Arch and Murdina Bug Discover That Greed—Stealing Jacobite Gold— Isn't Good on 'Outlander'
Up until season 7 of Outlander, Arch (Hugh Ross) and Murdina Bug (Sarah Collier) didn’t have a whole lot to do, but they were a constant in the background of Jamie (Sam Heughan) and Claire’s (Caitríona Balfe) lives once the story moved to Fraser’s Ridge, where Mrs. Bug was always bustling about the kitchen in the Big House, and Arch was out doing manly chores.
But on the second episode of the season, there was the big reveal that the Bugs were the culprits who stole the Jacobite gold from the mausoleum at River Run from Jamie’s Aunt Jocasta (Maria Kennedy Doyle)—and then all hell broke loose.
“I think the feeling is that the money was not for Jocasta, the money was for the [Jacobite] cause, so Jocasta’s got no right to have all that money really,” Hugh tells Parade. “But I think Arch is a very principled person who believes in a very strong sense of what he feels is right for Scotland more important than an individual’s wealth. When the gold actually comes into his hands because everything’s gone pear-shaped, I think he probably thinks, ‘Why shouldn’t I have it, really? Why shouldn’t we have it?’ Because it hasn’t gone to the right place anyway.’”
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According to bestselling author Diana Gabaldon, the Jacobite gold was divided—for safety’s sake—into three parts: one to Clan MacKenzie, one to Clan Grant where Arch was a tacksman and entrusted with that share of the gold, and the third went to Hector Cameron, Jocasta’s late husband. So, there is an argument to be made that the Bugs were entitled to it as much as Jocasta, especially since the Clan Grant gold was still hidden somewhere in Scotland.
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It’s not the Bugs greed that was so much the problem, rather that they decided to hide the gold under the Big House, and Mrs. Bug even had some gold in the house where it was discovered by the men that accompanied Wendigo Donner (Brennan Martin) to Fraser’s Ridge with the sole purpose of stealing. The little taste of the gold that they got led them to a careless search, causing them to spill Claire’s ether supply, and then when Wendigo lit a match to see better, whoosh, the house went up in flames.
Still, it was the next day when the Bugs were trying to rescue the rest of the gold—their feeling was that everything had literally gone up in smoke, so they needed to take the money and run—that Young Ian (John Bell) felt that Jamie’s life was in jeopardy and he shot and killed the offender not knowing that it was Mrs. Bug.
“I had my ultimate demise,” Sarah says. “So that was interesting. Sad, but also interesting work. Obviously, we knew the arc of our characters, so I knew at some point I would die and how I would die. What was interesting was what led to it and all the various thrills and spills along the way that ultimately landed in my personal tragedy.”
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Arch is overcome by the loss of his wife, and he isn’t a kind man in that regard. He is out for his revenge, and he wants it to be Old Testament. He tells Ian, who offers him his life, “You killed someone I love and now I have to live with the pain; so, when you’ve something worth taking, you’ll see me again.”
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Hugh offers this explanation, “I think probably because of the pain of losing his beloved, he wants that somebody to have to live with losing their beloved. It’s more of a revenge really to lose somebody. There is nothing worse than having to face going through life without the person that was most important to you. So, I think it’s quite an interesting take on revenge.”
Considering it was their actions that led to Mrs. Bug’s demise and Mr. Bug’s painful loss, Sarah does have an explanation for their decisions, even taking into account the fact that Jamie and Claire treated them with respect as their employees.
“Having had principles and then realizing that your principles are not shared and everyone around you is operating purely in self-interest, I think the survival mode kicks in at a certain point,” Sarah says. “Realizing that if you don’t do something for yourselves everything will roll on— old man river keeps rolling along—and there isn’t nobody looking after our backs, so we need to look after our own.”
New episodes of Outlander are available to stream weekly on Fridays at midnight on the STARZ app, all STARZ streaming and on-demand platforms, and internationally on the Lionsgate+ premium streaming platform in the U.K. New episodes will air weekly on the STARZ linear platform on Fridays at 8 p.m. ET in the U.S.
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