#outlander roger

[murtaghsbeard]

Season 5 episode 12- finale

Never my love

Interesting approach to the “previously on”

California. Claire has a weird dream/dissociation

Kidnappers continue to be bastards. Some are convinced to be kinder because of Claire’s witch reputation... which seems to have followed her from Europe.

She finds another time traveler. One of otter tooth’s pals. He doesn’t want escape yet. Of course. More gratuitous and unnecessary rape. Just so very tired of this {cue internal monologue about how this narrative can seemingly only figure out how to raise the stakes through enacting sexual violence on some beloved character} ok. Deep breath. Ok.

Bri and Roger can only pull off their disappearing trick for a minute and land right back into Ian’s care. Shame about those gems. Can you request a refund?

Roger wants to go with the men hoping to recover Claire. Hope you get more useful.

Somehow they are already fighting the Brown clan. It was quite quick evidently to track them down. Battle is quick. Vengeance, though delegated, is quick.

The pacing in this entire season has been very strange.

They decide to leave the ringleader alive for questioning. Better keep very good track of him.

Roger improves on his usual uselessness, both in words and deeds

Roger gets amped up for his big confession. He has killed a man. I understand that this is pretty big deal for a Roger, but considering the body count of this show, it feels extremely pedestrian and a bit pearl clutching. By now every major character except for Marsali and Lizzy have killed someone in one way or another

Well, I guess we can drop Marsali from the list of people who have not killed anyone. I truly appreciate Marsali’s concern about getting haunted.

A rare Jamie voiceover. A literal storm forms on the horizon.

Still no one has broken out the chalkboard to figure out why the time travel was a failure

[briwatchesbadtv]

I feel like Roger could have found a pair of pants in the longass time he took to make up his mind.

[murtaghsbeard]

Season 5 Ep 11 - Journey cake

Claire is so excited about peanut butter. It’s meant to be cute and silly, but I GET IT. I feel that peanut butter has some power where you could choose not to eat it for months or years, but if it becomes suddenly unavailable to you, you just go crazy over it. I missed peanut butter like crazy when I lived in Japan and the only place you could get American style peanut butter was Japanese Costco and I would beg my coworker to buy 2lb jars of peanut better for me and I would eat it from a spoon every morning like a lunatic. Enough about me. While I’m reminiscing about peanut butter, the gang finds a burned cabin with lots of murder victims and one horribly burned girl who they must put out of her misery. 😬

Claire loses some Saran Wrap in the 1700s. Cant wait to discover the butterfly effect of that. Just kidding. That doesn’t exist in this show.

It’s bee time! The otter tooth man’s stone suddenly gets very hot and noisy for anyone from the future and little Jemmy. Conclusion: Jemmy can time travel but Jamie still can’t.

But.... Claire used to wear this stone like a necklace and it never burned her, so why now???

No time to work through this. Lots of riders are coming. The dudes we don’t like want more men to patrol for the cabin burning scourge. Jamie says no thanks, though it seems like something he should be interested in....

Hold the phone! Ian. has. some. questions! Thanks for holding on to these questions for several years! Is Claire a fairy, yes or no? Great question! Let’s go in this room to discuss. Wait, don’t close the door on us viewers, Jamie. I want to hear every dumb, insane and brilliant question that Ian’s brain can formulate about being a woman from the future. That is the entertainment I am here for! I would watch that for an entire 50 minutes.

Why must Ulysses live in the Murtagh-Jocasta sex stick palace? Why doesn’t Ulysses get freed for saving the life of his master? Somehow I think they allow that even if the deceased is white.

Oh snap! Ulysses was free this whole time

Roger and Brianna plan their exit strategy.

....Perhaps it’s worth planning a re-entry to 1970s strategy too? You’ve gotta assume property forfeiture, death certificates by now, no assets, perhaps even an unsolved mysteries episode. Roger, how are you going to explain this 3 year gap in your CV? You left your post at Oxford and did fuckall. Not a single publication.

John Grey! He sure loves to drop in.

