Recap / Outlander S 3 E 10 Heaven And Earth

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Recap of Outlander
Season 3, Episode 10:

Heaven and Earth

While working to stop the outbreak onboard the Porpoise, Claire learns that the acting Captain is planning to betray her in hopes of making his temporary promotion more permanent. Desperate to reunite with Claire, Jamie makes a seemingly impossible request of Fergus.

Tropes

• Adapted Out: In the books, Lord John Grey is aboard the Porpoise, headed to his new commission in Jamaica. He is quarantined in quarters to avoid being infected. He and Claire bond over the challenges of being responsible of lives of others, a bond broken once they re-meet in Jamaica and realize their mutual connection to Jamie. In the show, Lord John and Claire will not meet until after Jamie and Claire reunite and arrive in Jamaica.
• Anti-Interference Lock Up: After Jamie freaks out upon discovering that the Captains of the Porpoise and the Artemis conspired to let the British ship take off with Claire, he's locked up to keep him from staging a mutiny and forcing the ship to go after Claire.
• Apocalyptic Log: Claire is able to trace the source of the infection by reading notes from the Surgeon's Log.
• Armor-Piercing Question: The men still don't really believe that Claire knows how to solve their Typhoid spread. When she diverts their supply of drinking alcohol for sterilization, it stirs up quite a bit of discontent. The commanding officer skeptically asks her how many casks of alcohol she requires.
  Claire: How many men would you like me to save?
• Bait-and-Switch: Claire is taken to a sailor who has taken ill. They initially think he's taken ill with Typhoid, but it turns out he has alcohol poison from drinking the pure alcohol that was being distilled for sterilization purposes.
• Break His Heart to Save Him: Fergus and Marsali refuse to help Jamie stage a mutiny because they think it will result in him being killed, but this means there is nothing they can do at the moment to help him reunite with Claire.
• Burial at Sea: The soldiers who die of Typhoid have to be offloaded into the sea. They have no way to store decomposing bodies and that's not even factoring in that the bodies are still contagious. So each afternoon, they pause for a brief funeral ceremony for the deceased before disposing of the men overboard.
• Censored Child Death: Despite Typhoid being a very painful way to die, Elias dies off screen and is simply found dead in his bed later.
• Childhood Friends: Jim Quigley is this for Elias, a friend that grew up in the same town.
• Child Soldiers: There are several sailors on the Porpoise that are barely in their teens. Justified in that at this time, noble families purchased commissions for their sons. The youngsters would then be assigned to ships like the Porpoise to give them a taste of the military in a relatively safe environment until they were old enough to take command in more challenging environments. No one had any way of knowing Typhoid would strike the Porpoise.
• Conflicting Loyalty: Fergus has to choose between helping Jamie, his adopted father who he idolizes, or ensuring the safety of Marsali, the woman he wants to marry.
• Dead Person Impersonation: Claire pretends to be Elias' deceased mother to give him comfort in his last moments as he dies of Typhoid.
• Dies Wide Open: Jim Quigley dies with his eyes wide open. Elias closes the man's eyes as a sign of respect.
• Due to the Dead: The sailors who die of Typhoid are sewn into a canvass sack, having their nose sewn shut to ensure they're dead, and are respectfully dropped into the sea while the surviving men salute them and a scripture is read.
• Evolving Credits: The opening credits have again changed, now having a Caribbean undertone as they are headed to towards Jamaica.
• Exact Eavesdropping: Fergus hears the men threatening to throw him and Jamie overboard if they cause any more trouble and have their way with Marsali once her male chaperones are out of the way. This is what convinces him to defy Jamie's request in order to make ensure Marsali's safety.
• The Farmer and the Viper: Jamie warned Claire not to go onto the British ship as Redcoats cannot be trusted, but as a doctor, she felt compelled to help a ship in medical crisis. After she's spent weeks helping them, she discovers that the Captain knows Jamie's true identity and intends to arrest him and return him to England to be tried for treason, murder, and smuggling.
• Green Around the Gills: Jamie is not allowed access to Mr. Willoughby and his acupuncture treatments which had been keeping Jamie's severe seasickness at bay. This is possibly to further ensure that Jamie can't interfere with ship operations.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Fergus decides that he will not help Jamie stage a mutiny even if it means that he cannot marry Marsali, the love of his life, as helping Jamie was the condition set for receiving permission to marry Marsali, Jamie's stepdaughter.
• Language Barrier: It takes Mistress Johannsen several encounters to actually communicate her plan to Claire, as her broken English sounds like a series of non-sequiturs to Claire rather than a cohesive plan of escape.
• Let's Wait a While: In a subversion, Fergus is the one who has to convince Marsali to hold off on sex. While he's been sexually active for years, he wants to honor her and respect Jamie by waiting until they are properly wed.
• Lucky Rabbit's Foot: Elias Pound has a lucky rabbit's foot form his mother.
• A Million Is a Statistic: Discussed by Claire and Captain Leonard. Dozens of men have died of Typhoid since Claire has been onboard, but she's particularly troubled by Elias' death, possibly because he was a child or because he was so kind to her. But Captain Leonard points out that she's done a made a heroic effort and as sad as Elias' death is, it was the only one of the day, a drastic improvement over the days prior.
• Meaningful Echo: Jamie chews Fergus out for not getting the keys to free him. Fergus tells him that a mutiny would get them killed and leave Marsali alone and vulnerable. He reminds Jamie that he himself told Fergus that true love meant being willing to do anything for the person you love. In this case, it means refusing to help Jamie, the man he loves as a father, to protect Marsali, the woman he loves more than life itself.
