It’s the penultimate episode of the season, so what better time to reveal what Jamie Fraser’s sperm looks like? Tara Ward recaps season five, episode 11 of Outlander.
We’ve been surfing the Outlander wave for many moons now, but our beloved drama still knows how to surprise us like Jamie Fraser jumping out from behind a tree during a hectic game of hide and seek. This week we learned that nothing gets our two favourite hornbags more hornbagged up than the stench of each other’s skin, and that the Frasers love a bit of sexy time out an open window. For starters, that’s quite the draught around your kidneys, and also, won’t someone think of the health and safety risks? And Claire a doctor, too. For shame.
Well, hold onto your hairpieces. The most surprising thing we’ve seen after five seasons, 66 episodes and nearly 4,000 minutes of Claire and Jamie magic was the sight of Jamie Fraser’s sperm.
Seeing the tiny fruit of Jamie Fraser’s loins waving back at us through a microscope was the last thing you expect to see in a drama about a woman with two husbands in two different centuries, but this was an episode bursting with surprises. Claire told Ian she was from the future, Bree discovered she had a secret brother, and I was shocked and saddened to see that Willy’s luscious season four mullet is no more. Things change and seasons pass, but the loss of that hairdo was the truth bomb that hurt the most. Slide my tears under your microscope, Claire Fraser, and you will see what grief looks like.
But there were bigger things to worry about, like the Frasers realising that Jemmy has the gift of time travel. Suddenly, the road back to the future was wide open for the Mackenzies, and Bree and Roger prepared to leave the 18th century forever. Nobody was happy about it, especially Marsali, who was pregnant again, even though she just gave birth two weeks ago. If there’s sperm we need to see under a microscope, it’s Fergus’s. That stuff is potent.
Just as powerful were Claire’s peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, whipped up in honour of Roger and Bree’s departure. Those sandwiches were a metaphor for the episode, with the bread being the two chunks of violence at each end, and the jam being all the lovely, gooey emotional bits in the middle. I love bread as much as I love gooey bits, but those opening scenes with the dying fire victim were brutal.
If only Claire had made an open sandwich, so instead of a burned body we’d had a heartfelt farewell scene between Roger and Jamie, where Roger softly touched Jamie’s hair and thanked him for teaching him everything he knew about being a man in the 17th century.
And Jamie would reply “thanks for teaching me how to rock and roll, Captain”, and Lizzie would bring out bowls of mashed potatoes to comfort everyone while Lord John danced like nobody was watching, because a Lord John jig makes everything better. Bree would realise she belongs on the Ridge and she’d tell Roger “but I CAN be an engineer in 1772” and Roger would laugh like he has never laughed before, because even though he’s been beaten, enslaved and nearly hanged, he loves the 1700s too. Jamie would cry tears of joy and tell Claire she smells like pickling cucumbers again, and everyone would be happy.
Dreams are free, friends. Nobody is happy on the Ridge any more, and it’s all down to those nasty Brown brothers. They have bad stubble and bad hair, and you should never trust anyone in Outlander with that combo. I would not like to look at any of the Brown family sperm under a microscope, is all I’m saying.
Jamie’s refusal to join the militia made the Browns really mad, and if anyone needed to chill out with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, it was these clowns. Revenge was in the air, and when the men of the Ridge were distracted by an explosion at the whiskey still, Brown’s gang burst into the Fraser house. The men struck Marsali and kidnapped Claire and stabbed a random patient through the guts. That poor bloke came to the surgery with a sore shoulder, and now he has a new set of problems to deal with, like being dead.
Claire has disappeared, Bree and Roger are gone, and Jamie is standing alone on a cliff having a bonfire. It’s a literal cliffhanger, and I am literally hungry for a sandwich. See you at the season finale.