Recap of Outlander
Season 4, Episode 5:
Savages
While helping deliver a baby, Claire becomes embroiled in a dispute between a family of settlers and the local native tribe. Jamie gets an unexpected reunion when he and Young Ian go to town in hopes of recruiting settlers for Fraser's Ridge.
Tropes
- Adapted Out: In the books, Lord John and Young Ian are actually in the cabin, sick with the measles when Pastor Gottfried comes to warn Claire of Herr Mueller. For the show, Lord John's visit and his illness are moved to Episode 6, Blood of my Blood. Young Ian is removed from both subplots entirely, being with Jamie for this episode and going hunting with the local tribe next episode.
- Asshole Victim: Herr Mueller. He brought his death on himself, but his actions were triggered by overwhelming grief over the loss of his family. Had he not turned it on the completely innocent natives, he would have been a completely sympathetic character.
- Attack on One Is an Attack on All: After Mueller murdered Adawehi, the Cherokee burn Mueller's cabin with flaming arrows that kill his wife and eventually Mueller.
- Big Damn Reunion: Jamie and Murtagh reunite in Woolam’s Creek; Claire and Murtagh reunite later in Fraser’s Ridge.
- The Bus Came Back: Murtagh hasn't been seen since the Jacobite prisoners were shipped off to America in Season 3, episode 3.
- Bilingual Dialogue: Even though Adawehi and Claire speak different languages, they can partially understand each other.
- Conflicting Loyalty: For the first time, Jamie and Murtagh find themselves on opposite sides of a major conflict. Jamie has already given his word to Governor Tryon, so he can't back out and join Murtagh, but he promises that he'll do his best to stay out of Murtagh's way.
- Death by Racism: Herr Mueller considers the natives to be savage heathens. He blames them for his family's death, insisting they cursed the drinking water, rather than accepting that he infected his own family with measles when he came back from traveling. He goes to their village and scalps several of their elders in revenge which of course provokes retaliations that gets both Herr and Frau Mueller killed.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Mueller believes the Cherokee were trespassing on his land when the Cherokee's horses were drinking water from the stream. But Tawadi said the water belongs to no one, therefore no one can be trespassing around that stream.
- Mueller also believed the Cherokee cursed his family, causing their death, even though he was the one who inadvertently got them sick.
- Don't You Like It?: Claire is horrified when Herr Mueller presents her with Adawehi's scalp.
- Dreaming of Times Gone By: Jamie dreams of Brianna's birthmark, despite Claire never mentioning it to him before.
- Five Stages of Grief: Herr Mueller is bouncing around the five stages as he tries to wrap his head around losing both of his children and his grandchild from a disease that merely weakened him and his wife.
- Flaying Alive: Gerhard Mueller scalps Adawehi after he incorrectly believes the Cherokee caused the death of his family.
- Good Shepherd: Pastor Gottfried comes out in person to warn Claire that Herr Mueller has gone mad with grief and is missing. He and Frau Mueller are afraid that Herr Mueller may blame Claire for his family's deaths and try to harm her. Pastor Gottfried tries to convince Claire to go somewhere safer but she has Rollo and her gun and prefers to stay at the cabin to wait for Jamie and Ian's return.
- Internal Reveal: Jamie and Murtagh each learn that the other is live and well; Murtagh learns that Claire has returned to Jamie and they have a daughter who is alive and well in 1971. Murtagh is ecstatic to hear such wonderful news from his godson.
- Knight Errant: Like Jamie, Murtagh is a leader of men, albeit not as charismatic as his nephew. However, he has just as much confidence and is always looking to help the downtrodden. He is helping the Regulators because their cause is very similar to the very thing Murtagh was fighting back in Scotland. Jamie offers Murtagh a chance to walk away and live rent free on Fraser's Ridge, but Murtagh insists that would just be kicking the can down the road. Eventually, the bill will come due. Literally. So, he'd rather start the fight now.
- Language Barrier: Claire and Adawehi enjoy spending time together although they can't communicate with each other very well.
- Long-Lost Relative: Young Ian and Murtagh don't realize they're related (Murtagh is a cousin of Jamie's father and Ian's grandfather) until Jamie shows up to chew the blacksmith out for ripping Ian off.
- Motive Rant: Herr Mueller goes on a rant about how the savage natives are supposed to die of smallpox, not god-fearing settlers like his family. When Claire points out the natives did nothing but water their horses in the creek bordering his land, he flies off the handle insisting that they chose that spot intentionally, trying to intimidate him out of his land. He insists he's solved the problem by killing their medicine woman. He's sure that without her, they can't cast any further curses. Of course, this results in a Karmic Death for the remainder of the Mueller family, including the Herr.
- Noble Bigot: Herr Mueller considers himself and his family God-fearing Christians which means they should be safe from danger while the heathen savages die of diseases like smallpox. When the reverse happens, it literally sends him into a Heroic B So D as he can't understand why such a bad thing would happen to "good people." So, he goes and murders people to make himself feel better.
- Rebel Leader: Murtagh is the leader of the Regulators, citizens who protest against taxes and corruption.
- Recognizable by Sound: Claire recognizes Murtagh when he whistles "The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B."
- The Reveal: Murtagh, who Jamie has not seen in nearly 15 years, lives in the town nearest to Fraser's Ridge.
- Sanity Slippage: After Mueller loses his whole family to the measles, including his newborn granddaughter, he attacks the natives, preferring to believe they cursed his family rather than accept that he was the one who infected his family.
- Seduction-Proof Marriage: The silver smith's wife is giving all the signs that she'd be open to spending some time with Jamie. Happily married, Jamie ignores all her flirtations, sticking to business long enough to get the information he needs and then awkwardly extricating himself from the conversation.
- Someone to Remember Him By: Petronella says her baby looks like her husband, then crosses herself praying that he's resting in peace
- Stunned Silence: Jamie barges into the blacksmith's workshop ready to give the man a piece of his mind only to be stunned into silence when he realizes the man is his long lost godfather, Murtagh.
- Voiceover Letter: Brianna left a letter for Roger after she went through the stones to find her mother and father.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Herr Mueller's grief makes him so dangerous, his wife and minister are warning the neighbors to beware. He attacks the natives, killing one of their elders which then leads to the destruction of the remainder of his own world.
- Would Hit a Girl: Herr Mueller kills Adawehi, an elderly woman he suspects of being a witch. In return, the natives kill Frau Mueller.
