Written by Diana Gabaldon, Ronald D. Moore, and Matthew B. Roberts
Directed by Metin Hüseyin

The episode opens immediately after the end of the previous episode, The Watch. Claire (Caitriona Balfe) is preparing to go search for Jamie (Sam Heughan). Ian (Steven Cree) is protesting that she can’t go alone, but he’s unable to accompany her without his leg. As she’s on a horse about to leave, Jenny (Laura Donnelly) insists on joining her. Claire protests that Jenny has just given birth and shouldn’t leave the baby, but Jenny is adamant. Even with a map drawn by Ian, Claire has to admit that she doesn’t know the area and Jenny does.

They come upon the place where the men were ambushed. Jenny finds tracks heading east and the two follow them. Claire has the idea she can strike a deal with Jack Randall’s superior. They find the soldiers and Mr. MacQuarrie (Douglas Henshall) is still with them as a prisoner, but there’s no sign of Jamie. They head off one of the soldiers who leaves with a message and torture him to try to find out where Jamie is. Claire finds his dispatch and learns Jamie escaped and the messenger was being sent to Fort William for reinforcements to find him. While the two of them argue over letting the captive live, Murtagh (Duncan Lacroix) shows up and takes care of the problem himself.

Jenny and Claire bond when Claire admits that Jenny was right and if Murtagh hadn’t shown up when he did that she would have killed the British soldier. The next day, Jenny heads back to Lallybroch and her family, knowing that Murtagh will take care of Claire and find Jamie.

Murtagh has an idea that they need to make Jamie find them. Claire needs to act as a healer and stop everywhere there are people. Word would soon get out about the healer who is traveling. Claire also does some fortune-telling. Murtagh also tries to draw attention to himself, mostly by acting like a fool. The show deviates from the book here, as Claire starts singing a song from World War II, Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy. They think the song is something that Jamie will know is her, especially since she’s performing it as ‘The Sassenach.” However, a band of gypsies notices the success they are having and copy her. They promise not to sing it anymore until she stops, but Murtagh knows they are taking Claire’s bribe and will still do just what they want.

Murtagh confesses to Claire that he once lost someone he loved at a MacKenzie gathering many years before. He loved her, but she loved someone else. He tells Claire how he alone killed a boar with just a knife, then made bracelets out of the tusks to give her. Claire figures out that Murtagh was in love with Jamie’s mother. He tells Claire he loves Jamie as if he was his own son.

The gypsy Claire made the deal with comes to find Claire and tells her they received a message while performing that he thinks was meant for her. They were told to go to Glen Rowan Cross. Claire and Murtagh immediately travel there. Unfortunately, they find Dougal MacKenzie (Graham McTavish) there, not Jamie. He tells them Jamie is alive and was captured by the British, who took him to Wentworth Prison, where he is condemned to die.

Dougal tells Claire he will protect her if she marries him. He said she will soon be a widow anyway and only he can protect her and Lallybroch. Claire realizes that he is after Lallybroch. Claire tells him that if he helps her try to break Jamie out of prison, and then if they find out he’s dead she will marry him. However, his men aren’t that willing to participate. Finally, Willie (Finn Den Hertog) agrees to go. At that point, if the others don’t, they would look like cowards, so they agree as well.

There is some beautiful Scottish scenery as Claire and Jenny are tracking Jamie and the British soldiers who took him. I haven’t said enough about the cinematography of this show. It could be a travel promotion for Scotland. Everything is so beautiful, green, and, in most cases, unspoiled.

Jenny drives it home to Claire how much different life is in Scotland at this time than what Claire is used to. As Jenny tortures the captured British soldier, trying to get information, Claire is sympathetic and doesn’t like what Jenny is doing. After they are done with him, Claire moves to bandage his wounds, while Jenny says they must kill him. Jenny is right. If he was left alive, he would find the other soldiers, and not only would Jamie still be pursued by the British, but likely all of them at Lallybroch. Claire tells her later that she agreed with the decision, even though Murtagh took that decision away from them.

There’s an exchange with Jenny where Claire gives her a bit of a look into her future and tells her to plant potatoes. Is Claire changing the timeline? Or is this what is supposed to have happened? Every time-travel story has to deal with questions such as this. Later events will seem to indicate that Claire’s travel into the past was a part of the history, but at this point, she doesn’t know that. She sees this as helping the people she cares about avoid disaster from famine and the Rising.

During her fortune-telling, the tables are turned as the same actress who portrayed Mrs. Crook, the Rev. Wakefield’s housekeeper in the first episode who told Claire’s fortune portrays a woman who has her fortune told here by Claire. It’s a small bit that’s not initially picked up on by most viewers.

Sam Heughan gets a break in this episode as we only see him in flashbacks. It’s a good bit of character development for Claire. At one point, Murtagh gives her the option of going back to Lallybroch and letting him search, not knowing she is a woman out of time. The only reason she is still in this time period is Jamie, and if he truly is gone she will likely return to the Stones to try to go back to her own time. This is why she can agree to Dougal’s proposal, knowing she will go back and not honor it if they don’t get Jamie out of prison. She has a Plan B in her head already but is hoping beyond hope she doesn’t have to use it.

The actors are so convincing, immersing the viewer in that era. I often forget that they are actors and think of them more as their characters, This is especially true seeing Claire back with the men she knows since she first found herself in the past. She is wary of Dougal, but also strong with him; that’s what is so enticing about her to him. He might protest, but he’d like nothing more than to “conquer” a strong woman. I am always surprised to see what a nice guy Graham McTavish is in other roles and the travel series he did with Sam Heughan.

This is leading to a pivotal episode that will be hard for some people to watch. If you’ve read the books at this point, you know what’s coming and I was wondering how they would manage to depict it. As a setup to that, The Search does its job of depicting Claire as a woman who doesn’t give up easily, and who is learning to use what resources are at her disposal to get what she wants.

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