‘Outlander’ Season 6 Episode 6 Recap: “The World Turned Upside Down”

Before we get started, you’ll probably need a few moments to get “Yorktown” from Hamilton out of your head after reading that episode title, so take it. Outlander really has upped the ante for the sixth episode of the season and we have a lot to get through, so you’ll want to give this one your undivided attention. We’ve got a dysentery epidemic, poisoning, pregnancy, an unfortunate but fast-growing haircut, and MURDER, all in the course of a single hour, so let’s strap ourselves in.

Things kick off after Roger’s (Richard Rankin) latest sermon. For someone who’s definitely not a preacher, he’s definitely getting into the role. However, he later notices that Mr. and Mrs. MacNeil weren’t at the service and they never miss a week. Claire (Caitriona Balfe) offers to head over to their cabin to check on them and she decides to take Lizzie (Caitlyn O’Ryan), Brianna (Sophie Skelton), and Malva (Jessica Reynolds) with her.

Of course, when she gets there the entire family, kids and baby included, are near death. Mr. MacNeil manages to tell Claire that they’re all suffering from “the bloody flux,” which we now know was a massive dysentery epidemic that spread through much of the East Coast starting in 1775. They all die soon after, and the illness begins to spread throughout the Fraser’s Ridge settlement. Claire studies the amoeba under a microscope in her surgery, but as she tells Malva, there’s not much they can do for it but give garlic and honey.

At a funeral held in what has now become a mass grave in the middle of a field, Brianna later remarks that she hasn’t seen the Sin-Eater in a while. However, Claire doesn’t have time to discuss that since she soon falls ill as well. The initial assumption is that she too has succumbed to dysentery, and she spends nearly a week fighting off a fever that gives her intense hallucinations, including one in which a snake is in her home, she holds her heart in her hands, and Jamie (Sam Heughan) is comforted by another woman. Uh oh!

While she’s ill, Claire is cared for by Lizzie, Brianna, Jamie, and Malva, the latter of whom refuses to leave her side. She proclaims to Jamie that while many people think Claire is a witch, she wants to learn everything she can from her and in fact would like to be exactly like her. The subtext here is that she wants to actually BE her, but Jamie has no idea of that at the time of the conversation. Something seems a bit off about the whole situation (and for anyone who’s read Diana Gabaldon’s books, you’ll know exactly what that is).

When Claire finally wakes, it’s Roger who’s there beside her. He tells her that the epidemic seems to have abated and no one else is getting sick it seems, which is good. Brianna rushes in soon after and reveals that she’s pregnant, which cheers Claire a bit — something she needs given the terrible illness she’s just fought off and the fact that Malva and Mrs. Bug have cut all her hair off while she slept. They thought that was how you help someone with a fever, apparently. Thankfully, it’ll grow back by episode’s end!

Claire decides to go and see Tom Christie (Mark Lewis Jones), who’s also been ill lately. She dons an oversized hat to go and see him, though she’s clearly in no state to be trekking anywhere — something Tom remarks when she turns up at his door. Despite basically accusing her of being a godless monster the last time the two had any contact, he welcomes her into the house and has her sit down. They discover that they both had a similar illness which was different from everyone who had dysentery. But how can that be when they’ve not seen each other or been in contact? Malvaaaaaa! Of course, before they can try and parse out what’s going on any further, Claire goes and ruins things by asking for a sample of Tom’s poo to put under the microscope and is quickly escorted back to Fraser’s Ridge.

There’s a lovely little heartfelt scene between Claire and Jamie after her illness. They lie in bed together and joke with one another about Claire’s wonderful qualities, deciding that their most endearing quality according to the other is their faithfulness. That will be important in a few short minutes, but more on that later. We also learn during this scene that Jamie’s heard from the Sons of Liberty about the next meeting of the provincial congress. Harnett wants him to speak in support of the efforts to cease trade with Britain and he’ll go, but Claire will stay behind this time.

However, before he sets off, Tom, Allan (Alexander Vlahos), and Malva turn up at the Ridge and they’ve got some serious talking to do. Malva’s gone and gotten herself knocked up but refuses to say whose child it is until she’s around Jamie. That is, of course, because she wants to accuse him of being the father. Right in front of Claire, she claims that she and Jamie had sex while Claire was near death. Jamie, of course, deeply denies this accusation, but Malva says she knows all the scars on Jamie’s body and can name them as proof of their dalliance. Of course, all that is proof of is her spying on him and Claire in flagrante delicto in the barn a few weeks ago. Nevertheless, Claire is in shock and flees the room before the conversation can go any further.

After they leave, Jamie goes to find a distraught Claire in the barn. He refuses to apologize because he has done nothing wrong, which Claire understands. She’s reluctant to believe that Jamie could have slept with Malva because it would unravel her entire life in ways she’s not ready to accept. She also knows that Jamie truly loves her, but he does admit that he once slept with Mary McNab the night before he gave himself up to the Red Coats back at Lallybroch. Claire was gone at the time, so she’s a bit more understanding of this, and they both agree that sticking together is the best thing they can do. Now they just need to find out what the truth is with Malva.

Claire decides to go and see Malva a few days later to try and talk some reason into her. Malva is far from contrite. Instead, she’s angry that she’s been painted to be a whore while Jamie seems to be getting off scot-free. Claire informs her that nothing she can say will come between them and that she doesn’t believe that Jamie is the father of the child. Malva nearly seems ready to confess the truth, but then Allan comes bursting out of the house and tells Claire to go away. He also accuses her of being a witch, a dangerous accusation that could get her killed just like Malva’s mother, and Claire warns them to stay away from her family.

Back at the Ridge, Young Ian (John Bell) admits to Claire that Malva’s child could be his. She’d been kind to him and wanted to know about his life and hew as lonely. They were down by the river one day and they just went for it, but it never felt right because Ian still loves Emily. He told Malva as much and said that it could never happen again, but Ian wonders now if Malva is lying about Jamie to spite Ian for rejecting her. However, Claire assures him that’s not the case and that anyway, the baby may not be his since Roger saw Malva with Obidiah Henderson, so God knows how many people she’s slept with?

Two months later, things are pretty tense in the community, but at least Claire’s hair has grown back at a miraculous rate. Not only has word of Jamie’s alleged indiscretion spread all the way to Wilmington, preventing him from being chosen for the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, but it’s also made Claire a bit of an outcast in her own settlement. It doesn’t help that Claire is still having terrible PTSD and hallucinations of Lionel Brown.

Mid-anxiety attack, Claire sees Malva coming up through the fields towards Fraser’s Ridge and decides she’s ready to check out. She hits up old faithful, her ether, and knocks herself out. While asleep, she has another terrible nightmare in which Malva threatens to take everything she has, including her husband and her home. However, it’s very clear that won’t be happening as when Claire wakes up and goes outside, Malva’s throat has been slit and she lies dead in the field. Beside herself with shock and grief, Claire tries to save the unborn child but it too dies. Looks like Claire’s in pretty big trouble now.

Notes:

• Malva clearly poisoned Claire and Tom, and many believe this had something to do with the fingers she was cutting off of the very dead Sin-Eater. If the show is staying true to the books, that’s certainly the case and we should find out more about this in the coming episodes.
• Brianna still has very little faith in Jamie. Her conversation with Roger about her suspicions of the men she should trust the most has been touched upon a lot lately it feels. Not sure if this is purely coincidental or if it’s hinting at something greater.
• The Revolution seems to be taking a very long time to come, doesn’t it? I’m getting impatient here!

Jennifer Still is a writer and editor from New York who cares too way much about fictional characters and spends her time writing about them.