'Outlander' Season 5 Episode 11: Promo shows Fraser's Ridge under attack and Jamie burning the 'Fiery Cross'
After taking care of one villain, Stephen Bonnet (Ed Speelers), in last week's episode, it seems like the Fraser clan will have to deal with the Brown clan next.
The official synopsis for the penultimate episode, this season, states that "Jamie finds that unrest in the backcountry has given rise to a new power — an organization led by the unpredictable Brown brothers."
Claire (Caitriona Balfe) has already incurred the wrath of the Brown clan for interfering in what they thought was a private score to settle in the Battle of Alamance. They have shown that they are not above a cowardly act of shooting a man from behind or using guns to settle their vendettas.
In the trailer for the episode, they seem to turn up at Fraser's Ridge talking about violent attacks in the backcountry with Young Ian (John Bell) telling them that they can protect themselves. Is their visit to the farm a way of intimidating Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan) and his family?
There is certainly some havoc unleashed on the farm as Claire inspects a burnt cottage while Marsali (Lauren Lyle) hides her son under the bed as two unidentified men attack their house and stab somebody, who could be Fergus (César Domboy). Fingers crossed that it is not.
We also see Jamie running across his land to light the cross of straw he had erected by the cliff — the emergency signal to call all the men of his settlement to battle.
Jamie would not take this course of action lightly and would only do so if the Ridge itself was under attack. So we wonder what will propel him to light the 'Fiery Cross' in episode 11.
The trailer also shows Ulysses (Colin McFarlane), Jocasta's slave, on the run after having killed Gerald Forbes (Billy Boyd) for trying to murder Jocasta (Maria Doyle Kennedy).
He finds shelter at Fraser's Ridge while Claire gently asks him what he plans to do next. The other guest who will come calling is Lord John Grey (David Berry), the all-weather well-wisher of the Fraser clan. He will return in the upcoming episode to warn Jamie that tensions are rising.
Lord Grey warns in the trailer that "a storm is coming". The American Revolution is just a few years away and like a lot of momentous periods of history, it will be a bloody and dangerous time.
Lord John Grey will also find himself on the English side again while Jamie will most likely side with the Revolutionaries, pitting the friends against each other. We have already seen how badly that plays out with Murtagh (Duncan Lacroix) and we hope the situation won't pan out the same way.
The synopsis also states that "a revelation about Jemmy forces Roger and Brianna to choose between staying in the eighteenth century and returning to the safety of the future".
What that revelation may be is anyone's guess. However, we do know that Claire will pay a price for her "attempts to make this time safer for her family". Could her experiments in bringing the techniques and panaceas of modern medicine to the 18th Century result in her being branded a witch again?
We'll find out when the next episode airs on Sunday at 8 pm ET/PT on STARZ, the STARZ app and STARZ On Demand.