Every episode of Outlander season 5, ranked worst to best

Outlander — Courtesy of STARZ

9. “Famous Last Words” Season 5, Episode 8

A huge round of applause for Richard Rankin on giving one heck of a performance in this episode! It was his strongest episode of the season and set the tone for what was to come.

After the Battle of Alamance, viewers had to wait two weeks to find out whether or not Roger survived after being kidnapped. At the top of this episode, we finally learned that Roger would indeed live to see another day. The only thing I didn’t like about that was that we had to wait for that news; it felt like the wrong time to keep us guessing.

Still, the episode does a phenomenal job taking us into Roger’s mind by using a “silent film” aesthetic. As he looks back on his near near-death experience, the moments play out for Roger as though they’re in a black-and-white silent film. Episodes like this really turned me around on Roger as a character.

That said, there were a couple of Roger moments here that confused and annoyed me; I find he has these moments often. He redeems himself only to be followed by moments of “what the heck is he doing?” Take his short trip with Ian, when Roger couldn’t seem to come to terms with what was going on inside his head. I think after all this time, it was peculiar that a secondary character had to make him see reason.

This brings me to the return of cousin Ian! He came back, and while it was extremely exciting, the episode failed to explain what prompted his return. It was very vague and alluded to a broken heart, but I wish there was more explanation. Whatever it was, I was just glad that Ian and Roger helped each other walk away from the edge. It’s perhaps the best part of this emotional episode.