Outlander Season 3 Episode 3 Recap: All Debts Paid

Everyone in “All Debts Paid” is in some kind of prison, and it’s hard to say whether Claire’s or Jamie’s is more hellish. Let’s take them one at a time, starting with the grimier of the two.
Ardsmuir Prison, 1755
There’s a changing of the guard underway, or at least a changing of the governor. One Lord John Grey is taking command of this dank, dismal prison swimming in rats and disheartened Scottish prisoners. It’s a real dream job. What really sweetens the pot for John is that the chief spokesman and overall mother hen for the prisoners is a cold, sulky James Fraser.
Jamie, for what it’s worth, has reinvented himself again and picked up a new nickname among his fellow prisoners: Mac Dubh. John clearly remembers Jamie, but it’s unclear if Jamie recognizes the young man who’s now his keeper. What’s more awkward: tradition around these parts is regularly scheduled dinners between Mac Dubh and the prison’s commander. So much time for bonding and fond memories!
But you know what does bring back fond memories? The familiar surly countenance of Murtaugh, sharing a cell with Jamie. He doesn’t look great—apparently, he’s been here since shortly after Culloden. But he’s there, and he’s well enough to gripe about things.
Murtaugh’s health is a priority for us all, so the appearance of a rambling man on the moors is a fortuitous circumstance. The man, Duncan Kerr, has a lot to say, mostly in French and Gaelic. The babbling the British soldiers can decipher, however, seems to indicate Duncan knows something about rumored French gold sent to aid Charles Stuart and hidden somewhere nearby.
John Grey enlists the help of multilingual Jamie to serve as an interpreter. Jamie only acquiesces after receiving a couple assurances: 1) his irons are moved and 2) Murtaugh receives some medical attention.
Duncan provides few details about the gold, but he does seem to have a message for Jamie. Something about the MacKenzies and a “white witch.” That sounds a lot like Claire, even to Murtaugh’s jaded ears. Jamie gives John Grey the bare minimum of information and then engineers a prison break. He’s gone for three days before returning in dramatic fashion, sneaking back into the prison and catching John while he’s indisposed. He takes this opportunity to reveal he does know who the young commander is.
“I was waiting for the proper occasion,” he says, knife pointed. Grey points out that his family’s debt to Jamie has been discharged, but Jamie’s not concerned about the debt. He wants to remind John of his promise: to kill him.
Fortunately for us, John Grey has qualms about killing unarmed men. Besides, it’s probably nice to have someone around to compare handsomeness with. (I mean, woof.)
Rather than punish Jamie further, in fact, John Grey seems to have reached an understanding with him. In different ways, they’re both broken men, and Jamie’s admission he went searching for Claire during his escape solidifies a bond of heartbreak and respect.
During a heart-to-heart talk, John Grey reveals he “lost a particular friend” in the war. Jamie shares kind words and sympathy. John senses the (wrong) signals and puts his hand on Jamie’s. That’s triggering for a victim of Black Jack Randall, and the night ends with the following sentence: “Take your hand off me or I will kill you.”
Time goes by. You live. You learn. The prison is scheduled to be closed, and you all line up in your jimjams in the snow. Most of the Scottish prisoners are being sent to the American colonies for a period of indentured servitude. Actually, all of the prisoners except Jamie, who’s pulled out of line and away from the loving arms of Murtaugh, in the cruelest joke of this episode. John Grey has made separate arrangements for Jamie, who’ll be a servant for some landed gentry. Why? “You gave me my life all those years ago,” John tells him. “Now, I give you yours.”
But what does life mean without Murtaugh?
Boston, 1956
With that emptiness inside us, let us turn to the future, where Claire and Frank have an open marriage, sharing little but Brianna and vast oceans of disillusionment. As we zip through the years, things get progressively worse.
Claire earns her degree, but even that’s tainted. It’s poor form, Frank, to invite your latest fling over without checking the actual end time on your wife’s graduation soiree. Claire seemed fine with their arrangement until she’s confronted with the infidelity on her doorstep. As always, she takes it in stride, and husband and wife have a booze-fueled fallout later that night.
“You really dislike me that much?” Claire says. “You humiliated me in front of my colleagues!” “Welcome to the club,” Frank slurs in response.
They both gets some hits in, with Claire bizarrely asking if Frank had slept with his “harlot” in their bedroom. After seeing their twin beds last week, I too have a question: “Where?”
With all this bitterness, you’d think they’d both just want a divorce. But Frank won’t do it, for fear he’ll lose custody of Brianna. When Claire says she’d never try to keep Frank away from their daughter, he gets in one last blow: “Forgive me, Claire, if I don’t risk everything on your promises.”
This tension simmers and builds and finally boils over after Brianna’s high school graduation. Frank’s been offered a position at Cambridge. He wants to take Brianna with him to England—but not Claire. You see, Frank’s been “running out the clock” to Brianna’s 18th birthday. Now that she’s an adult, he’s ready for a divorce.
“You couldn’t look at Brianna without seeing him, could you?” Frank asks his devastated wife. “Without that constant reminder, might you have forgotten him with time?” Claire crushes that hope with one sentence: “That amount of time doesn’t exist.”
These are the last words these two characters share in this episode—and the last two they will ever share. Frank grabs his keys and takes off, where, off-screen, he’s involved in a car accident. The last we see of Claire is in scrubs, assuring a lifeless Frank one last time that she did love him, “very much.”
What an uplifting hour of television. The only good news? We’re essentially up to last season’s finale in Claire’s timeline, which means we’re one step closer to a Sassenach-Jamie reunion. May that hasten yet another Murtaugh sighting as well.