Ian delights in his new status as secret keeper. He gets to talk about time travel by the river with the ladies now. What a dream! Ian wants to be a time traveler. Something about the lady shaped hole in his heart. The Fraser ladies tell him no. They have worked out some sort of theory about a genetic predisposition to time travel, which excludes Ian, based on really no evidence at all. Sorry, Ian!

John Grey must go back to England. He brings an updated portrait of William. He always brings really good gifts.

Claire has a special perfume she only puts on for sex. Perhaps an open second story window is not the best spot to perch for this sort of activity. The next morning, She makes Jamie look at his own sperm through a microscope. This confrontation with his own sperm inspires him evidently to tell Brianna about the other fruit of his loins-her half brother. They have a little heart to heart. He very sweetly hopes she will look him up in her history books.

Brianna makes her rounds saying her goodbyes. Lizzy is not taking it well. “I was with you in your darkest hour [glossing over when I had your husband beaten and sold into slavery] and your wedding” she cries.

Another sad story about bad man and abused wife.

Roger Mac gives Ian his land

Ulysses will pal around with John Grey until Ulysses decides to do something different. I like that for them. Though John extols that Brianna is impossible not to like, which is ehhh.... let’s leave it for now. John Grey has a love for all things Jamie and the rule is absolute.

They enjoy a family meal of pb&j

Bee time! Ian escorts Roger, Brianna, and Jemmy to the beehive stones of time travel. Ian is so sad to be left behind. My heart flutters a bit when they ask the small toddler to hold a near microscopic ruby in his baby sausage fingers and not to drop it. If you drop it you might be separated from mommy and daddy by 200 years! That is a lot of responsibility for someone with minimal dexterity. I would have put that ruby in the kid’s mitten.

Something goes wrong with the time travel. We don’t know what exactly, except it’s not the case that the magic stones are now housed in a Motel 6, which is what I expected. What do they think this part of New York looks like in the 20th Century? It’s got to be all built over.

Claire gets kidnapped by the bad men. Terrible. Claire is somewhat accustomed to this by now, but those bastards struck Marsali.

[murtaghsbeard]

Season 5 ep 9 - Monsters and Heroes

Buffalo

Marsali belly. Marsali getting coy and calling Claire “Ma.” Guesss you have to move on from “hooooore” at some point. Good for them.

Indigo time. Boring voiceover by Claire about colors

More shirtless Roger and Brianna. Show, I do not have any interest in that at all. Please stop treating this as something appealing. Luckily the baby interrupts. They teach him the word shit.

Jamie is banging on the door so it’s a race to get presentable before the door is flung open. It’s hunting time and he needs help shooting game for the winter. Har! He wants a good shot to accompany him, thus Brianna. She insists that she has been looking forward to dying cloth. Sure.....That sounds much more exciting than exercising your actual talents on a hunting trip with the dad you traveled back in time to meet. Anyways, why not take Roger along as your useless lackey because the only thing he has demonstrated he could shoot is Claire from 6 feet away? Roger is so bad at everything and despite three times as many teach Roger to use a gun scenes as it took to make Brianna an engineer, no one has managed to make a good shot out of Roger. I’m sure this will be the episode where Roger proves his worth to Jamie, but I prefer watching him as a pitiable, useless lump. Ha, they still call him Roger Mac....Which I feel in my heart is a jibe, but they keep using it sincerely.

Why are you sending away Ian? He is your the best hunter. They find some bison but leave only Roger to assist Jamie. Very Suspect.

Jamie gets bitten by a viper. Roger gets hacking at Jamie’s leg. The old cut suck spit.

Roger agrees to just leave the bite victim in situ alone.

Roger must get help. Roger gets lost. Roger shoots a tree. Roger turns up at Jamie’s camp not having succeeded in getting help. Jamie, for all his agony has made a fire, prepared dinner, set up camp. Roger is not too fussed about Jamie’s snake venom issue.

Jamie kens he might be dying. He decides to let Roger in on his unfinished business-Please kill Steven bonnet, I’ve arranged all the particulars. Roger is all “ I don’t know if I can...murder, it’s just not my style.” Jamie presses him.

