Ruin Me – Outlander: Blood of My Blood Ep 5 Review
I just realized last episode that Colum’s story about Graham Finley “disappearing” after refusing to marry Isaac Grant’s ugly daughter, Maura – is Dougal’s future wife!
Outlander: Blood of My Blood Episode 5 Review
That knowledge gives an even (funnier) context now to the fact that Dougal despises Jamie in Outlander and tried to covet his wife twice – once before the wedding, and after the wedding night. We won’t count the “marry me for protection” thing when Jamie was gone because Claire being offered a marriage for protection is almost a central plot point of the story thus far (Jamie from Randall, Lord John from court, etc.).
Maybe that’s why Dougal is eternally salty towards his nephew – he’s still mad at his sister Ellen for eloping with Brian Fraser while he got stuck with a marriage duty to the “ugly” Grant daughter from the clan he loathes.
Dougal’s unhappy marriage aside – My oh my what an episode this was! We got Julia getting stuck at the castle and hearing the prophecy about Claire, Jamie, and their future offspring (their grandson Jemmy?) being a Scottish King, and we got Murtagh telling Jocasta he “wants to be wanted” only to fumble the bag and call her Ellen.
Lots of jealousy as well, this episode. Brian misunderstood Julia’s intentions and thinks Julia is carrying another bastard to rival his claim. Mistress Porter decided to be an absolute nightmare wrought with jealousy over Julia’s child before being put in her place by Lord Lovat.
I mean, I know all of these Scottish Lairds are presenting as crazy (especially the Grants) and Brian even confirms to Ellen that his father Simon is cruel, but I can’t get over how Lord Lovat listened to Mistress Porter’s concerns with a smile before confirming that he was the only one she told of her suspicions surrounding Julia’s baby’s paternity in order to properly inform the good Mistress that he would slit her throat if she ever spoke about his royal son again.
That scene was wild.
Based on what Ned and Henry spoke about – is Davina Porter the woman Lord Lovat is accused of kidnapping and raping? And Ned seemed to imply his ill repute and Lovat’s own actions are why he lost status and his former castle, not by any actions attributed to Red Jacob.
I also don’t know if I’m reading this correctly or not, but is the show trying to hint at the fact that Ned Gowan might be gay?
The brothel scene hinted that he has a specific preference or act he enjoys since the Madam simply asked “your usual?” and he agreed. The men setting up for the Beltane festival needed help and Ned, alongside Ellen and Jocasta, pretended that he was one of the girlies and admitted that he would be no help with the manual labor.
Then Ned used no pronouns while recounting his Edinburgh love story to Henry…is this the assumption we are to make about Ned’s character?
By the time Claire gets to the Highlands, Ned Gowan is a kindly, but unmarried older man with a cough who has dedicated his entire life to Clan MacKenzie. We can conclude that he never fell in love again, or he would have left his clan duties to be with the one he loved.
Ned was kind of a horndog like the rest of the clan members in Outlander, though. The wedding dress scene comes to mind when he was telling Claire how he found her an unworn Lady’s dress in a brothel, but then again Ned could have just embellished the part where the whores were coming onto him and he obliged after securing the deal for the dress with the Madam.
Then again, maybe Ned just likes some variety every now and then – who is to say, really?
The last point I wanted to talk about was Ellen’s dream of her and Brian in the ruined chapel basically came true. It’s funny, Brian and Ellen met on Beltane in a ruined chapel and Ellen wants to (and does) go all the way with Brian, while Brian is focused on not being the reason his father is able to ruin Ellen’s reputation.
Brian gives Ellen the abridged version of those internalized thoughts and tells her he “doesn’t want to ruin her” and Ellen literally says nah, “ruin me”.
Ellen told Brian during…pillow talk on the ruined mossy chapel floor that all her life, she’d had no real agency. People have always told her how to act, behave, dress, and now her brothers are controlling her life. While I can agree with the latter part, how has Ellen MacKenzie – the most sought after woman from that clan – been a person with no agency?
Ellen was Red Jacob’s favorite and during his funeral, everybody acknowledged her loss in status.
According to Jocasta, Ellen is (partially) responsible for her marriage to the old and sickly John Cameron. Ellen claimed John was the better candidate amongst who their father was going to marry her off to, and now I am wondering why (or how) Jocasta married two other Cameron’s after John’s death.
Was that Colum and Dougal’s doing to secure the Cameron alliance through Jocasta by any means necessary?
Also, I think Murtagh could have had a chance to be loved in his youth if he had just gotten over Ellen sooner. Or, at all, really. Jocasta has held a torch for Murtagh since this prequel it seems, and I’m sure in between her Cameron marriages he could have taken her had he really wanted to – and we all know Jocasta would have eagerly agreed.
There’s nothing wrong with Jocasta – she’s a soft spoken woman with pretty light eyes and dark hair – I guess the only problem is that she’s “just not Ellen”.
Is that why Jocasta was going to leave River Run to Jamie? To atone for the way she treated Ellen in life through her only surviving son? Not to mention, none of the bairns Jocasta so desperately wanted survived the Jacobite raids after Culloden.
Jocasta was left with nothing after Culloden and then even Murtagh left her after dying in the war. It’s a shame really how both Jocasta and Ellen’s lives turned out. I was thinking back to how Brian ended up having a heart attack and dying after seeing Jamie being flogged by Black Randall at Fort William, and I wish that story had a better outcome.
Sure, it’s realistic and eventually Jamie meets Claire and has a happy ending – but so much sadness and hardship visited that family, and for what reason, exactly?
Do you think Julia, Henry, Brian, Ellen, and Jocasta all deserved better out of life?
Let me know your thoughts and leave them in the comment section below! And follow us for more Outlander: Blood of My Blood Episode Reviews!
Until next time ~
“This world is a shadow of the real one”.
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