Don’t panic, Outlander is still going strong. Tara Ward recaps episode six of season five. 

Oh, my sweet little Outlander cherubs, just look at very state of us. We are living in a world that now makes an episode of our beloved Outlander seem relatable, a thing I never thought I’d see with mine own eyes. Suddenly, a fictional show about a man who once self-isolated in a cave for seven years seems entirely plausible. Two months ago, Claire’s DIY efforts to grow life-saving medicine seemed far-fetched, but now? Hold my cloche, I think she’s on to something.

Let’s hold our freshly washed hands skyward in gratitude that no matter what the future holds, there are six more Outlander episodes left to distract us from reality. In years to come when people ask what we did during the 2020 pandemic, we can proudly say we watched two grandparents get it on in some stables, we watched a villain fall into a pile of horse poo, and we watched Roger save the world by shovelling shit in a bucket. Entirely plausible, completely admirable, everything’s fine, fine, fine.

This week was all about the burn, and not the kind you get after you use too much hand sanitiser. This was the burning of the loins, which Jocasta denied by marrying a man she didn’t have the hots for. This was the burning of the fields, when Roger smoked out a plague of locusts. Even our intrepid hero, Jamie from the ‘Broch, had a burning so deep he was probably starting to chafe. Someone alert the authorities and put the man into lockdown, immediately.

Let’s also put Philip Wyllie into lockdown, a new character who appears to be a human version of one of Roger’s poo pails. This cad joined the colonial hoi polloi at Jocasta and Duncan Innes’ wedding festivities, and left as a pawn in Jamie and Claire’s plan for revenge against Stephen Bonnet. Jamie plans to unleash a firestorm of revenge on Bonnet, but if I was the Frasers I’d be running straight to a field of strawberries and hunkering down in an Idiot Hut made of toilet rolls, rather than looking for trouble with a man who cuts people’s faces up for fun.

Phillip Wyllie was a piece of work, assaulting Claire in the stables and then taking a bet with Jamie to save his pride or win a horse, or something. Jamie risked both of Claire’s wedding rings in the card game, a move so audacious that Claire’s curls began to seethe with the ignomy of it all. Things were tense between Mum and Dad, despite the wedding being open bar and Lord John Grey dancing like nobody was watching. Will we only see Lord John at weddings this season? Asking for a friend.

Nothing would stop Jocasta from getting hitched to Innes, not even a passionate last-minute marriage proposal from Murtagh. A flashback filled in some of Jocasta’s back story, revealing a tragic scene when her daughter Morna was killed during the fall-out from Culloden. Jocasta doesn’t want another pig-headed husband who risks everything in the name of politics. She wants peace and harmony with a man who will quietly appreciate her fine mahogany staircase and marvel over the number of panes in her glass windows.

We hear you, Jocasta. Sometimes you just want to lock yourself away with the knowledge that you are safe and secure and that you will never run out of your favourite soft scented 4-ply toilet roll, even though the supermarkets are still open and nobody needs to panic.

There was plenty of manly jibber jabber about politics this week, but the short version is that war is coming faster than the swarm of locusts that threatened Fraser’s Ridge. It was a crisis of biblical proportions, but Roger stepped up to this Level 4 situation like he was born for it. I mean, give the man some shit and a shovel and he’ll change the path of history. He smoked the locusts out and saved everyone’s crops, and now Roger is basically king of the world.

It’s the burn, it’s the vibe, it’s the fact that Jamie and Claire always come back to each other, no matter what. While Stephen Bonnet discovered his son is now the owner of River Run, Claire and Jamie united in their plan to bring Bonnet down by, erm, going into business with him. Sure, why not. It’s a crazy plan for a crazy world, and what’s the alternative? Lighting a bucket of dung and smoking the fecker out? Hold my toilet roll, I think we’re onto something.