Roger, this show is about an audience of women. It’s full steam ahead with murdering vicious rapists here. Your prevarication wins you no fans. It’s Jamie’s unquestioning, at times reckless, fervor for righting the wrongs done to his wife and shield her from the rest that is the bedrock of this franchise. You won’t be spin off worthy until you adopt a similar mantra.

Jamie, though his body courses with poison, must lay out the situation rationally for dim Roger. It’s about the inheritance, dummy. Bonnet is going to shit all over everything, dummy. Your wife’s reputation, the paternity of your child, everything. You should kill Bonnet.

Finally the competent fellows find Jamie and Roger, led of course by the dog

Claire needs maggots for Jamie so Marsali gets all the folk out looking for them... in the forest? Wouldn’t their own barns and domestic spaces be more likely?

Jamie spies the leg saw laid out for him. He doesn’t like it.

Finally! Josiah finds a maggoty rabbit

Oh shit, it’s the bison in the yard. Claire and Brianna sort it out in 30 seconds

There is medicine to help save Jamie’s leg. The problem is no syringe

Jamie is very stubborn about the prospect of losing his leg. Ian gives him a thorough shaming in about 39 seconds. Finally, we get the dream team, Ian and Fergus, though the show cuts the glory short.

I’m sorry. What is this. A recusitating handjob??? I..... Like a magical, bring-you-back-from-the-dead handjob???

Love Fergus, teaching his toddlers about forest mushrooms! What better way to honor our fungal overloads with a little forest birth over the mycelial patch. Thanks Marsali.

Jamie is now reconciled to losing his leg and they are set to do it. But then Bri all busts in, I’ve made a syringe out of the offending snake’s tooth. There is a metaphor here!

When all is said and done, I’m very pleased that Roger did a middling to pitiable job as caretaker of the incapacitated Jamie. A triumphant Roger might give me an anyeurism. Glad that Bri experiences getting tossed by a bison without a scratch and then putting an engineering degree to use with fang syringe. Bri 4 stars, Roger 1 Star. Squirm like a worm for another day my friend.

However, Roger feels it’s his four star moment and gloats to Jamie.

Roger wants to watch Jamie kill Bonnet. I guess that’s improvement over where we last left things.

Getting a bit perturbed watching this slow build of Roger and Jamie building a relationship, when Roger threw a Molotov cocktail on every good feeling he had built with Brianna and then the narrative just let’s him drop in, say no harm, no foul. We’ll be married with no apology from me and I’ll continue to be barely tolerable from here on out, and we are just meant to accept it

So! Glad! To catch up on what this cat has been doing. Actually!

[murtaghsbeard]

Season 5 Ep 6 Better to Marry than Burn

More of this baby kitten please!

Oh shit locusts

This is a very elaborate staging for Jocasta’s wedding. Any excuse to get John Grey to accept the invitation and make him dance

Roger must become a locust strategist. He wishes Jamie were here. So do we, so do we.

Some ridiculous macaroni man enters the drama, eager to ingratiate himself with every lady like Virginia’s horniest lap dog. This man is an absolute joke. Mr Wiley: “You wound me!” He is easily played though. Claire wants to hear more about his nefarious acquaintances and some alone time will do the trick. He wants to show Claire “his” but it is a horse...at first. Then it’s his syphilitic mouth on her neck. Jamie, to his absolute credit, hugs Claire after he finds this gross, powdered fop trying to jump into his wife’s skin. Roger, take some notes.

This is an impressive locust storm

Claire gets extremely sentimental about Frank’s ring, which seems a tad overblown. She throws Jamie’s ring in his face and is very perturbed. I know the two wedding rings thing is very much Claire’s brand, but I always get a sense that Claire’s attachment to a Frank is mostly rational ( she recites the mantra: he was a good man, a good father, repeat) and it is not emotional. Anyways, the jilted and embarrassed macaroni man is willing to gamble with Jamie if he puts Claire’s other husband wedding ring in the pot and the Fraser gang needs leverage over him to get that Stephen Bonnet intel.

