Outlander season 4 character questions: The future of Richard Rankin’s Roger Wakefield

As we approach Outlander season 4, what will the future hold for Richard Rankin’s Roger Wakefield? Welcome to this week’s edition of our Outlander Character Questions series, where we engage in a spoiler-free discussion of what should be coming up next for a character based only where they are on the TV show. (If you missed the first edition last week with Murtagh, you can view that now over at the link here.)

Roger became a favorite character for us the moment we first saw him for a couple of different reasons — he has the intellectual charm of a friendly librarian mixed with the determination of a guy desperate to swim the entire English Channel. He’s a passionate, magnetic man with a good sense of humor and a capacity for a great deal of care. Also, Rankin’s an excellent actor — we first saw him on The Crimson Field and knew he’d be a great cast from the moment he was brought on board.

To call Roger essential to the Outlander story would be an understatement. Without him, Claire wouldn’t have learned about Jamie Fraser a.k.a. Alexander Malcolm’s whereabouts; with that, the majority of season 3 wouldn’t have happened. He changes history almost more than anyone! His future is also seemingly tied very much to the future of Brianna, and it’s fair to say that we are going to see a whole lot more of them moving into this new season.

As for what we’d like to see, much of that starts with finding a way to bring Roger and Bree back into the same orbit once more. While they clearly care for each other, they also have separate lives in different places and cannot see each other all that often. Now that we’ve seen Roger in America, it’d be nice to have Bree back in Scotland with him retracing some of her mother’s steps. We like the idea of Roger as this sort of conduit for the past, so maybe he will uncover more information about Jamie and Claire he can pass along. While Bree is still learning about her father Jamie, she grew up and knew Claire very well! She’s going to care where they are and Roger’s invested in that story, as well. He is also equally invested in Bree. Watching their relationship blossom will be key to the progression of the season 4 story.

Beyond just his relationship with Bree and the Frasers, though, we’d like for Outlander season 4 to serve as a chance to learn more about Roger’s own day-to-day life, who his friends are, and why he comes to care as much about history as he does. We’d like to see more of this world through his own unique point of view. It takes a special person to be willing to do much of what he did for Claire and Bree and not ask too many questions on the plausibility of time travel and the like. What allowed him to be so open-minded?

Would we like to see Roger in the past?

Absolutely, just as we would like to see him and Bree together and moving forwards towards a future. For now, though, our main priority is that season 4 should be the one where we get to see more of his story and understand larger what allowed him to become the person he is. Roger isn’t just an extension of someone else’s story; he is a great character in his own right.

What do you want to see regarding Roger Wakefield on Outlander season 4? Share in the comments below!

Meanwhile, be sure to check out this link in order to see our fun piece from yesterday as to why there should be an Outlander spoof on SNL. Meanwhile, like CarterMatt on Facebook if you want to book more insight on the show and others we cover. (Photo: Starz.)