Lizzie’s reaction to the bison on Outlander was only human

Think Brianna shouldn’t trust Lizzie to look after Jemmy again on Outlander? Let’s not use the bison event against the poor lass.

During Outlander Season 5, Episode 9, a bison entered the homestead. Some reacted with crying and others jumped into action. Unsurprisingly, Lizzie was the one that was terrified and unable to help protect Jemmy.

While some suggest that Bree shouldn’t let Lizzie look after Jemmy in the future, I’d say that we need to give the poor lass a break. Lizzie’s reaction was only human, and probably the way that many fans would have reacted had they been in the same situation.

Something to remember is that Lizzie is young and comes from a sheltered upbringing. She’s still growing a backbone but remains in a relatively sheltered life on the Ridge. When you think of the events that have happened, Lizzie has never had anything major happen to or around her. It’s all been Brianna.

Bree was the one raped. Bree was the one to ride out to Alamance to warn the others of the battle to come and stayed to help with the injured. Lizzie has just been a nanny to Jemmy. She was never to know how she would react when such a situation was going to happen.

There are three reactions when it comes to danger: Fight, flight, or fright. We will all naturally react in one of those three ways. Chances are we don’t know how we would react during the situations unless we’ve been in a situation before. Lizzie’s natural reaction is fright, and it’s hard to fight against that.

But that doesn’t make her a bad person to look after Jemmy. When it comes to his day-to-day needs, Jemmy has one of the best people to look after him. Lizzie is kind and patient. She enjoys being around him and teaching him things. We can see that deep down, she’s got a lot of goodness in her heart.

Just put her in a dangerous situation and she’s not going to be that much use. But then, how often should Jemmy be in a dangerous situation? And when he is, there are high chances that Bree or Claire won’t be too far away to hear screams, just like they were when the bison threatened Jemmy.

So, before we damn Lizzie as a useless girl, let’s remember her reaction on Outlander Season 5, Episode 9 was only human. There are chances that’s the way you’d react even if you think you could be more like Brianna.

Outlander airs Sundays on STARZ.