TV Review: OUTLANDER: Season 5, Episode 1: The Fiery Cross [Starz]

Outlander The Fiery Cross Review

Outlander: Season 5, Episode 1: The Fiery Cross is a timid episode by Outlander standards. Unlike Season 4, which started out with sorrow, Season 5 of Outlander starts out with joy. Brianna “Bree” Randall Fraser (Sophie Skelton) and Roger Wakefield MacKenzie (Richard Rankin)’s wedding is as surprising (in that it launches this season), as it is sweet, flocked with people from the Frasers’ present and past.

“Mark me,” I believe that Outlander‘s writers are opening the season with hope and jubilation because of where this season is going to go. With a Scottish uprising and a war looming, this season may travel from the light, this episode being its brightest point, and descend into darkness (the season finale), in numerous emotional and physical levels.

Stephen Bonnet

Part of that aforementioned darkness will be Stephen Bonnet, whom the viewer had to suspect was still alive. Showing his foot reaching for the key in Providence and no dead body being reported was a transparent giveaway. No author creates a bad guy that deplorable, except for George R.R. Martin, and then gives them an off-page / off-screen death. Author Diana Gabaldon didn’t do so with Black Jack Randall and I had little doubt that she would do so with Bonnet. Bonnet will be back on-screen and with a vengeance. I am looking forward to it. What I am not looking forward to is his eventually confrontation with Jamie Fraser. Bonnet is almost half Jamie’s age, is vicious, and is filled with rage (like a Sith). Jamie might not survive. Jamie is no longer in the prime of his skill and strength like he was when he fought Black Jack. He might be more cunning, but he is not as fast. Willy Jamie is cognizant of these facts but I doubt he will let that stop him.

Murtagh Forced to Leave

Murtagh Fitzgibbons Fraser (Duncan Lacroix) leaving Frasers’ Ridge was inevitable. A forward-thinking and wary individual would see the writing on the wall, book sea passage under an assumed name, leave America, and go back to Lallybroch. That is what a sagacious man would do. Murtagh is not that man. He is stubborn and loyal to his cause, whatever that cause may be. In this case, that cause is the perception that his countrymen and women are being taken advantage of by the British through taxation. Because of Murtagh’s stance, I believe that Jamie will eventually be forced into a terrible position: betray Murtagh or lose everything that he has gained in America.

Governor Tryon and His Disbelief

Governor Tryon (Tim Downie) may be as clever as Jamie Fraser. Jamie thought his reports to Tryon on Murtagh-near-miss-captures would keep the Governor at bay, that he would blithely believe Jamie’s lies. It was pure hubris on Jamie’s part. The governor might not totally see through Jamie, Jamie would be in jail or hanged if he did, but Tryon partially does. Tryon knows that for a man of Jamie’s experience and education, Murtagh continuously slipping between Jamie’s fingers is increasingly strange. That strangeness prompted shrewd moves and words by Tryon in The Fiery Cross. The question now is whether Jamie will be able to counter those moves for Murtagh’s sake or not ?

Jocasta’s Test

Jocasta MacKenzie Cameron (Maria Doyle Kennedy) testing the motives behind Roger’s marriage to Bree and his love for her and their child in The Fiery Cross is humorous and informative to the character of Jocasta. Jocasta actually cares about Bree, a girl she has only known for a short time and whom she has never seen. The covert ‘operation’ Jocasta conducts to test Roger’s character, throwing the true parentage of Jeremiah Mackenzie in his face, hits Roger at his emotional core. Jocasta executes her ‘operation’ at the perfect time, when Roger is completely off-guard, thus totally vulnerable and eliciting his truest response. Jocasta plays him like a fiddle, the handicapped person among the sighted, and he doesn’t even know it. It is a beautiful moment of manipulation.

Roger Wants to Go Home

Roger wanting to go home, back to the future with his new family, is something the viewer may not have seen coming, especially the fact that such a weighty notion is mention off-handed over wedding cake. Going back to the future is a life-altering decision for Roger and Bree and should have been discussed solemnly and in an undisturbed environment.

Because of the way he mentions it, Roger has been thinking about returning home for some time. Also obvious is the fact that this is the first time he has brought this up to Bree.

This is going to be a point of contention between the two of them – what is best for them and their family? Staying in the past, with two wars coming, or fleeing to the safety of the future? Scratching a living in the now or living in the relative comfort and safety of the modern age? Most would side with Roger on the latter but it isn’t a single-person decision and there are other considerations, hence the fireworks set to explode.

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