Murtagh shows up on the eve of Jocasta’s wedding in true rapscallion fashion. Jocasta turns him down though. She must. She is too canny and practical a woman to throw in her lot with a fugitive. Also she cannot see how sleek Murtagh’s silver pony tail is, which could very well have tipped the scales. Jocasta lets unravel her tragic life story by way of explanation. She can’t wed someone willing to let the world burn for his ideals

Claire is extremely angry this episode. Luckily her anger transitions to horniness quite easily. A literal roll in the hay ensues.

Old Pippin has coffee with Bonnet. Not sure how old Pippin knows this whole plot arc, but he believes Bonnet to be the father of Brianna’s child and lets Bonnet know this child now owns Jocasta’s plantation. The wheels in Bonnet’s head start whirling with such a frenzy that his ears could steam the milk for his latte.

[murtaghsbeard]

Season 5 ep 10 - Mercy shall follow me

Old Pippin and Bonnet discuss their plans to get Bonnet’s record expunged and get custody of the plantation-owning toddler, Jemmy. Old Pippin is a lawyer evidently, but clearly a bad one because when he asks Bonnet to be compensated for his legal efforts he allows Bonnet to tell him “you’ll get some money somewhere down the line on the condition that the desired outcome of my complex plan is achieved.” That is not good billing practice, old Pippin!

Also your client is talking about bumping off people who stand between him and his money, so maybe read between the lines here. Old Pippin is getting swindled in the short term and probably getting dead in the long term.

Oh, no! They’ve dressed Ian up like some sort of Quaker! He interrupts a very Outlander conversation of “this man we are dealing with is a shady character and he may try to double cross us.” “Yes, that is very likely to happen, but let’s not bother to make any kind of contingency plan about that likely outcome, because .... I don’t feel like it?” “Ok” “ok”

Claire tries to get a new syringe made in Wilmington. But some malevolent force tdb is watching them

The girls go to the beach and have very forced dialogue about whales. The pod of whales does not inspire them to stick close together.

Roger begins to feel more macho about killing Bonnet, who does not show up to his pre arranged meeting with the Fraser’s Ridge lads. Just as well. Roger isn’t very good at fighting still.

Bonnet has gone whale watching as well it turns out. Brianna is thwarted by an unloaded pistol and gets kidnapped. They are on Bonnet’s private island. “My son’s father is Roger Mackenzie” she sneers. Why are you always dropping everybody’s full names, girl! That is what got you into this mess. You gave Bonnet your full name, address, social security number, and return envelope at your visit to the jail, which has put all this into motion.

Brianna grabs a fire iron, but then does nothing with it. Instead she puts on a fancy dress, deciding to play the long game I guess. Bonnet wants a lesson in table manners, but alas, this is not Pretty Woman. Now Brianna gets clammy about this sociopath knowing the names of everyone she holds dear.

Brianna opens some boring book about farming, but begins reciting Moby Dick from memory. I’ve never been inclined to read Moby Dick, so I can’t say for sure, but I assume she is paraphrasing and changing the story as she goes and she doesn’t start out in the first person. Will she snare Bonnet in a literary trap? She keeps this going for 200 pages?!? Sounds absolutely exhausting. Seems very elaborate just to provide some moral framework for this villain to perhaps take to heart. What is her end game? He will change his ways because of this cautionary tale about a sea captain?

Is Bonnet duping her? Sea Nightmares and an orphan backstory? Seems very crafted to elicit sympathies and get her to let her guard down.

The prostitute breakfast maid would suggest they are not so isolated as “private island” might suggest. Brianna’s problem is that she assumes Bonnet is dumb.

Maybe he is a little dumb and mostly weird? I can’t quite figure out if he is clever or devious without being clever (if that is possible). Does he really believe in this fantasy with Bri? Everything we know about him thus far suggests no, he wouldn’t be naive enough to believe a woman he has kidnapped at knifepoint will be his loving life partner, but the scene is telling us yes, this is his belief.

Very brief sex with the breakfast tray prostitute seems a bit of an unhinged choice. I do prefer it when the villains are clever. That’s why Randall and Sandrigham are god tier Outlander villains and Geillis and that snooty French duke are not. I find this whole episode very perplexing. Bonnet is effective as a villain, not just because he is ruthless and violent, but because he is canny and has skill at manipulating people’s sympathies and ambitions to achieve his own goals. It seems strange that he leaves himself open completely to that same kind of manipulation with Bri who is not particularly convincing when she tries to play up the romance farce. Would he really be so fooled by her motivations?

