One Question Quiz
Outlander big tubs

Pop CultureJanuary 31, 2019

Holy time-travelling culottes! The top 10 moments of Outlander season 4

Outlander big tubs

Outlander is over for another year, but don’t let #droughtlander get you down. Tara Ward keeps the thirst at bay with a look back on some of season four’s best moments, including baby goats, spotty Lords and a saucy sponge bath. 

Season four of Outlander has come and gone like an exploding hernia of emotion. We’ve soaked up 13 glorious weeks of reunions and separations, long journeys in short pants, Aunt Jocasta throwing shade, Marsali’s cheeseboards, time travel, bowls of mashed potatoes, snakes in long drops, prison explosions, Minister’s cats, and Stephen bloody Bonnet, the best/worst villain we’ve seen since the Reverend refused to let Roger have another chocolate biscuit.

But hold me closer, Ghost of Frank, because now it’s all behind us. The visions of Jamie eating beef jerky in a tricorn and Claire carrying a skull in her handbag are but memories burned upon our tortured tartan souls. We are standing in a metaphorical field of wild strawberries atop of Fraser’s Ridge, staring into the #Droughtlander abyss, a bleak void where ginger curls and grumpy donkeys are no more.

To ease us through these desperate times, I’ve gathered together some of this season’s most memorable moments. It’s a tough choice, because how do you choose between Stephen Bonnet throwing children into the sea and Roger talking to a dead stag stuck to the wall? It’s impossible, so no correspondence will be entered into unless your name is Roger’s Pants. Roger’s Pants! You were a legend among men.

 10) Jamie and Claire have a bath

It’s a legal requirement that every Outlander ‘best of’ list includes some Fraser nookie, and since I’m a law-abiding citizen, here it is. Jamie and Claire loved a bit of bath time hanky-panky this season, and this scene ticked all the boxes: husky voices, moist swabbing, and philosophical ruminations about the meaning of life. Chuck on your arm floaties and cling to the sides ASAP, lest we drown in all the passion.

9) Claire heals the world with the power of her thumbs

Lord John Grey is the only sensible one in all of Outlander, but it didn’t stop him catching the measles. My Sweet Lord was splotchy and delirious, but mostly jealous that Jamie was satisfying Claire 24/7. Join the club, LJG.

Sickness took Lord John on a journey inwards to his soul, but whatever, we’re not here for that. What we’re here for is Claire Fraser jamming her thumbs into LJG’s eye sockets to cure the one of the most infectious diseases in the history of the universe. Stand down, science, your work here is done.

8) Roger wears all the layers / Murtagh wears none

As the Grand Old Duke of the Idiot Hut, Roger spent the season buried under the weight of his emotions, as well as the nine thousand layers he insisted on wearing. It was a blessed relief when he busted out his time-travelling culottes, because how refreshing would an ankle breeze be while transitioning through a vortex of time and space? Bloody great work, Roge.

Also refreshing: the sweet, sweaty vision of a post-coital Murtagh. Sword dancer on the streets, silver fox between the sheets, thank you and goodnight.

7) Fiona reveals she’d known Claire was a time traveller for bloody ages

Queen.

6) Jamie and Claire say goodbye to Ian

Someone give Sam Heughan’s tear ducts an Emmy, because this was the greatest ‘Jamie Fraser Single Teardrop’ ever seen. Ian’s decision to replace Roger in the Mohawk village unleashed a tsunami of grief from Jamie and Claire, while I ugly-cried like an idiot, because won’t anyone think about Rollo?

Sing me a song of a dog that is gone, because Rollo had the best hair of any character this season. If we don’t see a season 5 reunion where Rollo sprints across the River Run lawn and straight into John Quincy Myer’s arms, I will riot.

(I will not riot).

5) Murtagh tells a classic yarn about Jamie pashing his cousin

Let’s hope Jamie kissed all his cousins, because I could watch the Frasers sit around the table eating mashed potatoes and talking about their childhoods all flipping day. Set fire to the Idiot Hut and wave ta-ta to those distracting political shenanigans, because the simple, domestic togetherness of life on Fraser’s Ridge was perfection. Sunsets! Moonshine! Baby goats, as I live and breathe!

4) The White Sow eats Jamie’s tricorn

*single teardrop fall*

3) Murtagh is alive, ALIVE I TELL YOU

You could have coloured me surprised when old mate Murtagh popped up in a random blacksmiths, and seeing him reunite with Claire and Jamie made me as happy as a pig in mud eating a triangular hat. Please plait us into Murtagh’s long silver wig, so that he can never leave us again.

2) The Ghost of Frank

Brianna’s vision of Ghost Frank standing on the wharf took my breath away. The last time that happened was when Jamie looked through a telescope in season 3, so this was big news. That smile, those glasses, the way he hoovered down those cream scones during the hangover from hell. Frank can haunt me anytime.

1) Brianna interrupts Jamie’s back alley whizz

Forget that Jamie was taking a slash in an alleyway (WHY) and that he touched Brianna’s face with his piss hands. This moment was EVERYTHING.

Two centuries of hope and heartache were laid bare when Brianna and Jamie finally met in 1769. He was writing his name on the wall, she’d travelled through time, bumped into his ex-wife, farewelled her ghost dad, sailed across the ocean, married Roger and been sexually assaulted. The build-up was immense, Outlander played it perfectly, and Jamie and Bree cried a lot. They were probably hungry. I know I was.

Catch up on all of Tara Ward’s Outlander recaps here.

Keep going!