Outlander Book Club: A Plague of Zombies Section 22 breakdown

We reach the end of A Plague of Zombies in Section 22. Of course, it’s time for a somewhat happy ending to the story.

Lord John Grey makes it back to Captain Accompong, and that means it is time to get his men back. We also finally get to see what actually happened to Rodrigo.

There is a connection to Voyager in this chapter. If you thought the name Ishmael seemed familiar, that’s because it came up in one of the other Outlander books.

Breaking down A Plague of Zombies Section 22

Lord John Grey returns to Captain Accompong. His feet are blistered and he is tired, but he is alive. He also has the strength to make it clear that he wants his men back. With his return, Captain Accompong agrees that John should be allowed to leave with his men.

Rodrigo isn’t released with the men at first. When John asks for him, Rodrigo is brought out and controlled by Ishmael. It turns out that Ishmael was the one to get the snake bite, and a quick amputation of part of his foot has saved his life. He is the same Ishmael as the one in Voyager, who Claire and Jamie get information from.

I’ll admit that I don’t remember much about Ishmael in Voyager, so I didn’t remember that he would need to lose part of his foot.

Back to the story, it turns out that Rodrigo is still alive then. John hopes that everything Mrs. Abernathy can be reversed, and he asks for Rodrigo to be handed over to him. When he is, he takes Rodrigo to Azeel so that she can care for him. He assumes that she would want Rodrigo after everything he did for her and their love.

When Accompong gives John a hat, he looks around for the hat that he brought with him. Of course, the maroons took everything so Accompong should already have that. Maybe that’s why he says that he’ll take the snake that John has been carrying around with him all this time.

Could this chapter be used in a TV adaptation?

This chapter would certainly be needed as it wraps up the A Plague of Zombies story. However, I do think that for a TV series adaptation, we would need a little more. There isn’t much in the way of closure in this story. It’s actually a little disappointing. That is unless I’m missing something somewhere along the lines.

I feel like we need to know what happened to Major Fettes as acting governor. We need to see how that plays out when everyone learns that the governor was killed by his own servant.

At least the chapter ends with a sense of peace between John and the maroons, which offers hope for when John returns to Jamaica as the governor.

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