home
What - or who - is home?
That’s what all the main characters in 04x03 “The False Bride” ask themselves.
The episode opens in Inverness, where Roger is graciously moving out of his home, to give a home to Fiona and her new husband.
Then we pivot to Jamie, Claire, and Ian - for whom home is now clearly *not* River Run.
Jamie wants Ian to go home to Scotland - but Ian refuses, stating that he’s his own man now, and as such can define where his home is.
Jocasta gives Jamie an heirloom - only the third object we have ever seen (apart from the pearls and the boar tusk bracelets) that belong to Ellen MacKenzie Fraser. Something to grace his new home, wherever it is.
So Jamie and Claire set off into the wilderness, destination unknown. Trying to achieve their shared dream of building a home, a life, together. But will that be as a healer and printer in a small backcountry village? Does that mean Jamie will need to return to an outlaw’s life, to support his family?
Meanwhile, Ian has found a home with Mr. Myers in the backcountry.
Brianna has a home in Boston - but Roger now sees his home in her. He wants to give her his name, his clan - a family. When she rejects that, he is once again rootless.
Jamie and Claire finally find where they will build their home - but not after experiencing some of the dangers that go with it. But none of that matters - for they are already home, in each other, and now they will build a physical home to complement that.
In this episode, everyone is in transition. Building and strengthening - or straining - relationships. Redefining who - or what - home is.
With the wisest ones realizing that a physical home may come and go - but the home of their heart is in other people.