Outlander season 5 premiere: Where should it pick back up?
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When you think back to the stars of season 4, the writers made what we felt was a controversial choice, jumping forward enough time so that Jamie and Claire had a bit more of their legs under them in the New World. The reasoning for this seemed to be based mostly on a desire to push the narrative forward, and as much as seeing them making some contacts and getting some support would’ve been nice, there were only thirteen episodes to tell a story that could have easily used more than that. (Personally, we could’ve used at least five minutes for a montage at least showing how they got some of their new clothes or were able to make their way north after landing in America.)
With season 5 now, there is a pretty strong case for picking up almost immediately where the show left off with Jamie realizing that Governor Tryon wants him to hunt down his own good friend in Murtagh. It may not be something that he wants to do, but it may be something that there’s no escape from. When he took the land for Fraser’s Ridge, Jamie made a deal with a personal devil, one that could end up causing him to betray someone he cares about deeply. At the time the arrangement happened, he didn’t know Murtagh was out there, let alone that he was a part of the group in the Regulators who was so explicitly against the British. He was just doing what he felt needed to be done to avoid living out his days with Claire at River Run with slaves.
The case for picking up the story immediately – you get to see how Jamie, Claire, and others are feeling about their new predicament immediately, and then beyond that, perhaps learning about their early plans. On a different note, you will get a few of the first moments of Roger and Brianna together — they’ve had so little time to actually be a couple that it would be nice to figure out their relationship after so much time.
The case for jumping forward – Maybe the premiere picks up around the Gathering or back at Fraser’s Ridge as a means to continue to just push things forward. The writers likely realize that they can show how Jamie is feeling about his new orders rather than just leaving us in the moment — the same goes for Roger and Bree. One of the chief things that we’ve learned at this point is that the writers realize that they can do many wonderful things at once. They don’t need to just leave the characters at the same point they were in at the end of last season to express how they are feeling; they can juggle that with another event in the present. This is, more than likely, how season 5 will start — it also helps for them to have some sort of time jump just because there is so much time passing between one season and the next airing. All signs certainly point towards season 5 premiering in 2020, based on the fact that we’re really only to the point of filming kicking off now.
If you missed it…
Be sure to visit the link here to get more discussion all about the first table read of the season.
Do you think Outlander needs to orchestrate some sort of big time jump salvo at the start of season 5? Be sure to let us know right away in the comments, and remember to also check back soon so that you don’t miss any further updates regarding the series. (Photo: Starz.)