After lighting the cross, Jamie makes it clear he’ll go to war to save Claire. Here’s everything that happened in the Outlander Season 5 finale.
I can’t quite believe we’ve got to the Outlander Season 5 finale already, but here we are. We picked up off the back of the previous episode, focusing on Claire’s abduction (and treatment at the hands of her captors), Jamie’s willingness to go to war for Claire, and where Bree and Roger ended up.
There are major spoilers in this Outlander Season 5 finale recap, as you would expect! Let’s get into it.
Disassociation to survive
Throughout the episode, Claire thought of a safer time in the future. However, this wasn’t events that had once happened to her. She focused on a fantasy to disassociate herself from the physical and mental torture she was facing.
Sometime in the 1960s, Claire imagined Jamie being with her. Murtagh, Jocasta, Marsali, Fergus, and Young Ian were all there, along with the children. It was a beautiful chance to see what could be in the future, but what I found interesting was that Jamie still looked like he belonged in the 18th century with his clothing, while all the others looked like they belonged in the 1960s.
There were many throwbacks to past seasons throughout these scenes. The vase threw us back to the pilot episode, the red dress and orange were a connection to Season 2, while the rabbit was a throwback to the Culloden battlefield (and the theme for Season 3). It focused on items or memories Claire held dear—and while she wasn’t at Culloden, the rabbit theme was throughout the third season, including a stuffed toy Brianna grew up with.
However, in the dissociative state, Claire experiences memories or thoughts of her current situation. Lionel Brown shows up now and then and there’s a moment where she learns Brianna, Roger, and Jemmy have been killed in a car accident. Lionel popping up is easy to explain, but the car crash is a connection to Claire’s belief that she will never see Bree, Roger, and Jemmy again. In this fantasy, the deaths of them link back to that belief.
Throughout the fantasy flashes, Claire listens to “Never My Love,” which is where the episode title comes from. The song is from 1967 and is extremely important for the setting in the fantasy world. It’s all about how the person singing says that they will never stop loving their partner, which is definitely Claire and Jamie.
What’s really going on?
Mixed in with the various flashes to this fantasy are memories of what Claire has been through up to this point. There’s a Jamaican man, who fears that Claire really is a witch. He worries about being harmed by the spirits and shows Claire some kindness. Claire asks him to allow her to be with the Kelpie at one point in the river—likely to let her swim away. He agrees but it’s Hodgepile who takes her to the water instead, so she doesn’t get a chance to escape.
We see the beatings that she experiences from the men, especially Lionel Brown. He has worked out that Claire is Dr. Rawlings and wants to take Claire to Brownsville so she can admit to the women that she’s been the one writing the recommendations. Lionel is angry that she’s been telling women how to avoid a man’s “God-given right.”
Claire is tied up, gagged, and has a rope around her neck when they all camp to avoid her running away. That’s when she gets a visit from the Native man who we wondered whether Wendigo Donner.
“Does Ringo Starr mean anything to you?” the Native man asks, and it’s clear that he’s a time traveler. Wendigo tells Claire that he traveled with four others but they were separated and Clarie realizes that he’s connected to Otter Tooth.
All Wendigo wants is to get back home to his own time. Claire offers him that help but he needs to get her out of this situation. Wendigo says he’ll help when everyone is asleep. She’s not happy, but honestly, it would have been suicide for both of them to try to escape when the others were still awake!
That night, the men in the group take their turn raping Claire, starting with Lionel’s nephew and then Lionel himself.
Where did Brianna and Roger travel to?
While all this is going on, we find out what happened to Brianna and Roger. Who was Jemmy waving at? If you guessed Young Ian, you’d be right.
The MacKenzies traveled just a few minutes ahead. While you may think that this was a waste of time, it’s important to understand the hearts of Bree and Roger. They were both thinking of “home.” Home is the Ridge.
Young Ian is still there. He’d sat on a rock to think about everything he’d seen, so of course, Jemmy immediately saw him. While he’s certainly confused, there is an element of happiness that his cousin hasn’t left after all.
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The family travel back with the plan to camp overnight and surprise everyone in the morning. However, Bree sees the fiery cross in the distance. She and Roger know that is means war, so the family head back to the Ridge.
There isn’t time to explain too much about why everyone is back, and it doesn’t matter right now. Jamie explains Claire was taken and Roger makes it clear that he is going to stand by Jamie’s side to get Claire back. Along with Fergus, John Quincy Myers, Josiah Beardsley, Young Ian, and others, they head to war.
“Kill them all”
We witness much of the battle with the men through Claire’s perspective, but there are flashes of seeing everyone fighting. We see each of the men as badass warriors, including Roger who takes a life in the heat of battle. This is something that does weigh on him, as he tries to figure out if he did the right thing.
Jamie gets to Claire and can tell the ordeal she’s been through. He knows she’s been raped and asks how many of them did it after finding out some of them were still alive. She doesn’t know.
JQM hands Claire a knife so she can enact revenge, but she can’t do it. Jamie points out that she took an oath never to kill anyone, so it’s up to Jamie to kill for her. Young Ian and Fergus agree to kill for her too.
“Kill them all,” Jamie tells everyone.
Not all are killed, though. Lionel Brown is still alive and he’s taken back to the Ridge for questioning. Claire also later asks about Wendigo Donner. He wasn’t among the dead, which means he got away. While he didn’t hurt Claire, she points out he didn’t help her either. Again, there wasn’t too much he could do alone at that point, but she’s in pain, going through trauma, scared, and angry; I can accept her viewpoint.
The death of Lionel Brown
Once everyone is back at the Ridge, Claire makes it clear to Jamie that she won’t let this ordeal break her. After surviving war, imprisonment, and losing two husbands, she is not going to let this be the thing that shatters her.
She decides to pay Lionel a visit, who clearly isn’t sorry for anything that he has done. There’s a moment where she thinks about taking his life, but she says she’ll “do no harm,” and then leaves.
Marsali, annoyed that Lionel views women as lesser than him, decides to do the thing that Claire couldn’t. She kills him with an injection of water hemlock root.
“Am I going to hell?” She asks Jamie. He comforts her before wrapping the body and taking it back to Richard Brown. While Richard knows that Jamie did what he had to, he also makes it clear that this is the start of a blood feud.
There’s a war coming
Back at the Ridge, Claire watches over everyone as they enjoy a normal day. There’s a storm coming, but that storm is weighted with the knowledge that there’s a war coming. The Revolutionary War is just a few years away and they need to prepare for that. On top of that, they know they have an enemy of the Browns.
That night, Claire and Jamie lay in bed. We don’t get the full scene that happens in the books, and in a way I’m glad. There was something about that scene in the novels that didn’t feel right for me—and for those who haven’t read it yet, it’s in “A Breath of Snow and Ashes” and I won’t spoil it all for you.
However, what we do get is Jamie asking Claire how she feels. “Safe,” she responds and we close out the episode.
Opening credits at the end
One thing you may or may not have noticed throughout the episode is that there weren’t the normal opening credits. Instead, we got a hauntingly beautiful version of “The Skye Boat Song” at the end of the episode, with the opening credit names popping up on the screen.
It seemed fitting that it was kept to the end. Having the opening credits earlier would have taken away from the goosebumps felt throughout the episode. It would have been a break in the emotions of the episode that wasn’t needed. Instead, the use of the song at the end continued the bittersweet, heavy feeling at the end of the episode.
What did you think of the Outlander Season 5 finale? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Outlander Season 5 is available to stream in full on STARZ, available through Amazon Channels.