• Missing Steps Plan: Jamie wants to stage a mutiny and take the Artemis to find Claire. Fergus points out before they can do that, they'd have to first convince enough men it's worth it to turn on the Captain. These are men who didn't want women on the ship to begin with. If they succeed, they'd have to both man the ship and control the men who didn't want to mutiny. If they fail, they'll be thrown overboard, leaving Marsali at the mercy of men who have already been secretly what they'd like to do to her if they had the chance.
• Mood Whiplash: Claire is walking on deck among the men who are singing and smiling as no one has died of Typhoid that day nor have any new cases been reported. She goes to find Elias to return his lucky rabbit's foot to him only to find him in his hammock, dying of Typhoid.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Claire voluntarily helps the British sailors only to discover that the Captain plans to arrest Jamie, return him to be tried for murder and treason, and likely to be hanged. When Claire tries to escape, he orders her under guard to ensure that she won't be able to warn Jamie and to make sure Jamie has reason to show up in Jamaica no matter how dangerous doing so might be for him.
• Not in Front of the Kid: Claire apologizes for swearing in front of Elias, given his young age. He assures her that he's heard this type of language before. He's simply shocked to hear it from a gentlewoman. Claire assures him she's not a gentlewoman.
• Not So Stoic: The normally unflappable Claire cries as she completes the last rites for Elias.
• Now, Let Me Carry You: After Claire help saves Mistress Johannsen's husband from alcohol poison, Mistress Johannsen helps Claire figure out a way to escape the ship so she can save Jamie from being arrested.
• Obliviously Evil: The cook only begrudgingly and half heartedly follows the Captain's orders to follow Claire's suggestions. He thinks Claire's theories about how the Typhoid is spreading is ridiculous nonsense at best and a waste of resources at worst. He points out that men are still dying, not realizing that he and his assistant are playing a large role in those deaths since they are a non-compliant vector of contagion.
• Oh, Crap!: Tompkins' face when he realizes he's been jailed mere feet from Howard, the source of the Typhoid infection that has killed a quarter of the men onboard the Porpoise.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Jamie loves Fergus as a son and almost never speaks so much as a harsh word to the man. But when Fergus refuses to help him stage a mutiny to save Claire, Jamie calls him a fool and says he was right to refuse to his blessing on a marriage between Fergus and Marsali because Fergus obviously doesn't understand love.
• Overranked Soldier: Much like acting Captain Leonard, Elias Pound finds himself in a much higher position of authority than anticipated due to the loss of their commanding officers. Despite only being fourteen, he is often in the position of having to monitor and reprimand men two to three times his age.
• Patient Zero: The cook's assistant is discovered to be an asymptomatic courier of Typhoid who has been unintentionally sickening the rest of the crew.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Tompkins gloats about burning down Jamie's shop, about nearly killing Young Ian, and about alerting the Captain to Jamie's true identity. He very smugly rubs Claire's face in the possibility of Jamie being arrested and executed. She can't stop the chain of events he's set into motion, but she can have him detained in the brig as a Typhoid carrier, mere feet from an actual carrier...
• Plucky Middie: Elias Pound is a baby-faced, teenaged commissioned officer who is more than willing to help Claire and does his best to step up in the absence of his commanding officers.
• Power of Trust: Used against Jamie. Marsali tells the Captain to make Jamie promise not to rebel because once he makes a promise, he never goes back on it. So, the Captain requires Jamie's word before releasing him from the brig.
• Protected by a Child: Several of the men are very vocal about not believing that Claire actually knows what she's doing and not wanting to take orders from a woman. However, Elias is her ever present shadow and uses his authority as a commissioned officer acting under the Captain's order to make sure the men do nothing more than grumble.
• Sadistic Choice: Jamie tells Fergus that if Fergus gets him the keys to break out of his cell, Jamie will give him the marriage blessing he'd previously been refusing. Fergus fully believes that an attempt at jail break and mutiny will lead to their deaths, but he's also desperate for Jamie's approval and permission to marry.
• Sir Swearsalot: When Claire realizes that Mistress Johansenns' husband is sick from drinking the rubbing alcohol she goes off a profanity laced rant that actually makes the sailors raise an eyebrow. Yes, even sailors think Claire has a potty mouth.
• Smug Snake:
  • Captain Leonard is looking forward to having command of his own ship in reward for bringing Jamie to justice. It doesn't even seem to bother him that he'd be widowing the woman who has just risked everything to try and save his men's lives.
  • Tompkins very visibly enjoys taunting Claire about Jamie's impending arrest and execution, right up until she has him falsely detained as a potential Typhoid carrier.
• Tempting Fate: Elias Pound manages not to catch the fever going around ship. Then he gives Claire the lucky rabbit's foot his mother gave him. Not long after, Pound becomes the last man to succumb to the fever.
• Typhoid Mary: A very literal case. Claire cannot understand why they can't get ahead of the Typhoid spread. She finally realizes it is because the food is being handled by an asymptomatic cook who is handling the food of all the other sailors, infecting them without meaning to.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Despite being fourteen, or perhaps because of his young age, Elias is more willing than most to listen to Claire's medical advise. He even defends Claire against the ire of the enlisted men, willing to believe her advise about germs and slowing the infection spread amongst the men.
• You Are in Command Now: Lieutenant Leonard finds himself acting Captain after all of his superior officers are felled by the Typhoid outbreak. Similarly, Elias Pound is acting as a second in command as one of the few commissioned officers who are still healthy enough to do so.