‘Outlander’ Season 3, Episode 10 Recap: Lackluster Drama and Implausible Plot Twists on the High Seas

After 11 men are buried at sea, Cosworth approaches Claire, still salty about having to boil water. This guy is just a total asshole. He warns Claire that there better be fewer deaths in the coming days and it’s like, or what? What on earth is the cook going to do about it? I mean, is he Steven Seagal’s character in Under Siege? Elias intervenes and sends Cosworth back to the galley, and then he and Claire have a glum chat about compartmentalizing.

While they’re talking, a man brings word that the husband of Mistress Johansen, the woman who looks after the ship’s goats (?), has also fallen ill. But it turns out he’s just drunk, having partaken of the newly distilled pure alcohol. Claire loses her shit and curses like a sailor (heh, see what I did there?), then quickly apologizes to Elias’ tender lil’ baby ears. She tells Mistress Johansen, Annekje, how to look after her husband as he sobers up, and also thanks her for tending to the goats, whose milk is helping all the sick men. As she’s below deck, Claire spies a Portuguese flag and wonders if it is from the Bruja, the ship carrying young Ian. Honestly, this episode features just one implausible, overly convenient thing after another.

She runs to the captain’s quarters, and because he’s not there, she starts snooping through his things, reading his captain’s log. She finds that it was actually another Portuguese ship, but as she’s reading, she discovers that there’s a man on board, Harry Tompkins, who has identified Jamie as seditious. Claire is interrupted by Cosworth, who—and it gets murky and incredibly terrible here—accuses Claire of…something, but it’s not clear what or why. He says he doesn’t trust her and it’s like, ummm OK? And? Nothing about the Cosworth plot makes sense.

Claire threatens to scream and tell Captain Leonard that Cosworth violated her and he reluctantly lets her pass because of course he does! He’s just the ship’s cook! He is a minor character! Before Claire can process this nonsense, she latches onto this new, silly intrigue of finding Harry Tomkins. But what is she going to do with Tomkins? The captain already knows Jamie has been accused of sedition, right? There is literally nothing Claire can do.