‘Outlander’ Season 7 Episode 7 Recap: “A Practical Guide for Time Travelers”

There’s a lot going on in Outlander Season 7 Episode 7 (“A Practical Guide for Time Travelers”), and some of it is… kind of the worst (looking at you, Bri and Roger’s sex scene set to Phil Collins “In The Air Tonight”)! As it turns out, Rob Cameron makes both of them horny — that is, until they find out he’s stolen their son Jemmy (Blake Johnston Miller) and used him to travel through the stones to god knows when and where. 

But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. We need to back up and discuss the fact that William Buccleigh Mackenzie (Diarmaid Murtagh), aka Buck, aka the nucklavee, is at Lallybroch and Brianna is very, “Wait, WTF?” about it. They feed him peanut butter sandwiches and Roger tells him that William is his great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, which understandably comes as a bit of a shock. What he doesn’t tell him — at least not right away — is that William’s year of death on Roger’s family tree is recorded as 1778, the very year William says he came through. Well, that doesn’t sound good.

Brianna doesn’t think William wants to travel back to his beloved Morag and their kids, but he insists he does. However, the gemstone in his wedding ring is gone from the first journey, so he’ll have to find another one if he wants to return home. Didn’t QVC exist in 1980? Surely gemstones couldn’t be that hard to come by! 

The Mackenzies are treated to an unwelcome visit from Rob Cameron (Chris Fulton), who’s taken Roger’s “sure, we’ll do dinner sometime” to mean, like, tonight. He’s come with a bottle of red wine and an inability to read the room and recognize when he’s worn out his welcome. He does eventually leave, but not before he does some more reading of Roger’s dad’s hymnals (and, as we later find out, more of his time travel documents). 

In one of the biggest “well, that escalated quickly” moments in “Outlander” history, Rob goes from peeping on Roger’s paperwork to setting up a fake story about Jemmy sleeping over at Rob’s place to hang out with his son Bobby. However, when Mandy (Rosa Morris) wakes up in the middle of the night crying that Jemmy’s no longer here and that their psychic connection has been severed, it becomes clear that it was all a front. William and Roger go speeding off into the night, and Roger miraculously realizes that Rob might be trying to use Jemmy to time travel and that he might use him as a blood sacrifice in lieu of a gemstone. However, when they get to the stone circle at Craigh na Dun, all that’s left of Jemmy is his scarf. 

So, has Jemmy been taken to the past? Is Rob really that clever? Eh, I wouldn’t hold your breath. If the show follows the books, we’re soon in for an even wilder ride. However, I’ll avoid giving too many spoilers. Now, speaking of the past… 

As you probably remember, Jamie (Sam Heughan) and Claire’s (Caitriona Balfe) trip to Scotland has been postponed yet again since Jamie is now working as a sniper for the resistance. By September 1777, they’ve made their way to Bemis Heights, New York, and there’s a lot of tension in the air. While the Continental Army seems to be breaking ground and overpowering the Red Coats, it’s one step forward, one step back on both sides, with no clear victor just yet. 

Speaking of the Red Coats, William is with his fellow soldiers in Stillwater, and while the French have joined in the war efforts, they’re still losing numbers daily. William (Charles Vandervaart) is there and seems keen to get out on the battlefield. So while Captain Richardson offers to make William his chief messenger, William decides to beg General Fraser for a chance to fight. He gets his wish, though he’ll end up regretting it by episode’s end. 

That’s because when the two sides do clash, William’s BFF Hammond is killed pretty much immediately. William is shellshocked, but it doesn’t take him long to transform his horror into blind rage, and he draws his sword and starts killing pretty much every rebel in sight. Given what we’ve seen of William’s constitution leading up to this battle, it beggars belief just a tad that he’s turned into some stone cold killing machine, but I suppose it’s stab now, reflect later. 

A heart-to-heart of sorts with General Fraser after the battle is done confirms what’s already clear: The man William was when he went into battle and the one he is now that it’s over are not the same. And hey, wait until he finds out that one of the rebel bodies lying (seemingly) lifeless on the ground is none other than his father — I mean, his dad’s friend! — Jamie! Luckily, we know something William doesn’t, and that’s that he’s one of the main protagonists on Outlander so he’s definitely not dead. Nice cliffhanger, though! 

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.