It’s all very strange, as it seems like they should be having a battle of wits and deception, but it all falls away and we have only what we first start out with: captor and captive.

Jocasta is up to some scheme. She orders old Pippin to dole out her fortune to every person under 40 at Fraser’s Ridge. Old Pippin is the worst criminal. He is practically bursting out of his chair in outrage as she bequeaths pound upon pound until he screeches “you can’t give away my money!” Jocasta got him to admit conspiracy in under two minutes.

Thank beezus for Ulysses. He comes in to asphyxiate old Pippin when he gets pillow happy with Jocasta’s face. A beautiful voice and charming company aren’t his only talents. We now know the glory of Ulysses’ biceps. Looks like old Pippin is swindled in the short term and dead in the short term.

Seems Bonnet is trafficking stolen women. He decides to sell Brianna to a sea captain. Was this his plan all along (if so, why the charade?) or a pivot following the failure of his original plan? On the beach they are intercepted by the Fraser Gang. Roger catches up to Bonnet while everyone else hangs back (???). Roger lands a punch on Bonnet, which the editor makes us watch twice. This very generous editor also bestows the gift of slow mo on Roger’s scuffling.

I’m sorry. They are planning to put Bonnet on a boat to sea? Like you have rifles. Have you learned nothing? Just shoot and be done with it. Oh, now Brianna wants him to go to trial. Why why why. You want to trust politicians?

Bonnet does get sentenced to execution. By drowning, but nobody sticks around to watch? Oh wait, Brianna turns up with a rifle to do what she could have done on the beach???

[murtaghsbeard]

Season 5 Ep 8 - famous last words

Flashback to Roger teaching at Oxford. He takes the opportunity to humiliate a young student in horn-rimmed glasses. Today’s theme is “famous last words”.

Oh, it was Roger hanging from the tree after all. But it’s ok. He is alive, not yet asphyxiated. Claire fixes him up

Roger seems very cranky though. He doesn’t want to talk because his vocal chords are damaged. I guess being hanged wouldn’t be very pleasant. Claire and Bri discuss ptsd - war neurosis

Jocasta sings a nice song over Murtagh’s grave

The gang receives a letter from the mad, bad governor apologizing for stringing Roger up a tree. “A regrettable incident.” Twas! The governor gives Roger a bunch of land as part of his “my bad” apology tour. Brianna flips the table! She doesn’t give a figging fuck about the land. She wants to tell the Gov the stick it up his pheasant hole. She doesn’t want land, she wants her husband back, whose words were always regrettable even when he did speak and who has never been useful to anybody beyond his ability to get other academics to send him their research.

Girl, don’t throw away 5000 acres. Learn how to optimize here! The governor isn’t going to be crying into his cereal 6 months from now thinking about how the Frasers boring daughter doesn’t forgive him. Get your young cousin Ian down from New York and give it to him. Give it to Fergus. Make it a retreat for itinerant basket weavers. Like do something with this free land.

Roger has more silent movie horror flashbacks

John Grey is always so nice! He has brought an astrolabe for Brianna. He tells her to be patient. Can the Frasers just ask John to move in with them. I feel like that would help spice up this season.

Weird! We are treated to a doing laundry montage, which I am here for, but then they splice in part of the candle making sequence from just a few episodes ago. Feels strange to see recycled footage. Was there no B roll from the candle shoot?

Roger screams at the baby not to touch the hot kettle. Everyone is pleased to hear him flex his vocal chords. But Roger gets all cranky again and won’t speak another word.

A very fun game of hide and seek is ruined by a wild boar. We know from season 1 that those can be very dangerous. Jamie prepared to stab it but some mystery archer slays the beast with an arrow. It’s Ian!

Hi, it’s me Ian. I heard you’ve got some land you aren’t planning on using. I’ve got a new haircut.

