a room full of Redcoats. "I believe it is the King's land," Thomas says pointedly. "I must say, madam, I find your sympathies extraordinarily puzzling." Claire begins to defend herself when another soldier barges in to inform Thomas that there has been an attack, and one man is gravely injured downstairs. Claire runs to treat the man, who must have his arm amputated. She assists the Army surgeon (Nick Farr) with the gruesome amputation. When she returns to the dining room, it's just Randall and Corporal Hawkins (Edmund Digby-Jones) giving him a shave. Lord Thomas has gone to hunt the rebels. At this point there is a flashback to tender scene where Claire is in a negligee shaving her husband Frank (Tobias Menzies) with his ancestor Jack Randall's razor (the same one!). After a malicious object lesson in which Randall nearly cuts the soldier's throat as recompense for nicking his face, Claire and Black Jack are left alone in the room. Oddly, he apologizes to Claire for their first inauspicious meeting, where he tried to rape her. "The mere memory leaves me ashamed," he says. He hopes that his honesty will be returned with her honesty. He wants to know who she is and why she's in Scotland. When she begins to recall her Oxfordshire roots, he interjects. He knows she's lying because there are no Beauchamps in Oxfordshire. She asks how he could possibly know that since his roots are in Sussex. Oops. She's not supposed to know that—that's a Frank fact. She covers herself by pointing out his accent. He doesn't seem to buy it, but after a bit, he moves on. Claire tries a new tale: She weaves a yarn about a lover she followed to Scotland, one who turned out to be "a rake and whore-monger." Jack starts doodling on a cloth, asking for the name and rank of her paramour, to which she demurs. He calls her over to look at the drawing. It's of her. He's going to call it "Beautiful Lies." Claire is fighting a battle she can't win, but Black Jack will make concessions if she spills a bit of dirt about the MacKenzies raising funds on behalf of a Jacobite rebellion. She says she knows nothing. "I wouldn't believe you if you told me that night is dark and day is bright," he says. He takes another tact with her. He begins to recall (and we see through flashbacks) the 100 lashes he inflicted on young Jamie (Sam Heughan) for his supposed "crimes." And it's just awful. "I will break you," he tells Jamie. And it's clear that Randall is relishing every brutal moment of this rehashing. He wanted Jamie to beg, but he would not. At one point, he couldn't even stand on his own two feet, and yet Randall persisted, flaying his back into strips of pulpy flesh. One of his own men fainted. "I think it was in that moment, I decided to bleed him to the bone," Randall tells Claire wistfully, romanticizing the idea of the whip connecting him and Jamie. "That boy and I, we were creating a masterpiece. An exquisite, bloody masterpiece. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." Unbeknownst to the viewers, Jamie's father, Brian Fraser (Andrew Whipp), is in the crowd watching the flogging of his son. Those who have read the books know the significance of that, but I'm sure it will all be revealed in a future episode. At some point, Randall acknowledges that he's a monster, and seems saddened by it. Randall's slowly lulling Claire into a false sense of security, repenting his sins. "The fact that you care what I think gives me some hope for your soul," Claire says. "You can choose the man you wish to be." "The Rehabilitation of Black Jack Randall," he muses. Dangling the idea of Inverness like a shiny new toy in front of a tot, Randall grabs Claire's hand—and punches her violently in the stomach! He's knocked the wind out of her and she can't breath! "I dwell in darkness; darkness is where I belong," he tells her. There will be no rehabilitation today. He commands Corporal Hawkins to give her a few swift kicks in the gut too before Dougal barges in, warning Randall that he doesn't want to start a war with the MacKenzies on MacKenzie soil. Randall gives Claire a reprieve, but not for long: Dougal is ordered to deliver her to Fort William by sundown tomorrow. Free of the Garrison, Dougal and Claire stop at St. Ninian's Spring to get a drink. Then he asks her point blank if she's a spy for the English or the French. But it's all a ruse on Dougal's part because it's the "Liar's Spring." If you drink from it and prove untrue "it will burn your gizzard out." She drank and he believed her. It's here too that Dougal reveals his plan to Claire: He doesn't have to turn Claire over to Randall if he can turn her from an English woman to a Scot—through marriage. She recoils at the idea of being wed to him. But it's not himself he has in mind, though "the idea of grinding your corn does tickle me," he says. It's young Jamie he has in mind. And because he doesn't have much money to his name and a price on his head, this match is actually beneficial to him too. They make it back to camp where Jamie, Murtagh (Duncan Lacroix), Ned (Bill Paterson), Rupert (Grant O'Rourke), Angus (Stephen Walters), and Willie (Finn Den Hertog) are waiting. Claire asks to talk to Jamie about Dougal's plan for them to be married. "Isn't there someone else you're interested in?" (meaning Laoghaire, who she saw Jamie kissing in the alcove at Castle Leoch). He says, "Am I promised? No. I'm not much prospect for a wife." "Doesn't it bother you that—I'm not a virgin?" Claire asks Jamie. "Well...No," he answers. "As long as it doesna bother you that I am. I reckon one of us should ken what they're doing." Then he grins and walks back to the others. Claire doesn't have much choice in the matter, and storms back to the camp with the signed marriage contract, grabs a bottle of whisky (presumably), and stomps off to prepare for her wedding (as in "get roaring drunk"). Adapted from Entertianment Weekly