Outlander Season 5 Episode 12 Review: Never My Love
Carissa Pavlica
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All you need is love. That's hokey, sure, but considering Ringo Starr played a part in Outlander Season 5 Episode 12, it's fitting.
It also applies because there was more love in this traumatic hour than many people will see in a lifetime.
It's the lack of love that makes people like the Browns see red.
When you have nothing tethering you to morality and decency, there's no reason to be moral or decent.
And the more you see others walking that line and the love that keeps them on the straight and narrow, the more disillusioned the unloved get.
You have to believe that everyone starts life wanting that kind of love, but finding it isn't easy. Some people give up, and the cost is their resulting unhappiness.
Sadly, people like the Browns affect the happiness of others, too, and it's their goal to make everyone suffer just like them. They can't see their way out of the darkness, so they drag everyone else down with them.
Lionel wanted to believe that Claire's actions as Dr. Rawlings is what made his wife unwilling to lay with him or produce a child. Unable to see in himself the dismal person he was, he lashed out at Claire instead of looking inward.
Seeing others happy when you're incapable of love yourself can drive you mad. Even someone as ugly as Lionel Brown can see the joyful and prosperous lives led by Jamie and Claire. That kind of pain, even when self-inflicted, only makes the ugly uglier.
Claire's pain manifested in a meaningful way as she incorporated the life she left with the love that keeps her in a dangerous time.
I'm sure it can be incorporated in many different ways, but my interpretation of Claire's imagination showed the people she's grown to love in her journey as they would be in her time without the burden of a society only burgeoning on civility.
Ian's honor remained intact even in her imagination as she set him as a hero willing to fight for his country.
A sighted Jocasta sharing her life with a living Murtagh revealed how much Claire has thought about the challenges they've faced merely based on circumstances of their time.
And the pain that Claire never showed as Bree and Roger and Jemmy left for the future manifested in their death. Claire was so steeped in the reality that she might never see her beloved family again that she couldn't even imagine a happy ending with them during her darkest hour.
But oh, how strong her love for Jamie and his for her remained no matter where they found themselves.
The comfort each brings the other simply by getting enveloped in a tangle of limbs is the kind of love everyone dreams about.
Over and over again in her mind, Jamie took Claire's wounded, tortured soul and made her whole again.
It's that love that gives Claire so much strength. It gives everyone in their family that strength, and it was alive and well when Claire needed it most.
Claire: I don't want you to worry about me. I'm just a little shaken.
Jamie: Claire, I ken what it feels like.
Claire: No! No. I have lived through a fucking world war. I have lost a child. I lost two husbands. I've been starved with an army, and I've been beaten, and I've been betrayed, and I've [groans and sobs] and been imprisoned, and I did not -- I survived. And this. I am supposed to be shattered by this? Well, I won't be. I won't.
Roger, not long ago unsure of his skills as a marksman and his ability to protect his family to the death, proudly stood by Jamie as he pledged on Outlander Season 5 Episode 1.
Roger: You called me at the gathering at the fire. Stand by my side, son of my house. Did you mean that?
Jamie: You ken I did.
Roger: Well, I meant it too. There are times for men of peace. There are times for men of blood. I will stand by you.
And when the fight was on, Roger was right there beside his family, ensuring that those who had hurt them would never get the chance again.
Ian didn't hesitate to honor his auntie, and Fergus, too, was in the thick of it. You don't win allegiance like that by treating people poorly. Jamie and Clarie have earned such allegiances through fair treatment and kindness, always treating others as they wish to be treated.
Jamie: She's bound by an oath. She may not kill for her own life. It is myself that kills for her.
Ian: And I.
Fergus: And I, milady.
Jamie: Who? How many?
Claire: I don't know.
Jamie: Kill them all.
Marsali, Claire's dear second daughter, who has been learning from Claire in so many ways, saw Claire's conflict between her oath to do no harm and allowing another human to get harmed by the monster who her.
It was almost as if Claire was sending an unspoken message to Marsali by moving that jar. Claire would never do that, asking Marsali to do what she couldn't, but she didn't need to ask.
Mistress Fraser has taught me well. She took an oath to do no harm. I have taken no such oath. You hurt me. You hurt my family. You hurt my man. I'll watch you burn in hell before I let you hurt another soul in this house.
Marsali
Marsali was just as hurt by Lionel Brown's actions as Claire, not physically, but because of the danger he created for those she loves.
Driven to action by love, both Marsali and Roger immediately showed remorse for what they had done. That's not a trait shared by the morally compromised.
Roger couldn't even look Bree in the face as he told her he killed a man. And Marsali broke down in Jamie's arms worried she'd be haunted by what she'd done or go straight to hell.
What a horrific combination of words to have to find within themselves and utter to another human being.
Roger
Allowing that man to hurt others would surely be treacherous than putting him out of his misery. Sometimes rules and laws seem so cut and dry when the reality is far more complex. Only those with a conscience can skillfully maneuver within that complicated framework.
When Outlander Season 5 Episode 11 ended, it never even crossed my mind that Bree and Roger's trip through the stones had a boomerang effect, but it makes perfect sense.
We wanted the stones to take us home, and they did.
Roger
Despite his earlier concerns, Roger had come to think of Fraser's Ridge as home as much as Bree. The stones work by thinking of where you want to go. Their desire to go home never changed, but their vision of home looked much different than when they first arrived.
Ending the hour on such a normal day, with Claire and Jamie looking out over their beloved family and friends on Fraser's Ridge is likely the last we'll see of them so peaceful.
Claire: I love you.
Jamie: When the day should come that we must part, if my last words are not I love you, you ken it's because I didn't have time.
Not only is the revolution just on the horizon, but Claire met another time traveler, Wendigo Donner.
He wasn't a just man, and his moral ambiguity and unwillingness to help Claire, coupled with his desire to go home, spelled bad news.
But for now, Claire is healing. She's surrounded by those she loves, and for as long as they can, she and Jamie will cling hearth and home, making a safe place for those they love.
What did you think of the Outlander Season 5 finale?
Can you believe it's already over?
You can watch Outlander online to relive the magic. Keep an eye on TV Fanatic for all the latest.
Thanks so much for sharing this journey. Here's hoping we all find love as full as that found on Fraser's Ridge. Until next season!
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.