Claire and Jamie present Ian to Brianna and Roger. Brianna, the least you can do is run up and give Ian a hug. He sacrificed himself for your happiness! Roger trots up though to give a manly embrace. Roger’s stock gains a few points on the NASDAQ for this. He’s learned from the Scottish oath giving ceremony in the beginning of the season that it’s not good to leave a bro hanging.

Ian seems a bit out of his element. He is giving Roger a run for his money in the tight lipped category. Jamie tries to bring him right back to the family fold, but Ian is not having it. Ian having bairn trouble?

Brianna tries a paper airplane as part of her Roger speaks campaign

Claire discovers that some potentially lethal herbs are missing from her surgery. She suspects Roger. I’m sensing an olde switcheroo here and I swear if they kill off Ian with this, I will flip my own table.

Oh no.. Ian is missing from camp with all his articles nicely folded. I don’t like where this is headed. He is putting the root tea on to boil for a Socrates special. Luckily Roger turns up to kick the teapot to high heavens. Roger you’ve done something useful!

Ian calls Roger a right hypocrite, since Roger was just skipping along the edge of a cliff the day before. Ian is right, but Ian, you can be the Sully to our Dr Quinn Medicine woman. We need you on this show.

Ian has a big old heartache, the shape of which has not been fully surveyed. There is a woman at the center of it. Oh, and Roger croaks out a few phrases. Roger says that the old Roger is gone forever. I’m counting on it sir!

[murtaghsbeard]

Season 5 Ep 7 - Ballad of Roger Mac

I feel like the nickname Roger Mac is not doing Roger any favors...

It’s war time for regulators in Carolina. The regulators know how to blow up gun powder supplies, but can they fight an all out battle? Jamie worries about Murtagh

Brianna is staying with some sympathetic family. Still no one asks about her accent. Like, literally no one in the world talks like her yet.

Brianna finally remembers something from history! She gets on a horse and rides fast!

Jamie plays some sort of auto-christening John the Baptist in the river. He is asking the spirit of Dougal for advice. Claire is skeptical of spirit Dougal’s willingness. We did murder him after all, Jamie.

Brianna arrives with her very important message. A battle will be fought! Duh. The regulators will lose! Also duh. This battle is the spark of the American revolution! Yes, we have already sensed this, but thank you for putting a very fine point on it. God, Brianna. What type of history did you even study? They again contemplate the butterfly effect for 40 seconds but decide they can’t be arsed about it and will want to warn Murtagh anyway. Roger volunteers himself for this mission because he is tired of being regarded as a talentless worm. “It’s dangerous!” the women mutter. Jamie says, yes, let’s run with this plan though where you, Roger, shoulder the danger because I am not invested in your character, son. Better to lose you than my wife or daughter.

Murtagh is giving his stump speech by the fire. Roger delivers Murtagh this threadbare historical prophecy. Murtagh is obstinate though. The men will not turn back now. He just gave a really excellent stump speech and those are really hard to counteract.

On his way back Roger runs into the lady Mackenzie that he met on the boat ride over. Sensing there is some sort of family tree historical predicament afoot, Roger warns her and tells her to get her husband out of there. Then he hugs her, which is much too familiar. Husband rolls up and is none too pleased. “What’s this pathetic letch doing hugging my wife!”

Jamie is forced to wear a red coat. How did they get it tailored? Jamie shoots lasers out of his eyeballs and incinerates Governor Tyron for this humiliation.

Is the lady Mackenzie’s husband Dougal with a curly wig? Ha! Roger throws a punch, which is something. He forgets there are three men there, so it goes poorly for him. His militia florette is discovered. Curly Dougal spits some line about how Rogers wife must be ill favored surely to have Roger all in her business. He is very astute.

Grumpy dad smashes Claire’s penicillin syringe. I hope she finds a sneaky way to kill him

Oh no! Murtagh gets shot and dies! I knew it would happen, but I don’t like it.

Jamie let’s loose his tongue and throws his red coat on the ground

They think they find Roger hung from a tree by the redcoats. There is a sack over his head, so clearly it won’t be Roger. I would be glad to be rid of him, but this would be too terrible a way for him to go.