Outlander season 5 episode 9 review: Once bitten

This week’s Outlander finds Jamie battling a snakebite and Claire trying to figure out how to save him with 18th-century medicine.

It seems like I may be in the minority here, but I found this week’s Outlander to be one of the most ridiculous hours of television I’ve ever seen in my life.

As far as plot goes, little happens in this week’s episode. Jamie and Roger go hunting, Jamie gets bitten by a snake, Young Ian finds them and brings them back, and Claire then spends the rest of the episode figuring out how to save his life.

To be clear, not everything has to be in service of the plot. In fact, some of the best episodes of television are a complete departure from its central story and characters (Atlanta‘s “Teddy Perkins,” Girls‘ “One Man’s Trash,” Watchmen‘s “This Extraordinary Being” to name a few).

But the story should still deliver something new to its viewers about the world or its characters, and “Monsters and Heroes,” while a well-executed piece of television, fails to be groundbreaking in any way on this level. (Though, I guess that’s not what we really come to Outlander for, is it?)

There are some bright points in this episode, but for the most point, it’s a remarkably saccharine detour from Outlander’s usual fare.

It should be worth noting, I fully understand that maybe I am a heartless robot who no longer appreciates sentimentality. Maybe something in me has deeply changed over the course of this season (social isolation, perhaps?…) but the beats that are supposed to resonate, for the most part, didn’t.

Of course, I didn’t want Jamie to die, but part of the problem with telling a story that has zero stakes is the emotional payoff is pretty low. We know that Jamie isn’t going to die, so when Claire…warms him back to life, it’s not the swooning, heart-swelling moment Outlander wants it to be.

To me, it felt a little ridiculous instead. Claire is a doctor. Jamie is dying and she takes off her clothes instead of performing CPR? I know Outlander is based in an alternate reality, but there are still rules in which it must operate.

All that said, there are several high points, all revolving around character. (None of these involve Roger, I’m sorry to say. Though he and Jamie do have some nice moments in this episode, Outlander tries to spin up their bromance very fast and it feels out of left field.)

The first of these comes in the form of Marsali as Claire gives her a prenatal checkup with her and Fergus’s third bairn due any day. Marsali tells Claire she’s happy she’ll be there, not as her doctor, but as her ma and it’s truly one of the best character arc moments Outlander has had all season.

Related, I fully fist-pumped when Claire and Marsali had a full peer consultation on Jamie’s condition together.

(In fact, I originally typed something along the lines of “CLAIRE CONSULTING WITH MARSALI (AND MARSALI IN TURN BEING SUPER KNOWLEDGABLE AND COMFORTING HER) IS GIVING ME LIFE,” but that seemed a bit much.)

Catriona Balfe also delivers a fantastic performance in this episode. For my money, her best moment of the season so far is a lovely scene when Jamie has figured out he really must be sick since Claire is being so nice.

Balfe, with a restrained terror in her eyes, begins to scold him for getting bitten by the snake. And yet, try as she might, Jamie can see through it, but he plays along, too. A few moments later in the episode, grounded as it is, a buffalo runs onto the Ridge, too (only for Claire to soundly shoot it dead.)

The real MVP of the episode is Young Ian, though. (My how we missed the boy.) When it becomes clear that Claire must amputate in order to save Jamie’s life (again, though, zero stakes as we know neither event will occur), Jamie turns into a baby and says he’ll refuse to live without his leg.

And rightfully, Young Ian goes off on him, telling him that his Father and Fergus (both amputees) have more courage than he does, and he never thought he’d live to see the day he’d be disappointed in Jamie. It’s scathing, heartbreaking, and exactly the thing someone proud like Jamie needs to hear at that moment.

It’s even better when Ian goes to find Fergus and warn him he may not want to go see Jamie since his surrogate father isn’t being too sensitive at the moment. However, Fergus (runner-up for MVP) sweetly brushes off Ian’s concerns and says that what’s most important is to be there for Jamie.

On this note, we really don’t get enough Fergus and Marsali. César Domboy and Lauren Lyle give such lovely performances and bring a lot of warmth and humanity that would otherwise be lacking from Outlander. And they casually have their third child in the woods while all this nonsense is going on! What’s not to love?

Thankfully, Roger kept the snake that bit Jamie and Brianna is able to fashion a needle (her 1960s engineering degree comes in clutch) so Claire can give Jamie penicillin intravenously, preventing the need for amputation. All’s well that ends well (until the very near vengeance hunt for Stephen Bonnet and Revolutionary War, that is)…

Thoughts on this week’s episode of Outlander? Let us know in the comments.