Review's Resort: Outlander: Never My Love

"I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I? I took the one less-traveled by.

And that has made all the difference."

Hello everyone!

After roughly three months we have reached the beginning of what may be the longest Droughtlander yet, considering there's no word on when the cast and crew will be able to begin production on season 6. But never fear, we know there IS a season 6 incoming, so that should cheer us all up!

In the meantime, we have to chew our way through a rather sensitive topic for the finale itself.

Outlander has never shied away from difficult themes and handling topics and titles that would make a number of other shows balk, but the thing is, talking about it is GOOD.

It's the being quiet that hurts in the long run.

Of course I will also say that there is a certain theme of repetition to Outlander as well, and I'm kind of hoping this doesn't happen any more in the books either, because really, can we get something else, please?

Understandably, people are divided into good and bad, especially when viewed on television shows, but honestly would it be so bad to showcase some good as opposed to the bad, at that?

Never My Love, the season five finale, is up.

You can find all links to the previous eleven episodes of this season at the bottom of this page, as per usual.

Diving in, we basically realize right off the bat that the episode might be slightly different, because there are no opening credits - we jump straight into action, and into a dreamscape at that.

It has to be a dreamscape, considering Claire is sitting there on a couch looking at a painting of the Fraser Big House, herself looking very season 3, while behind her Jamie walks into this modern home looking very much Himself from the 18th century.

We will jump into the dreamscape throughout the vast majority of the episode, so it should be looked at a little more, because this is Claire's sanctuary from the real world: a house and home, surrounded by her loved ones.

We see a Jocasta who's not blind, Murtagh, Fergus and Marsali with their three children, Young Ian as a soldier, and two empty spots for Roger and Bree. We also see callbacks to previous instances in the show, and in the books, with a blue vase, an orange, Claire's red dress, a leaking ceiling, wallpaper from Lallybroch, Jamie wrapping his plaid around her, etc.

It's a bit like memory lane, with bits of a grim reality peaking through in the form of one Lionel Brown, who is getting what is coming to him, but first we have to see his ugly mug a few times over.

And in the end, two policemen (aka Brown and Hodgepile, two of Claire's abductors) arrive to inform the family that Roger, Bree and Jemmy have died in a car accident, which to me tails back to when Frank passed away on the icy roads at night.

The dreamscape is just that, however - a dream.

Because Claire's reality is that she's been abducted because Brown is an idiot and has a bone to pick with her (instead of taking a look at himself and figuring out his wives generally dislike him because he treats them like dirt). The plan is to take her to Brownsville and announce her as a charlatan, but of course Claire is fighting back. She's survived more than Brown can probably countenance himself, she's not giving in!

This is where her dreamscape forms, however, because despite covertly begging to be released, especially to another time traveller who reveals himself to her (and potentially inspires the dream because he's from the sixties himself, and that was a massive inspiration in there) Claire is not, in fact, on her way to liberty.

Instead, the men beat and rape her, marking her as another member of the Fraser family to go through that ordeal.

I believe I'm not the only viewer and book reader who's had quite enough of this particular plot point of Gabaldon's, but what can you do, right? Nothing, that's what. And I will say the episode is done brilliantly, conscious of the sensitive topic, nothing being gratuitous, and Caitriona shines extra bright even when grimy and bloody.

And of course it comes to an end.

If you recall, at the end of last episode, Jamie ran to light the cross to call his clansmen to him at the Ridge, and he's kilted himself up for battle. He may be hesitant to take up arms against fellow colonists when he's told to do so by someone else, but when it comes to his family, nobody messes with James Fraser.

Nobody.

He is surprised (viewers a little less so) by the return of Ian, along with Jemmy, Bree and Roger, because he thought the young family would have left through the stones. And they did too, but when they woke up, they saw Ian, and realized they hadn't gone anywhere. Roger and Bree were thinking of home - and apparently, this is home.

Bree is told to stay behind and guard the Ridge, while Roger and Ian tag along with Jamie, and what follows is a world of hurt.

I won't say I've missed seeing violence on Outlander - there's plenty to go around - but I HAVE missed seeing Jamie do his thing and be the man we all know he is and always will be.

He finds Claire, horrified when he clocks in to what happened, and the men round up the survivors - ostensibly for Claire to take her revenge on them, and no one of the men loyal to her would bat an eye at it. But Jamie, remembering the oath she told him that she'd taken, says he kills for her, immediately echoed by Ian and Fergus both, that they will spill blood so the maternal figure in their lives doesn't have to, and I'm sitting there cheering, as bloodthirsty as that makes me. Seeing Fergus looking positively feral and Ian in his warpaint, intent on business, is something else.

However, there is one survivor: Lionel Brown.

Of course it would be him.

They take him back to the Ridge with them, where Claire slowly falls apart, and can't bring herself to patch any of Brown up, leaving him to Marsali - and oh, does Marsali have a bone to pick with the man lying on her table.

Having been roughed up by the men, and her house attacked, her family threatened, she seethingly explains she has taken no oath like Claire - and sticks him full of hemlock, effectively ending the discussion about whether or not he's going to live. After, Jamie finds her shaken at what she's done in the heat of the moment (though nobody really blames her, at that), and comforts her that, no, Brown won't haunt her.

He then takes the man's body back to Brownsville, telling the other Brown point-blank what happened, and we know there's more trouble to come because the man can't stop when he's ahead and promises "retribution".

You'd have done better if you just buried the moron in silence, Brownie. You'll get yours, too.

Back on the Ridge, Claire tells Jamie what happened, and the two of them survey the land and the people they call their home, with a storm front rolling in, announcing to all and sundry that peace is but a fleeting composition; it's not bound to last.

"I have lived through war, and lost much. I know what's worth a fight and what is not. Honour and courage are matters of the bone. And what a man will kill for, he'll sometimes die for, too.

A man's life springs from his woman's bones, and in her blood is his honour christened.
For the sake of love alone will I walk through fire again. When the day shall come that we do part ... if my last words are not 'I love you', ye ken it's because I didna have time."

James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser