Outlander Season 5 Episode 1 shows Brianna and Roger's wedding as Governor Tryon leans on Jamie to do his duty
Despite all the hardships, Claire (Caitriona Balfe ) and Jamie Frazer (Sam Heughan) have made a home -- though still partly unfinished -- on Frazer's Ridge. A community of settlers has formed around them on Governor Tyron's generous land grant of 10,000 acres. Brianna is about to get married to the love of her life, Roger, and so the community gathers to celebrate the happy occasion with them.
There are some heart-warming moments as Claire, a proud and happy mother, helps Brianna get dressed, while Jamie gives Roger a close shave with a "cutthroat blade", a barber's tool that earns its nickname from its sharpness. Jamie, with his teeny-tiny little spectacles on his nose, gives Roger the smoothest shave ever while discussing Roger's future with his daughter. He is both paternal and a wee bit menacing as the father-in-law -- but it is obvious that he has accepted Roger.
He is more nervous around his daughter, trying to follow her instructions about "something borrowed, something blue" and a "sixpence for her shoe". Brianna is pleased he remembered and the ceremony goes off without a hitch. The whole setting is as beautiful as the bride herself in her hand-embroidered wedding dress. The only fly in the ointment is Governor Tryon who descends on the wedding party with a garrison of soldiers.
He informs Jamie that the land should be able to support the soldiers and they will assist Jamie in finding and capturing Murtagh (Duncan Lacroix), the notorious leader of the Regulators who had rioted. Tryon has grown impatient with Jamie's "dispatches" that have outlined his activities to "hunt" Murtagh. He lets Jamie know that he knows a stalling tactic when he sees one. He then gives Jamie a week to get together a militia of able young men from his community of settlers to capture Murtagh.
He reminds Jamie that he was counting on him being a Scot who understood how the Scottish men who had joined the Regulators thought. In some ways, he insinuates that he is supporting Jamie with the land grant to be a traitor to his own kind. Jamie responds with "if it's a Scot he wants, a Scot he'll get" before getting dressed in a kilt and lighting a cross of straw asking for the allegiance of the community to protect their land and serve it.
In a way, it is also a show of power that tells the British garrison stationed at Frazer's Ridge that it was Jamie who led the men on his land, rather than the British overlords. With the drums of war sounding ever louder, Jamie clandestinely meets Murtagh in the woods. He tells Murtagh that he is absolved of the oath he gave Jamie's mother of being forever by his side -- with that Jamie bids goodbye to one of the only real father-figures he has ever had.
Murtagh, who cannot relinquish the cause of the Regulators understands Jamie's commitment to protecting his family and land and departs so that Jamie has no links to him when he has to "hunt" him in a week's time. Before this, he also spends a night with Jamie's aunt Jocasta who tells him in the morning that Duncan Innes has asked her to marry him. This streamlines the book's storyline with the TV series because, in the books, Jocasta marries Duncan because Murtagh is already dead by this point in the story.
It might also mean that Jamie's next meeting with him might be fatal for Murtagh, who has been a fan favorite. Aunt Jocasta also manages to test Roger's commitment to bring up Stephen Bonnet's son as his own son. Since Roger is a good egg he passes the test and he goes back to his wife and child and swears that they will forever be a family, a unit, no matter what.
It is the best thing for Brianna to hear because she is near the crib after eavesdropping on a conversation about Stephen Bonnet, her rapist, being alive. It is a horrific discovery to make on your wedding day and the shock makes her go numb with terror. So we are probably going to see Bonnet again since his 'alive' status has been proclaimed in the first episode itself.
War is coming to Frazer's Ridge and it won't be an easy war, cutting across loyalties and loves. 'Outlander' Season 5 Episode 1 is available for viewing on the Starz App and will have its TV premiere on February 16 at 8 pm ET on Starz.
