If you ever doubted Maria Doyle Kennedy’s acting abilities, just watch Outlander Season 5, Episode 6

Maria Doyle Kennedy has been one of my favorite actresses for a long time. Outlander Season 5, Episode 6 is the episode for those who doubt her skills.

Absolutely anyone who has watched Maria Doyle Kennedy is something before Outlander, will already know the talented actress she is. If you’ve seen her first in this series, then you just need to watch Season 5, Episode 6 to see just how talented an actress she is.

The moment I heard Doyle Kennedy was going to play Aunt Jocasta in Outlander Season 4, I was excited. I’ve been a fan since The Tudors and despite playing an evil character, I loved seeing her play such a different role in Downton Abbey. Then there’s Orphan Black, Dexter, and so much more.

For me, The Tudors was the series that proved Doyle Kennedy could act. She brought a side to Catherine of Aragon that I’d never appreciated up until watching the series. But Outlander Season 5, Episode 6 has blown that performance out of the park.

We got the backstory on Jocasta, the reason she came to America in the first place. It all connected to her relationship with Murtagh, bringing a sad ending to their love story.

Those who had read the books knew Jocasta’s backstory. She’d lost her daughters after Culloden and she and her husband had been Jacobites, taking the French gold and using it to build River Run. Now that story has been told in a way that shows Jocasta didn’t know everything that was happening. She had no idea about the gold and blamed the Jacobites for her daughters’ deaths.

It’s not surprising that she didn’t want to be with Murtagh; that she couldn’t run away with him. It’s not about the life that she’s built or the fact that she’s blind. Her heart breaks knowing what is to come. She views the Regulator fight as the same as the Jacobite one. All she sees is death and heartbreak, and she just can’t go through that again.

And there’s absolutely no doubt that you could feel that sadness; that despair. Maria Doyle Kennedy gave it her all in the scene with Murtagh, as she shared why she couldn’t go with him and why she was choosing Duncan Innes.

This is the scene everyone needs to watch the next time they learn Maria Doyle Kennedy is in a production.