‘Outlander’ Recap Season 5, Episode 9: “Monsters and Heroes”

Outlander Season 5’s hottest episode is “Monsters and Heroes.” This episode has everything: a buffalo attacking a baby, a syringe made out of a snake fang, a handless Frenchman delivering a baby, a half-baked murder plot, a deathbed handjob…

Wait a second, let’s stop there for a second because it’s that last thing we need to discuss first and foremost. Of all the preposterous things Outlander has done during its run, having Claire’s (Caitriona Balfe), erm, handiwork bring Jamie (Sam Heughan) back from the literal brink of death really does take the cake. The fact that Claire’s first thought when Jamie told her he was cold and ready to say goodbye was to get naked and start giving him a rub and tug was truly classic. Even better was the fact that it actually worked. It truly was a moment from the show I’ll never forget, though likely not for the reason the writers may have intended.

Of course, we only got into this position (so to speak) because Jamie was too prideful to even imagine living without his leg should Claire have had to amputate due to the venomous spider bite he suffered on a failed buffalo hunt. It took Young Ian (John Bell) giving his Uncle Jamie a stern talking-to for Jamie to realize that maybe life was still worth living even without a leg. That and his plan to find and kill Stephen Bonnet (Ed Speleers), which he now believes is his purpose for being on earth. Shockingly, Claire’s methods of persuasion didn’t hold much weight in his decision.

Speaking of Bonnet, we should be reunited with him soon given how much he was mentioned throughout the episode. While nursing his bitten leg in the forest next to a still kinda useless (sorry but you know it’s true!) Roger (Richard Rankin), Jamie reveals that he believes Bonnet will try to claim Jemmy as his own and he’ll likely succeed. That’s why if he died, he wanted Roger to murder Bonnet before he has the chance to rip the family apart. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Roger is too much of a chicken — sorry, an intellectual diplomat — to think that’s a good idea. Let’s all be glad Jamie didn’t die then, because Roger being left as the man of the house would have been a next-level disaster.

“Monsters and Heroes” would have been a whole lot shorter had Claire still had her syringe with which to inject penicillin into Jamie’s leg as soon as he got back. Of course, the syringe was stomped on and destroyed during the Battle of Alamance Creek by Lionel Brown, so it seemed all hope was lost. Jamie’s leg was saved by the bell, however, when Brianna (Sophie Skelton) realized that the snake that bit Jamie (whose head Roger brought home with him, for some reason) had a hollow venom sack which could be used to help her dad.

We got what was perhaps a hint into Roger and Brianna’s future in this episode, as Outlander keeps pointing out to us just how ill-equipped Roger is to handle this world and Brianna finally admitted that she feels rather limited by living in the 1700s. These issues, combined with the fact that Bonnet will come back for Jemmy for sure, points to it being a pretty good idea for them to try to travel back to 1969-ish ASAP. Whether or not that will happen is another thing, but I couldn’t help but feel a bit of foreshadowing here, especially since the show isn’t particularly married to not going off-book.

In happier news, Marsali (Lauren Lyle) welcomed her third child, a healthy baby girl she and Fergus (Cesar Domboy) decided to name Felicity. It was a lovely ending to the episode, which seemed to be all about clinging to and recommitting to life, and especially given the earlier moment in which Marsali admitted she sees Claire as a mother, it was lovely to see everyone all together and happy, if only for a moment.

Jennifer Still is a writer and editor from New York who cares too way much about fictional characters and spends her time writing about them.

Stream Outlander Season 5 Episode 9 ("Monsters and Heroes") on Starz