Outlander Season 3 Episode 9 Recap: The Doldrums

In “The Doldrums,” the two have a chance to work together in their quest to retrieve young Ian, with whom pirates absconded at the end of last week’s tumultuous episode. Last week’s relationship issues seem to have been resolved, at least temporarily, by the crisis at hand.
Cousin Jared has secured passage aboard a fine vessel. Jamie is wearing a verrah fine tricornered hat. And they think they know where the ship that took Ian was headed. Strap on your finest trusses and gird your aching loins: we’re going to Jamaica.
One note before we set sail: Jenny and Ian still think Claire and Jamie 1) have their son and 2) are on their way to France. Jamie claims he’s sent them a letter to explain everything, but I have my doubts this will assuage Jenny’s fury.
Meanwhile, Jamie is quickly beset by ferocious seasickness, an ailment not helped by an extra surprise. Young Fergus has brought another passenger along for the voyage: Laoghaire’s spirited eldest daughter, Marsali. The two are young and in love. Additionally, Marsali is determined to stay with Fergus because someone must be around to insult Claire endlessly. Laoghaire’s going to haunt Jamie like an attic wife clinging to Mr. Rochester.
For what it’s worth, Fergus’ puppy-love pleadings are pretty adorable, even if Jamie’s too nauseated to appreciate them. All Fergus wants is Jamie’s blessing to marry Marsali, a desire not easily satisfied, and not just because Jamie can’t stop puking.

The captain of this vessel takes Jamie’s infirmities as an opportunity to mansplain the sea to Claire—because, again, it’s been too long since the last time a man was infuriating at her. He tells her she must respect the crew’s superstitions. Plus, it could be worse: he hasn’t forced her to go topless. After all, it’s common knowledge a woman’s bare breasts calm an angry sea. This seems a convenient superstition that exists on boats full of lonely men riddled with scurvy, but who am I to question the wisdom of generations of boats full of lonely men riddled with scurvy?
As a non-sequitur, Mr. Willoughby is apparently also on this boat and stops by Jamie’s quarters to suggest cutting off his testicles to cure his seasickness. (Mercifully, he actually treats Jamie with acupuncture.)
“It reminded me of a simpler time,” Claire says of her days and weeks tending wounds and making medicine. And there is plenty of time to do both. In the middle of its journey, the ship “loses the wind.” Becalmed for weeks, Claire and Jamie enjoy snuggly time under the stars, but the crew soon grows jittery.
Their solution: throw someone overboard. The preferred target of this rage is one of the good-hearted dinguses Jamie brought with him. Jamie goes full Errol Flynn as he tries to prevent his pal, Hayes, from throwing himself from the mainsail. He’s successful, but he’s unable to calm the crew. That honor falls to Mr. Willoughby, who holds everyone’s attention with the impassioned spoken-word poetry of his life. At the end of his recitation, he throws the pages of this story into the wind—and suddenly, there is, in fact, wind.
Lest you roll your eyes, Mr. Willoughby quickly reveals why his performance worked. He noticed a bird just off the ship’s bow, and its flight pattern indicated a storm was brewing. He knew the wind was coming, but he gave the men aboard the mystical confirmation they needed.
With the wind gusting and the rain falling, Claire and Jamie sneak belowdecks for the first bit of love-making of this episode. The afterglow is so sweet, we’ll ignore the fact that there were most assuredly drowned rats in the same place earlier.
Of course, things can’t continue going right for too long. They never do. A British vessel pulls up alongside their ship. The (roughly) 12-year-old captain boards and begs for a surgeon. He says there’s been an outbreak of “the plague” and they need medical attention and supplies. After documenting the symptoms, Claire’s able to diagnose the disease instead as typhoid fever, an illness for which she’s been inoculated.
Claire agrees to help the ship treat and contain the outbreak, a move that turns out to be a humanitarian mistake. The young captain kidnaps Claire to keep her on board and hopefully mitigate the death toll. At the least, however, he promises to deliver her to Jamie when both ships arrive in Jamaica.
The hospitality never ends in this show, I tell you. It never ends.