'Outlander' Season 5 Episode 11 Review: Claire is abducted after Brianna, Roger and Jemmy travel to the future
With just the finale left to go, Episode 11 'Journeycake' sets up some key narrative threads for Season 6. A big one, as the title suggests, is Roger Mackenzie (Richard Rankin), Brianna Mackenzie (Sophie Skelton) and their son, Jemmy, journeying through the stones into the future to the 20th century.
Claire Fraser (Caitriona Balfe) in a bittersweet recall to how Brianna made her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when she was traveling back to Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan), makes peanut-butter from scratch. She then serves up some PB&Js, calling them "journey-cakes" of the 20th century, for their last meal as a family for some time to come.
Season 6 will probably get into the life of Mackenzies in the 20th century and how it crisscrosses with Claire and Jamie's escapades in the 18th century. One significant information is relayed when Jamie tells Brianna about Willie, her half-brother, the Earl-in-waiting. Knowing Brianna, she will look through the history books to find traces of the little brother she has never met.
Brianna and Roger's decision to leave was always contingent on whether Jemmy could travel through the magic stone with them. They had decided to wait till Jemmy got a little older to attempt this. But their departure is hastened after Jemmy plays with the deceased, time-traveling Otter Tooth's opal that cracks in his hand after scorching them. When Brianna, Roger, and Claire touch the fragments, it is hot to their touch too but the stone feels cool to Jamie and Young Ian (John Bell).
This confirms their suspicions that Jemmy had inherited the time-traveling genes and in fact had double the dose, inheriting them from both Brianna and Roger, since the stone cracked in his hands. This indirectly confirms that Roger is his father, as Brianna points out, and not Stephen Bonnet.
Most of the episode is spent saying goodbyes as Brianna and Roger lie to everyone at Fraser's Ridge, telling them they are going to Boston because Roger has secured a teaching position there. Everyone that is except Young Ian, who finally confronts Claire and Jamie about the secret they have been hiding.
He has been suspicious for a while, and in episode 11, he tells Jamie and Claire about Otter Tooth's journal which he had been given by the tribe after being told that he "knew the future", much like his "aunty Claire". His interest, however, is not just because he is curious. It is because he too wants to time travel to find his love.
He still isn't sharing specific details but seems agonized when the Mackenzie family cross over leaving him behind. Young Ian's tragic romance and if he will be reunited with his love is probably a thread that will be explored more in season 6 rather than the finale, because of the horrifying cliffhanger at the end of this episode.
The Brown clan come a-knocking telling Jamie of cottages being burnt in the backcountry -- something Jamie knows is happening around Fraser's Ridge too. The clan members have formed an unofficial militia to "maintain law and order". But it is they who act like a bunch of ruffians when they burst into the clinic to kidnap Claire and knock Marsali unconscious.
The reason they do this is Lionel Brown's (Ned Dennehy) accidental discovery that Claire is the "Dr. Rawling" whose newspaper column his wife has been following to avoid getting pregnant. Lionel already isn't well disposed to Claire because she keeps staring at him with her patent "I'm judging you" look and Lionel is used to women knowing their place. Since he is an abusive father and husband, Claire has some brutal treatment ahead in the finale.
Jamie, knowing as much, lights the straw cross by the cliff to summon all the able-bodied men of his settlement to hunt the armed Brown clan and rescue his wife. We are in for a thrilling finale indeed!
'Outlander' airs new episodes on Sunday at 8 pm ET/PT, on STARZ, the STARZ app, and STARZ On Demand.