‘Outlander’ Season 8 Episode 6 Recap: “Blessed Are The Merciful”

Though he made a deal with the devil last episode of Outlander, Jamie doesn’t have to pay up… just yet. Benjamin Cleveland (the devil in question) stopped the militia of 96 on Jamie’s behalf to help him defeat Captain Cunningham, and he starts Episode 6 by letting Jamie know he’ll expect payment one of these days. Unfortunately, Jamie already knows what day that is the battle of King’s Mountain, as Frank’s voice (sounding more like Black Jack with every menacing voiceover) taunts him.

Claire has removed the musket ball from Cunningham’s spine, but he’s still paralyzed from the waist down, and Claire doubts he’ll ever walk again. Now that he has paraplegia, Cunningham’s son’s prophecy of him not dying for another 5 years is no longer comforting to him. He essentially asks Jamie to mercy kill him, but Jamie refuses. Seemingly taking Cleveland’s advice, he’s got a plan to make an example of Cunningham & co.

Rachel and Ian have made it north to learn the fate of his first wife Wahionhaweh (or Emily), and son Swiftest of Lizards. Rachel is doing her best to be supportive, but is clearly struggling. At Shadow Lake, where Ian was adopted as a Mohawk, he reunites with a member of the tribe he knew, Ahroniawonrateh, who tells him there’s only ashes left of the villages but that there may be someone who can tell him of Wahionhaweh’s fate.

Roger is happy to be alive after his time in battle at the Siege of Savannah and tells Brianna that he’s really ready to become an ordained minister. He recollects the vision he had on the battlefield of his father catching him as a child. Never understanding how he survived the bombing of the Underground as a child during WWII when his mother died, he reasons, “[I] think I saved my father when I sent him through the stones, and he saved me.”

Believing that their time traveling has always been part of God’s plan, he’s now confident he can serve the lord. This major revelation about his dad and God obviously makes the couple horny?? So Bree and Roger enter into one of their cringey sex scenes (Season 8 is really going out with a finger bang). Roger may be into serving God, but considering how quickly he comes, he wasn’t that interested in serving Bree.

William is with his still-alive cousin Benjamin, going now by General Ralph Bleeker. Ben says he faked his death when he decided to switch sides to the Continental Army. Turns out, he has Thomas Paine to thank for his reverse Benedict Arnold. William asks how he could do this to Amaranthus. Ben reveals it was her idea for him to pretend to be dead. As suspected, that Amaranthus is a tricky one. Ben zeroes in on William’s extreme concern for his wife and slugs him. (And he doesn’t even know for sure they slept together!)

Two soldiers break them up, and Ben, the traitor that he is, has William locked up. Luckily, by the end of the episode, Denzell Hunter comes in to save the day with a ruse to declare that William has smallpox to help him escape.

Speaking of traitors, Jamie is writing a decree to the men of Fraser’s Ridge who betrayed him. They will have 10 days to vacate his land, and if they ever return, he’ll shoot them. Claire asks about the women and children, who are not responsible for their dumb dumb husbands’ actions. But Jamie is going all bell, book, and candle on them, excommunicating them all, including Hiram Crombie, who runs the Trading Post.

For Ian’s journey, they end up at the lavish home of Thayendanegea, also known as Joseph Brant. In Season 7’s “Singapore,” Ian delivered a letter to Thayendanegea requesting that he join the Continentals. That effort was in vain, though, as Thayendanegea and the British attacking the Continentals is why they burned the Mohawk villages (though, as Brant argues to Ian, it was more complicated than that). Things are tense with Ian and Brant being on different sides of the war, and Thayendanegea’s wife, Catherine, stirring the pot by repeatedly bringing up Ian’s two wives. But Catherine confirms that Wahionhaweh and her children are alive, yet Brant refuses to let Ian see them. Knowing they’re alive will have to be enough. That is, until Rachel goes to Thayendanegea directly and pleads on her husband’s behalf. Rachel does this even after she admits to Ian that his love for his living first wife hurts her. She’s a real one, that Rachel.

Some devoted wives also visit Jamie when Mrs. Crombie and the other wives of the Ridge traitors visit him to beg for his mercy. They swear they’ll make sure their husbands behave from now on if Jamie lets them stay. He’s obviously going to flip before this episode is over (the episode title is “Blessed Are the Merciful after all), but Jamie stands by his decree. 

That is, until he sees his grandchildren playing with Claire and her bees. He calls a meeting at the Lodge with Claire, where he announces he will revoke the letter of banishment. His terms? The men will swear fealty to him and turn in their weapons. And the wives will sign new contracts so the land will belong to them, not their hubbies. The women agree with Mrs. Crombie sharing a knowing look with Claire, as she’s got her to thank for this progressive solution. As if Jamie hadn’t done enough, Mrs. Cunningham comes with one last final plea — to let her take her son back to England. Claire is moved, Jamie not so much… but, like with the wives of the Ridge, it’s clear he’s gonna cave.

At Joseph Brant’s house, Ian, Rachel, and Oggy finally meet with Wahionhaweh (Morgan Holmstrom returning in the role). While she and her children survived, her husband Kaheroton is dead and she’s had recurring nightmares that Swiftest of Lizards will be captured and die in battle. She asks that Ian and Rachel take the child to live with them, and Rachel agrees to raise him as their own as long as Wahionhaweh is sure. Swiftest of Lizards comes in and presents a dog (who just so happens to be Rollo’s grandson…aww!) to his brother Oggy. Wahionhaweh says Ian named her son (when he gave Swiftest of Lizards the English name Ian James last season), so she’ll name his son. She names Oggy “Hunter,” and Rachel is moved that Wahionhaweh has unknowingly chosen her maiden name. Ian says in Mohawk that he loves Rachel, and she replies the same. With that, these two continue the great Outlander tradition established by Claire that polygamy can work.

This season’s troublemakers of the Ridge, the Cunninghams, are packing up shop and heading to England. The Wicked Witch bids adieu to our White Witch, and despite their differences, Claire confirms they were friends.

As they depart, Jamie acknowledges that this doesn’t mean their troubles are over. “Cunningham may be gone, but Major Ferguson is not,” he says, as that’s who Jamie will inevitably face off with at King’s Mountain. Good thing Roger got a letter from Francis Marion in this episode, agreeing he will sell guns to Jamie’s militia. (Speaking of, Henri-Christian had a little screentime in that scene… book readers, get worried.) But can the extra firepower change Jamie’s fate? Only four more episodes to find out.

Caitlin Gallagher is a New Jersey-raised, NYC-based entertainment writer. When not writing about or watching TV, she can be found planning her next Halloween costume, crying over rescue animals, or praising Season 2 of The Leftovers.