To understand this week’s penultimate (not to mention 100th) episode of Outlander, one must start with the episode title, “Pharos.” The word has several layers of meaning. It originally refers to the ancient Lighthouse of Alexandria, a roughly 500-foot structure built in 285 B.C. on the island of Pharos off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt, and one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. As a common noun, it means a lighthouse, beacon, or tower built to guide sailors. Figuratively, it has come to mean a guiding light. In episode nine, the term serves as a location but also perhaps as guidance to the show’s endgame.

However, for Berry as an actor, it wasn’t the title of the episode or even the number of how many came before it that concerned him. It was who wrote the screenplay: Diana Gabaldon, author of the Outlander books upon which the show is based. “You know that when you’re doing one of her episodes, you know that you just feel connected to the Outlander world even more, and you know that you’re really speaking her words,” Berry tells T&C.

During the opening title card of the episode—often a clue to that episode’s central plot—there is a lighthouse, beaming in the darkness. The word pops up again soon thereafter, when Jamie (Sam Heughan), Claire (Caitríona Balfe), and William (Charles Vandervaart) find Percy Wainwright (Michael Lindall) in Savannah after discovering the letters being used to blackmail Lord John Grey (David Berry). Lord John was kidnapped in episode eight by Captain Richardson (Ben Lambert)— with Percy’s assistance, even if under duress—with the intent to blackmail him into pressuring his older brother, Harold Grey, the Duke of Pardloe, to give a specific speech to Parliament. If Lord John doesn’t comply, Captain Richardson will publish evidence about his personal affairs, including relationships with men, which would result in Lord John’s death. However, Lord John refuses to back down.

“This episode shows sides to Lord John that perhaps we haven’t seen before,” Berry says. “All the book readers would know Lord John in a different light as well. The show only shows us a very small fraction of who the character is. What’s special about this episode is that we get to see the full spectrum and color of the character.”

Lord John (David Berry) and Captain Richardson (Ben Lambert) in episode eight.

In Savannah, Jamie roughs up Percy while trying to get information about Lord John’s whereabouts. Percy replies that he doesn’t know where they went and that he was blindfolded when being to and from the city. All he knows is that they went to a “boathouse.” Percy told them that he didn’t want to leave Lord John, and the two did have something of an honest conversation in the previous scene. Percy hands a gold ring to William, saying that Lord John wanted William to have it. William says he’s never seen Lord John without this ring, so them having it must mean something. Jamie comments that there’s something scratched on the inside: the letters “PHAROS.” Claire remarks that it is a Greek word, asking William if that word has any significance for Lord John. William shakes his head, so they determine it must mean a location: specifically, a lighthouse. William notes there is one nearby on Tybee Island, a barrier islet off the coast of Savannah, which is where the three of them head next.

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William (Charles Vandervaart), Claire (Caitríona Balfe), and Jamie (Sam Heughan) have come to save Lord John.

Jamie and William break into the wooden shack where Lord John is being held while Claire keeps a lookout. A considerable amount of time must have passed as Lord John has now grown a full beard. William and Jamie are able to free Lord John from his shackles, while outside, Claire corners John’s captor, Captain Richardson. At gunpoint, Claire leads him inside the shack, where the men have him trade places with Lord John. Now it is Captain Richardson who is shackled to the post. Jamie, William, and John go outside to scout for any additional guards, leaving Claire alone with Captain Richardson.

Richardson reveals his motive for kidnapping Lord John: he wants Harold Grey to deliver a different speech in Parliament than the historical records show. According to Outlander’s version of history, Harold gave a speech in Parliament that cut funding to the war effort, effectively signaling Britain’s willingness to abandon the American Revolution. Richardson wants the British to win the war because if the Americans win, then slavery will continue to exist “for another 85 years.” That’s when Claire’s antenna raises, and she responds with terms all about the Civil War, which Richardson is very well aware about given he is a fellow time traveler.

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Lord John in captivity.

Richardson has come to this time period to reverse the result of the American Revolution. He is an abolitionist, and he tells Claire there is a growing abolitionist movement in England. If they can get the King to sign a law abolishing slavery, he says it would free more than 800,000 slaves across all of Britain’s territories, including the American colonies. While Claire is sympathetic to his motivations, she argues it’s not that simple to change history, sharing her experience at Culloden. Richardson asks, “What is this ability we have for except to try and make the world a better place?” He asks her to let him go so he can do what he believes is his “part in history.” Claire appears moved although unconvinced, but she unlocks him anyway on the condition he promises not to hurt anyone ever again. Richardson gives his word, and as soon as he walks out of the shack, he is shot by Lord John, who says that the bullet was for William and that if he had two more, he’d have shot for himself and for his brother, Harold.

Lord John, Berry notes, “isn’t always kind and endlessly forgiving,” and will seek vengeance for people who have wronged him and especially for the people he loves most, notably William. “It comes from a place of protection and love. Lord John is also very adept, as we know—we just haven’t seen a lot of it—as a man who is a spy and also a soldier. He’s no stranger to violence,” Berry says. “I really enjoyed playing that dimension of the character, getting to display that. So often the role of retribution is relegated to either Jamie or one of the Frasers. But in this instance, Lord John gets to take agency in that.”

Berry notes that nearly every major character who has made it this far in the series has faced a similar reckoning. “It’s not an uncommon thing through the Outlander TV series, with each one of the characters having to make tough choices and moments of retribution and vengeance,” he explains “Thematically through the show, we see that with Brianna, we see that with Claire, we see that with Ian. All the characters have their moments of choosing violence when they feel that that’s necessary.”

Jamie comes to Lord John’s rescue, despite their uneasy history the last two seasons.

The group returns to Savannah. Inside Lord John’s house, Jamie makes a comment saying he “forgives” him. Lord John seethes at this, retorting that despite the rescue, he does not forgive Jamie for his “pigheaded treatment” for the previous two years. In the scene below, Lord John questions what remains of their friendship at all.

Berry shares there were several drafts and conversations about how that scene would go. “I think the big problem is that we wanted it to seem equally balanced, so that Jamie had a legitimate gripe against Lord John. Trying to find that, and the truth of that, was difficult, so that it just didn’t come off as petty.” Berry acknowledges Lord John was not without fault after marrying and consummating his temporary marriage with Claire in season seven. Then again, Jamie nearly beat Lord John to death. So finding balance was not easy, even for the writers and actors.

In the scene, as Jamie apologizes, he acquiesces that Lord John would probably like to thrash him as payback as well. Lord John rolls his sleeves up, and Jamie bows his head as if he knows what’s coming. But it’s actually a red herring. Instead, Lord John sits down at the table where a chess board is set up, and gestures for Jamie to sit down and join him.

“I just thought it was a really beautiful scene in the end,” Berry says. “Even within this conflict, they can still make jokes. Conflict is the spice of their relationship. There’s always tension between these two.”

In the end, “Pharos” was still an apt title for this Gabaldon-penned episode in more ways than one. What began as a hidden clue scratched inside a ring became a rescue mission, diverting into an unexpected conversation about the show’s larger questions about fate and the limits of what anyone—time traveler or not—can actually change. Richardson’s conversation with Claire may have ended with a bullet, but the argument he made didn’t die with him. Despite what she told him, Claire has spent the entire series navigating the tension between knowing what history says will happen and being unable—or unwilling—to resist it. She is likely going to try one more time in Outlander’s final episode, with the Battle of Kings Mountain closing in, the very event that her late first husband Frank Randall’s book foretells will spell Jamie’s doom.