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Outlander Recap: “Journeycake”

By Rueben | May 4, 2020

We are getting to the end of season 5 of Outlander with the penultimate episode, written by Diana Gabaldon herself, airing on Starz last night.

There was a lot happening in this episode and nearly all of it took place on Fraser’s Ridge. However, the episode opened in the autumn of 1772 with Jamie, Claire, Roger and Brianna returning home (seemingly coming back from Wilmington and the whole ordeal with Stephen Bonnet); but during their trek, they discovered the burned out remains of a cabin.

Inside that cabin they, unfortunately, found the bodies of three people, one of whom was killed with an arrow; it appeared they were killed by Indians, but that conclusion was clearly in doubt by the Frazers and MacKenzies.

In searching the immediate area for any other victims, Roger found a badly burned young little girl lying just beyond the cabin. As Jamie said a prayer for her soul, Roger covered her mouth to allow her suffering to end. The Fraser family then gave the victims a proper burial and headed home to the Ridge.

Next we saw Ian and little Jemmy playing with the opal that once belonged to Otter Tooth, the Indian who visited Claire during that storm after she found his remains; the same Indian who was important to some of the Mohawk. The little boy was seemingly having so much fun playing with his cousin until he touched the stone, and yelled out that it was hot. Brianna obviously reacted quickly, rushing to her son, who soon enough covered his ears saying he could hear something. Naturally Brianna, Roger and Claire reacted to Jemmy hearing the sound of the stones (the buzzing they alone can hear) moments before the opal broke apart.

It was immediately apparent that Jemmy was a traveler just like his parents and his grandmother; and it was just as apparent that neither Jamie nor Ian could hear the sound near feel the heat of the opal. All of their reactions was not lost on Ian, of course, who eventually came to his uncle and auntie, wanting to know what was going on; wanting to know who or what Claire really was.

After all those years, and his learning a long time ago never to ask too many questions, he finally had some serious questions for them. It was also then that Ian presented his aunt and uncle with a book the Mohawk had given to him; a book that was written mostly in Latin by Otter Tooth. As Claire looked at the pages, she could see that Otter Tooth had written it with a ball-point pen. Claire and Jamie revealed the truth to Ian about when Claire is from, that Murtagh knew the truth, and as Jamie closed the parlor doors, obviously gave Ian all the details he needed to know.

The family was also visited by Lord John Grey who came to tell Jamie that he was leaving for London – which is where William is attending school. William’s grandfather at Helwater died and John needed to go there to deal with the estate, an estate that will go directly to William when he is of age. John gave Jamie a new portrait of William, who is growing up fast, and looking more and more like his birth father: Jamie. Jamie then decided to share the truth of his son with Brianna – before her departure – and then Brianna talked to John, who shared with her that he was taking his new manservant – Ulysses (who had to flee River Run because of the murder of Gerald Forbes) – to England with him where he could live as a free man rather than a hunted slave in America. Earlier in the episode, Ulysses showed Claire and Jamie a document that made him a free man MANY years earlier, signed by Jocasta and, ironically, Gerald Forbes. He chose, though, to stay with Jocasta despite that document.

Given that Jemmy can travel, and the fact that Brianna promised Roger once they knew if the little boy could go through the stones with them, that they would return to their own time. The plans to do so were set in motion with the couple telling those “not in the know” that Roger got a job as a university professor in Boston – keeping the story as close to the truth as possible – and that they would leave in a month’s time. The hardest part was telling all those they love goodbye, especially those “not in the know” – Lizzie, Fergus and Marsali (who is pregnant AGAIN! – Jamie wasn’t kidding when he said that Fergus just had to look at her to get her pregnant).

When the time came to leave, Roger and Brianna asked Ian to accompany them in order to bring the horses and wagon back to the Ridge. During the wait for their departure, Ian asked Claire if he would be able to go back in time – referencing a wife that he had never mentioned to them before (although he alluded to a woman to Roger when they were marking the new territory) – but Claire told him that – just like Jamie – he couldn’t. Needless to say, Ian was upset and right after Roger, Brianna and little Jemmy disappeared before his eyes at the standing stone – which Roger found during his ordeal with the Mohawks – he attempted to touch the stones, but didn’t travel anywhere. Roger, Brianna and little Jemmy DID travel, but it was unclear where in time they landed, and given Roger’s reaction to seeing something in the distance, perhaps they didn’t end up in the right time??

Elsewhere in the episode, the Brown family came to the Ridge, asking Jamie to join them in a new committee of safety – a different version of the Regulators that planned to keep the settlements in the area protected from the recent raids on homesteads, including the one that Jamie and the family came upon. The tables were turned that the Browns were coming to Jamie – much the way he came to them when he had to create the militia – but instead of agreeing to join them, Jamie turned them down. That decision turned catastrophic as some of the men from that “committee” arrived at the Ridge, taking Claire by force while the Jamie, Josiah, Fergus and one of the other men from the Ridge were distracted by an explosion at the whiskey still.

The final scene was Jamie racing like the wind up to the fiery cross erected at the highest point on the Ridge to call all of the men to war. It’s not ironic that he didn’t light that cross when he needed the militia nor when he needed men for the Battle at Alamance, but when his wife was taken, THAT was his call to war.

It should be noted that the episode title “Journeycake” is actually a reference to the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that not only Claire and Brianna both had during their journeys back in time, but also the PB&J sandwiches that Claire “created” in 1772 for the entire family to have. It was quite comical watching Jamie hit the sandwich with a knife and fork, making a comment about not liking the taste.

The other comical moment in the episode was Jamie looking through Claire’s microscope at the “wee beasties” that turned out to be his own sperm that she “woke up in custody of them”. Oh, and that love scene in the window frame while Claire was suffering from a hot flash (she is of menopause age, after all) was quite titillating too.

What are your thoughts on the penultimate episode of Outlander? Please share your thoughts in our comments section below.