TV Review: OUTLANDER: Season 5, Episode 10: Mercy Shall Follow Me [Starz]

Outlander Mercy Shall Follow Me Review

Starz‘s Outlander: Season 5, Episode 10: Mercy Shall Follow Me ends one of the most interesting and brutal story-lines in the TV series. It is not an entirely fulfilling resolution, there are dubious moments along its path, but when the final crescendo erupts, the groundwork for the reveal has been firmly laid since the main protagonist’s daughter stepped back in time.

The Grand Plan

Bonnet’s plan for Jocasta Cameron (Maria Doyle Kennedy) after he found out that his son would inherit Jocasta’s estate after she died was obvious but it is given voice in Mercy Shall Follow Me. What is surprising is the depth of the plan and who is involved. If it wasn’t for the previous episode, the viewer may have never thought Jocasta’s own lawyer would betray her to death for a mere percentage, which is what makes the full betrayal so rewarding. Gerald Forbes (Billy Boyd)’s indignation at his presumptive, ill-gotten fortune being stripped away pound-by-pound is hilarious, especially since Jocasta can’t see his facial reactions.

Bonnet’s Mental Limitations

The viewer knows that Stephen Bonnet (Ed Speleers) is low born but until Mercy Shall Follow Me, the viewer has no idea how stupid and warped his mind truly is. He is oblivious to the fact that he raped a fellow human being and that Bree despises him. He can’t fathom her eternal hatred. Rape, murder, and mayhem are so common to Bonnet they are like eating breakfast to him – nothing special, it happens all the time.

I Couldn’t Think Less of You

The laugh-out-loud moment of Mercy Shall Follow Me is when Bonnet says that he doesn’t want Brianna “Bree” Randall Fraser (Sophie Skelton) to think less of him and Bree replies that she couldn’t think less of him. He is so witless that he doesn’t get the put down, that she thinks he is the lowest of the low, but the viewer gets it.

Reliving the Past Through Another

Bree has been quietly reliving the horrors of her rape since Bonnet abducted her but when he begins having sex with Eppie (Leah Shine), that bridled fear bursts forth to the point where she is in the moment again, detached from her rape yet thinking back to it (like a sentient, disembodied coping mechanism has taken over in real-time) as she watches it happen to someone else, even-though this instance is consensual.

Whatever sentiments Bree has told herself following her rape, that she is strong, survived, and has moved on with her life, evaporates when Bonnet begins penetrating Eppie in front of her. In that horrific moment, all that is left is how vulnerable and helpless Bree was then and how vulnerable and helpless she is now. The two saving graces for Bree in this situation are: a.) that Bonnet has a wanting and waiting outlet for his sexual fervor and b.) Bonnet’s demented mind thinks that by having sex with another woman in front of his rape victim, it will make his rape victim jealous and envious in some way.

Lackluster Wakefield and Bonnet Confrontation

The physical confrontation that has been led up to all season between Roger Wakefield MacKenzie (Richard Rankin) and Stephen Bonnet in Mercy Shall Follow Me is completely anti-climatic, topped off with slow-motion punching and falling (to fully dramatize the moment…I guess). How many fights and duels has Stephen Bonnet been involved in and won in comparison to Roger MacKenzie? How many times has Bonnet been beaten up, kicked, or hit with hard objects? How does a person that has been in all of those fights, those duels, been hit all those times, lose a fist fight to a college professor? I couldn’t believe my eyes when Bonnet was knocked out, as if he had never been hit in the face before by a neophyte pugilist.

It is such a let down considering the build-up to the confrontation during the episode, with Roger demanding the the privilege of ending Bonnet’s life. It would have been so much more rewarding if it had been a back and forth fight, with each combatant taking the other to their lowest physical point, like the one between Ubbe and King Frodo in Vikings: Season 5.

Bonnet is right to run away from the do-gooder horde rapidly approaching him from the jetty but what is inexplicable is the direction that he chooses to go. Why not go back up the path that leads to his home, his men, and his weapons? It is like watching a horror movie where a girl that is being chased can run out the front door and escape but instead runs up the stairs, deeper into the house. Between the large sand dune and the path leading back to his home, weapons, and his men, Bonnet chooses the dune?

I guess writer Megan Ferrell Burke really needed Bonnet captured and slow-motioned punched so running up a sand hill, instead of back the way he came, was the only way to do it.

Nightmare and Mercy

The feeble road getting there in Mercy Shall Follow Me is unfortunate but the resolution of the Bree / Bonnet storyline is well-executed, right down to its fore-shadowing, and the coup de grâce. Viewers like being surprised in a meaningful way during an on-screen narrative and they get that with the method of state-sanctioned execution levied on Stephen Bonnet. When Bonnet wails, if the viewer forgot about his frequent nightmare, they remember it in that moment. He is living it, inescapably, in his final moments of life as hell slowly creeps up around him. Like in his nightmare, he knows no one is coming to save him and in addition, he knows he won’t wake up when things fade to black.

He is in the beginning stages of a miserable death when mercy and revenge steps onto the shore of the river. What is that look on Bonnet’s face: surprise, relief, ambivalence, or disbelief? It’s hard to read that look beyond the acknowledgement that he is seeing something unexpected before the Hawkeye-like shot rings out.

When the camera shows who delivers the death blow, not only is it surprising and poignant, its cathartic. When the sound of the shot finishes resounding over the river side, so too does one of the most harrowing storylines in Outlander. Would Bree have shown up to Bonnet’s drowning death sentence if he hadn’t told her about his particular recurring nightmare? I would say its 40/60 against but with that form of death used against him, with the nightmare knowledge, and wanting to make sure Bonnet didn’t slip the hangman’s noose again, she made sure that the monster was put down permanently with her own hands.

Leave your thoughts on this Outlander Mercy Shall Follow Me review and this episode of Outlander below in the comments section. Readers seeking to support this type of content can visit our Patreon Page and become one of FilmBook’s patrons. Readers seeking more Outlander can visit our Outlander Page and our Starz Twitter Page. Readers seeking more TV show reviews can visit our TV Show Review Page and our TV Show Review Twitter Page. Want up-to-the-minute notification? FilmBook staff members publish articles by Email, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Flipboard.