Jocasta Gets a Back Story, Murtagh Is in Daredevil Mode and Roger Rises to The Occasion. As Does Jamie but That’s a Totally Different Scenario.

We’re half way through Season 5; yet I still have the distinct impression that the writers are stretching the story out somewhat: hence the need for more filler. As someone who has yet to finish the book this particular season is based upon it’s hard to know what’s going on here. Given that Diana Gabaldon writes such enormous tomes, is it that there just wasn’t enough story in the original work to warrant 12 episodes or due to the complexities of the book’s various storylines a lot of the meat from the original story had to be filleted out.

A case in point is that this particular episode starts with a flashback to Jocasta (Maria Doyle Kennedy) fleeing Culloden with her husband and child. Yet later on in the episode Jocasta relates the very same story to Murtagh (Duncan Lacroix). Although it succeeds in fleshing out Jocasta’s backstory, you do wonder how necessary it was for the overall arc of the show for this particular series of events to feature twice in the same episode.

What does move the story forward in ways unimagined either by Jocasta or Jamie (Sam Heughan) is her decision to legally leave her property, River Run, to Jamie’s grandchild, Jemmy. More of that later. This takes place in the run up to Jocasta’s wedding to Duncan Innes (Alastair Findlay), the wedding serving as the background to this week’s episode. As North Carolina’s social event of the year, it also affords us the opportunity to see numerous other characters such as Governor Tryon (Tim Downie), Lord John Grey (David Berry) – sadly much underused in this season so far – and one of the creepiest and odious fops ever to be committed to screen, Philip Wylie (Chris Donald).

Unfortunately for Claire (Caitriona Balfe), Wylie only has eyes for her, although you suspect Wylie has an ulterior motive for such apparent, assiduous devotion. Needless to say Claire doesn’t appreciate the attention. Who would? There is probably not a woman roaming the earth who has not had to contend with a guy like Wylie who, for reasons explicable only to himself, thinks he’s irresistible, and mistakes indifference/disdain/repugnance for encouragement and then is furious when you reject his advantages. All women know the type: the guy you could aim a loaded gun to his head with your finger pressing on the trigger and he’d still be convinced you were playing hard to get.

However, Wylie lures Claire into his web by mentioning that he is friends with an Irish smuggler. Claire, suspecting that this man may be Bonnet (Ed Speleers), tries, in return, to interest Wyle into becoming involved in a smuggling operation involving whisky from Fraser’s Ridge in the hope of setting up a meeting with Bonnet. Claire’s suspicions prove correct when she learns from Wylie that the Irish smuggler is indeed Bonnet.

Unfortunately for Claire’s scheme, Wylie doesn’t seem to be that keen to get involved but he does seem keen to show Claire his stallion (not a euphemism) in the nearby stables. It turns out all this is just a ruse to get Clare on her own so he can jump her bones. Blindsided and enraged, Claire manages to throw him into some manure and then who should turn up but Jamie who’s definitely not a happy bunny even less so when Wylie implies that Claire led him on. This little set-to does allow Claire to say that one particular line echoed outside many a pub at the weekend: ‘He’s not worth it’.

Warned off by Jamie, Wylie leaves. This allows Claire to inform Jamie that Wylie knows Bonnet. Ever the strategist, Jamie decides that in order to get Wylie to play ball, he’ll challenge him to a high stake game of Whist. Yes, you heard right. The nub is that to be able to wager a high stake, he has to ask Clare for her wedding ring, not his one, mind, but Frank’s. Claire isn’t too happy at the prospect and in a great example of cutting off your nose to spite your face hands Jamie both of them.

Later that night, Claire is back at the stables checking out the stallion (again not a euphemism) when a drunk Jamie turns up with both her wedding rings in tow having beaten Wylie at cards. Claire is still furious but not for long as Claire and Jamie soon indulge in rather heated, make-up sex in the vicinity of a rather understanding stallion (again not a euphemism). This being the Frasers, their post-coital love talk also includes Jamie explaining to Claire that he’s allowed Wylie to keep the horse he won in exchange for a whisky partnership and an introduction to Bonnet, and that he plans to kill Bonnet. It’s a good job Jamie is so charming because this is the third man in as many episodes he’s planning to kill. In any other series Jamie would be the resident psychopath.

As for our future bride, Jocasta has a surprise visit by none other than Murtagh in extreme daredevil mode given he’s a wanted man and almost anyone who is anyone is at River Run. He declares his love for Jocasta but alas for our poor hero, Jocasta rejects him, determined not to hitch her wagon to another idealist willing to sacrifice everything for a cause. It’s a touching scene and you can’t help but feel sorry for our two star-crossed lovers.

Meanwhile back at the Ridge, Roger (Richard Rankin) steps up to the plate when the Ridge is threatened by a biblical plague of locusts. Fortunately for Roger, time travel has its perks and he remembers a story from his youth about using smoke to drive the locusts away. That was handy besides being a rather odd story for a children’s book! His plan, initially met with scepticism by his neighbours, proves most effective and it has no doubt earned Roger much needed Brownie points among the folk at Fraser’s Ridge.

As the episode draws to a close, the seeds are planted for yet more trouble ahead. Gerald Forbes (Billy Boyd) informs Bonnet that Bonnet’s son is now the owner of River Run. I’m not sure how Forbes knows that Jemmy is Bonnet’s supposed son. I’m guessing neither Bonnet nor the Frasers/MacKenzies would be advertising the fact, but this news has got Bonnet thinking and that’s never a good sign. Secondly, Tryon informs Jamie that he intends to go to war with the Regulators. Jamie immediately realises this doesn’t bode well for the Regulators and that it will put him in a tighter spot than ever before.

The closing minutes of this episode moved the story on but as with many of the episodes this season I seem to be waiting for things to happen; or it may be that I’m simply not that interested in what is happening. The relationship between Claire and Jamie is always watchable as is the one between Roger and Brianna (Sophie Skelton), particularly now wardrobe has given Roger better outfits to wear and the writers have stopped making him come across as a complete knob. But Bonnet as the resident baddie is no Black Jack Randall which says less about Bonnet and the actor playing him and more about the character of BJR and his fascinating portrayal by Tobias Menzies.

Also Outlander’s Scottishness – the very thing which made the show so strikingly different from anything else on television – has had to be watered down due to the demands of the storyline, and this Scottishness is sorely missed. Still there is always the promise of better things to come. Bearing in mind that often with Outlander, seasons are a game of two halves. After all, Season 2 only got interesting once the Frasers were back in Scotland. Season 3 was brilliant until the Crème de Menthe episode. Hopefully this means we will be turning the corner with Season 5 very soon.

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