Outlander Season 5 Episode 5 Review: Perpetual Adoration
Carissa Pavlica
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It's easy to see why Claire has such an affinity for Roger after better understanding what led her back to Scotland after her life with Frank.
While not entirely moving the plot forward, Outlander Season 5 Episode 5 detoured to allow Claire a moment to reflect on the passage of time and how she wound up where she is now.
It also better aligned Jamie with his position within the fledgling colonies that will become the United States.
I'm not convinced that the series has done the best job of incorporating Brianna and Roger into the story.
Having forgotten their arrival in the books and never reading beyond a certain point, I'm unclear how they were portrayed within the books.
But I have to believe that since they're such an integral part of the longer story being told, that they were more loved and accepted within the novels than they are on screen.
It's not that I don't like either of them, but more that their characters aren't as well drawn as Claire and Jamie. There is room for them to evolve, but I have to wonder if they'll be gone from the past before that time arrives.
All of this is to preface that it sometimes seems odd that Claire cares so much for Roger, often contradicting Brianna in support of Roger. Brianna would stay in the past forever, for example, but Claire stands by Roger in his desire to take him family back to the safety of the future.
Of course, that could be only because both Claire and Roger have Brianna and Jemmy's safety first. But after "Perpetual Adoration," it seems to be more than that.
Claire is still wrapping her head around the fact that she's playing God within the time frame that was settled where she was born. History proved that penicillin was created at a certain point, and its curative powers changed the course of civilization.
Now Claire is changing that course as she has found and implemented the usage of penicillin 150 years before its initial discovery.
But given how poorly their attempts to tempt fate went in the past, she's also reminded that even something as powerfully helpful as penicillin also has its downside.
A downside that ultimately changed the course of her natural life forever when she grew close to a patient that reminded her of her lost love. It's funny how one event can lead to another and life snowballs around you.
Claire: He reminded me of someone. Someone I lost.
Priest: No one's lost who is not forgotten.
Claire: Perhaps I just needed to be reminded of that.
Getting reminded of Jamie after years of trying to accept he was gone forever was a fluke. It was medicine gone wrong. If Graham Menzies (a tribute to Tobias Menzies??) hadn't lost his life to penicillin, her reaction to the Scot might not have been as revelatory.
And if she hadn't experienced first hand the downside of using a widely known curative drug like penicillin, she wouldn't have gone abroad again to get reacquainted with all that she lost.
That, in turn, would have kept Roger from entering their lives, an entrance that changed Claire and Brianna significantly.
Not only does Claire owe her happiness to Graham and penicillin, but she also owes it to Roger, who alerted her to the lone survivor of the Battle of Culloden. OK, I don't really know if Jamie was the lone survivor, but it sounded very good!
Claire is tempting fate again by inventing penicillin. She's pondering time and its relation to Godliness. It's a philosophically rich narrative, and those are fascinating discussions to have.
Being that close to the flood of feelings that Claire encountered from the time she lost her patient to going back through the stones, she was in exactly the right frame of mind to help Roger reframe his reaction to Brianna's admission of sharing Jemmy with Bonnet.
Brianna: Because, because I told him that Jemmy was his. I thought that he was going to die, and I thought that it would be of comfort to him to know there'd be something of his left in this world. Roger, I am so sorry. I am so sorry. I didn't know if you were coming back, and I was scared, and I was grieving for you. They are just words. Words that you need never to hear.
Roger: Words have consequences. All these months since I've been back. At the wedding. The blood oath. You were sure the child was Bonnet's.
Brianna: Roger, how could I ever know for sure that Jemmy is his?
Roger: You told him so. You've never said as much to me.
Brianna: I didn't think I needed to.
Roger: Brianna, what do you truly believe? In your heart, what do you truly believe?
There was no other obvious way for Roger to react to learning that Brianna shared something so personal with Bonnet or that she dared to think, even if it was only on what she believed to be the man's deathbed, that Jemmy was Bonnet's over Roger's.
That didn't make any of it any easier to watch or absorb. Still, at that point in her world, Brianna didn't know what her future held. Roger was as gone to her as Bonnet was about to be, so what did it matter what she said to whom?
If Claire and Roger didn't share a bond born out of her appreciation at meeting him, she might not have gotten him to see that sometimes, lies are beneficial.
Brianna couldn't have understood her parentage before she was an adult. It was almost fantastical, so trying to explain it to a child was pointless when what they needed most was love and security.
That's what Jemmy needs now, and Roger knows that. And the lie that Brianna told was one of omission under the belief that what she told Bonnet would die with him. Nobody could have expected him to get out of that situation alive.
But the truth coming to light now works in Roger's favor. He's wanted to return through the stones as soon as possible.
Now, with Bonnet on the loose and Brianna's fears on high alert, she's on the same page. Keeping Jemmy in the past with a psychopath after their family isn't an option when there is a way out.
And it's not as if everything else is easy going in the colonies.
They're on the brink of a revolution, and Jamie's place in that revolution was secured when he finally chose a side.
That's unfair. Jamie has always been on the side of the upcoming revolution, but there is no turning back for him after killing Knox. If we know one thing about Jamie Fraser, when he's all in, he's all in.
He's been toeing the line trying to straddle the interests of the crown to keep the peace and get information while still protecting Murtagh while simultaneously pushing him away and hunting him.
Jamie: Believe of me what you will, but Murtagh Fitzgibbons Fraser is a good man.
Lieutenant Knox: As God is my witness, I will do what must be done. Damned if I'll be in league with a traitor!
Jamie: I'm no traitor. I've cheated death in the duty of other men's ambitions. I've got the scars to prove it. And I've done so without complaint, but I will not stand by and watch my kin hunted like a dog for protecting those who can't protect themselves.
It's not been easy for Jamie, and killing someone in cold blood is going to weigh on him far more than it weighed on Knox for killing the Scot in prison.
Jamie is a serious man, but he also has to protect his interests and those of his family, and releasing that list Knox had wasn't an option.
At least Jamie knew that Knox had already killed indiscriminately, so killing him could be justified as an eye for an eye. That kind of death wasn't unheard of in that time.
But even worse, it's indicative of what Jamie will have to face as the revolution continues to build. People are taking sides already. Jamie and his men weren't welcome in Hillsborough until they shared they were with the Governor.
It's interesting to note that the revolution was more of a propaganda war than military battles.
We know that Jamie and Claire can be downright persuasive when it comes to getting people to follow their lead, and it's likely people much like them who won the hearts of the people to create the United States.
I mean, who wouldn't love a man who can kill someone one second and rescue a kitten the next?
Jamie is full of contradictions, but only if you're not looking closely to get the fuller picture of the man he is in his enormous heart.
From what I know of the books, Roger and Brianna aren't set to go back through the stones this early. Does that mean we're in for a showdown with Bonnet?
Or might the series take a different tact with the couple much as they did with Murtagh?
Are you eager to see the American Revolution unfold on Outlander?
How do you expect Murtagh's future to expand?
I'd love to hear from you, so drop a comment below by clicking the blue bar that says "show comments."
And if you want to see more of this fabulous story, you can watch Outlander online via TV Fanatic.
Carissa Pavlica is the managing editor and a staff writer and critic for TV Fanatic. She's a member of the Critic's Choice Association, enjoys mentoring writers, conversing with cats, and passionately discussing the nuances of television and film with anyone who will listen. Follow her on X and email her here at TV Fanatic.
