Childbirth is supposed to be a beautiful, if painful, experience. But Julia’s delivery on Outlander: Blood of My Blood was the labor from hell.
Julia wakes up with her water breaking and turns to Brian in her hour of need. He’s still pissed since he believes the baby is his half-brother, but he sends for the “howdie” (Scottish for midwife) nevertheless. Julia explains to Brian that the baby is her husband’s and she felt she had no choice but to have sex with his dad to save her child. Brian is dubious until Julia brings up what if Ellen were in a similar situation. Considering what happened with Brian and Ellan’s handfasting at Beltane, he’s swayed, and these two are friends again.
Knowing Julia’s due date is coming up, Henry is off to find midwives who may know her whereabouts. But that dastardly Arch Bug says the laird is getting fed up with his searches. A vulnerable Henry confesses that his wife is due any day now, and Arch seems to take pity on him since he and his wife lost a child. (Outlander viewers know that, for as evil as he can be, Arch does deeply care about his wife.) He offers to have the midwives come to them, and Henry foolishly trusts Arch.
Mistress Porter lets Lord Lovat know that Julia is in labor. Luckily for Julia, Simon doesn’t seem too suspicious that it’s a wee bit early for the child to be his. Unlucky for her, he wants to squeeze a quick wedding in so that his son won’t be a bastard. Davina tells him it’s too late since the howdie and the “gossips” are on their way. And though Simon thinks his servant is being jealous, he backs down. Davina then has a flashback to how she became pregnant with Brian, through Lord Lovat threatening her job and forcing her to have sex with him. Sadly, it’s helpful to keep this trauma that Davina experienced in mind when it comes to her behavior toward Julia for the rest of the episode.
Brian asks his mom to be gentle with Julia, and though she’s suspicious that the baby is his, Davina is on her best behavior and says the confinement in the birthing chamber is about womenfolk coming together. That seems to be the case when the howdie and her crew roll in. They’ve heard the prophecy that this baby is the future king of Scotland, so they’re Team Julia despite her being a Sassenach and having a child out of wedlock. Sure, these women are intense and the caudle is gross, but it seems like a pretty supportive environment, right?? That is, until Mistress Porter claims that Julia seduced Simon, and that the baby might not even be his. The ladies who were just speaking of guidance and comfort turn on her swiftly. For a moment, it even seems like Davina will lead them in a Game of Thrones-esque “Shame” chant.
Simon prematurely cheers to his unborn child with Brian, and, as he hinted to his mom, Brian is struggling more and more to honor his gross father. But he’s torn since he wants to make the Fraser name proud so that he’s worthy of Ellen MacKenzie. Simon says Brian needs to take when he wants and not worry about what is right and wrong. Brian will take some of his father’s teachings later in the episode, and leave the others.
Back in the hellish birthing chamber, Julia does an admirable job of continuing to tell the women that her baby is truly Lord Lovat’s. She even tells them they’ll all regret how they’re treating her once her child is king. She tries to reason with Davina about their shared experience, but instead, the sexual abuse Lord Lovat perpetrated on Mistress Porter has her lashing out.
Over at the Grants, Henry had been interviewing midwives to no avail until one comes in and says that she does know a Julia Beauchamp who gave birth a week ago. Hoorah! Except, so very not hoorah. The midwife is being paid off by the Grants to say that both Julia and the child died in childbirth, and they’re buried in unmarked graves. Henry is too blinded by grief to realize that Arch has played him.
Sigh, remember when Mr. Bug just seemed like the old nice man who helped Jamie Claire at the Ridge?
The birthing chamber has really taken a turn for the worse, with the women now thinking Julia is possessed by a demonic spirit. (You know shit is bad when you want Simon Fraser to come rescue you.) “Everything I am doing, I am doing for my baby,” Julia cries, which finally breaks Davina out of her spell. Similar to Julia’s experience, she remembers during Brian’s birth that the women blamed her for being pregnant and tell her it would be better to kill the bastard. She sends them all out, saying she can deliver the baby on her own.
Like she did for herself all those years ago, a feral but righteous Davina orders the women to get out. Who knew that Jamie’s dad and Claire’s brother had such similar traumatizing births?
While the womenfolk leave, they see Simon, who tells them to spread the news that he’s going to marry Julia before the baby is born. He doesn’t, since Davina, Brian, and even the reverend defy him. But it’ll be interesting to see if the gossip that Lord Lovat and Julia are wed goes ’round the Highlands.
In a different time, Julia flashes back to her labor with Claire, which, even with Henry being a bit of a dumdum, was a much better birthing scenario. But thankfully, with the howdie crew gone, Julia and Henry’s son is born healthy without evil women chanting about his mom being a witch. And through their sons, Davina finally can see that Julia is more like her than she cared to realize.
Meanwhile, Henry has officially lost it. He runs into town, imagining that he’s spreading the news that WWI is over, only to land in the prostitute Seema’s bed. (I’m no specialist, but I’m not certain this is how PTSD symptoms exhibit themselves…) Of course, he’s envisioning that he’s having sex with Julia, but this is going to be messy. Especially when he (inevitably? hopefully?) finds out Julia and his baby are alive and well.
As per usual for the Fraser men, Brian takes a lashing for stopping his insane father from trying to marry Julia while she was in active labor. If you’re wondering, like I am, why Brian is still tolerating his father’s tyrannical behavior, don’t worry — he tells Julia that this is going to be the last time. Brian seems to have been emboldened to live his life, which is good news for his future with Ellen. And Julia gives him the chance to claim his own birthday, which he now shares with Claire’s baby brother. Awww.
It’s a sweet ending to a rather harrowing episode. And unfortunately, this moment of peace for Julia and her baby seems destined to be short-lived.
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.