Outlander season 5 spoilers: The path paved for Brianna’s future

With Outlander season 5 coming, you will have a chance to look towards new horizons … but also still remember what is on the road behind you. All of these characters are a product of their experiences, and many of them are devastating. Look at what happened to Jamie at the hands of Black Jack Randall, think about the loss of faith, or look at the horrific things that happened to Brianna in Wilmington. These shape who these people are, and they don’t have the ability to just shove them out of their minds and bury them deep within the ground.

That’s why for Sophie Skelton’s character in season 5, the past isn’t gone, and nor is it forgotten. She’s still going to be working her way through some of what happened. Speaking on that subject via Parade, here is what she had to say about her future:

But for Bree, she’s still struggling, obviously, with her PTSD [from her rape at the hands of Stephen Bonnet (Ed Speelers)]. So, we’re still showing that, but she’s now at a different stage of it. It’s really wonderful to play how women’s ways of dealing with things can progress, or regress. And, then, she’s a mother now, too, so, I think that’s a great thing to play.

Obviously, Bree has to grow up a lot, which she did in season four. In season four, we saw 16-year-old Brianna, who’s a very lighter version of herself, grieve Frank’s death, then a guilty version of herself after Frank’s death, and now she’s really having to put all of her energy and all of her focus into Jemmy and that’s an amazing thing to play.

Seeing Bree really grow up as a woman, having this baby to take care of, and in a lot of ways she ends up being a bit of a single mom because Roger’s away, doing what Roger’s doing, so Brianna often gets left on her own, which she really takes in her stride.

We would imagine that one of the greatest hardships in Brianna’s journey pressing onward is the cloud of uncertainty around Bonnet in the first place. While it may have appeared as though the character is dead, nobody knows that to be fact. That is what makes this whole situation is incredibly difficult. There’s this perception that may not be real and that may produce that sort of terrible, looking-over-your-shoulder feeling where you never quite feel as stable or as happy as you really should.

As for the idea of Brianna having to care for Jemmy at times by herself, in some ways that may be a consequence of an era in which travel is not anywhere near as easy. When you’re away within the world of Outlander, you are away — you cannot just hop in a car and return. We don’t exactly think as though Roger is out somewhere toasting the town that he is away from his family, no matter what he is up to in season 5. This is just a byproduct of where everyone is this season, where the threat of war is looming and with the Frasers intent on turning Fraser’s Ridge into a real thriving community — and not just a small settlement for the family out far away from any others.

Book spoiler alert

For those familiar with the source material, you know that Bonnet will come to torment Brianna and others once more — there is no guarantee the series will move in that direction, but our assumption is that they would. By no means is this a character anyone wants to see again from a standpoint of likability, he is one of the most notorious cockroaches in the Outlander world. Right when he’s about to die, he somehow finds a way to still breathe. All of it stems from the beginning of season 4, when Jamie and Claire made the decision to help — one that likely keeps them up late at night in retrospect.

Photo: Starz