[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Outlander, Season 7, Episode 10, “Brotherly Love.”]
Outlander may have pulled Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and Jamie (Sam Heughan) apart in the most recent Season 7 episode, “Brotherly Love,” but it brought another pair back together as Young Ian (John Bell) and Rachel (Izzy Meikle-Small) were reunited.
After arriving in Philadelphia, Ian is greeted by his trusty dog Rollo, but Rachel is nowhere to be found after the pet wandered from her side to his. While much of the episode sees the pair missing each other, Ian is eventually directed to the stables where he finds Rachel being held up by Arch Bug (Hugh Ross), who has vowed to take her life after Ian killed his wife.
While Ian manages to get Arch away from Rachel, it is William (Charles Vandervaart) who intervenes, shooting the old man to protect Ian from being axed in the head after taking a blade to the arm in the scuffle. It is certainly an exciting reunion, and Ian and Rachel have a candid conversation after injuries are tended to: the pair declare themselves to each other.
Starz
But Ian’s return to America isn’t taken lightly as fans saw him bid his dad, the elder Ian (Steven Cree), farewell for the final time in the previous episode. Still, Bell tells TV Insider, “I just love that moment where [his dad] says to him, ‘Go get the girl.’ And his mother says, ‘Life is for the living.’ That push is what he needed at that moment.”
Meanwhile, as Rachel awaits Ian’s return to the colonies after his trip to Scotland, she spends more time with William, who has affection for her. But was Rachel aware of that? Meikle-Small shares, “I think that she’s just so focused on Ian that she can’t even see that he might be struggling with these feelings because there are moments when Rollo runs off and she basically cuts him off mid-sentence to run after where she thinks Ian might be.”
While her actions may wound William, Meikle-Small says “[Rachel]’s a sensitive kind person. She’s not going to be doing that knowingly. So I think that William is special to her, but not in the way that Rachel is special to him, unfortunately.”
Starz
Despite any mixed feelings William may have about Rachel and Ian, that doesn’t make him hesitate to help when they’re threatened by Arch. “Getting to work with Hugh and Izzy and eventually Charles to create this life-or-death situation felt very Outlander,” Bell muses. “No reunion is easy for these characters. They can’t just run up to each other in slow motion on a beach. No, there has to be a crazy man wanting vengeance with a hatchet.”
“And I think it goes to show just how much Ian loves her,” Bell adds of the predicament. “Ian has a very stone-cold way of dealing with business. He knows when to take the trash out, but this time here he is distracted by the love of his life being in danger, and he feels a sense of responsibility for that.”
As Meikle-Small points out, “That scene kind of serves as a precursor for what they go through the rest of the season. It’s them being faced with this violent moment and reacting to it in really different ways. Ian’s instinct is to kill [Arch], and Rachel, the pacifist is saying, ‘No, don’t kill him.’ And that’s kind of the central question that they then face for the rest of the season about their stances on violence and where that leaves them as a couple.”
Regardless of Ian and Rachel’s opposing stances on violence, they are committed, and that much was clear when Rachel calls Ian “her wolf.”
“It’s very much them choosing each other against the odds,” Meikle-Small says. “They’re kind of two lone wolves, and they’ve come together to form their own pack. It’s very much about choosing each other. And I think that that’s one of the most romantic things that you can do.”
Stay tuned to see how their love story unfolds as Season 7 of Outlander continues on Starz.
Outlander, Season 7, Part 2, Fridays, 8/7c, Starz (Midnight on the Starz App and On Demand)
–Additional reporting by Kelli Boyle
