Let’s Speculate on Outlander Season 6

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Amy

Amy takes pride in being a grumpy optimist. Want to…

With Outlander production halted, we have no idea when we get to put our eyeballs on Season 6. But what is time anyway? Put a face mask on your calendar.

So the other big question is, Will S6 be the last? We thought so, but then last week, Maril Davis tweeted something like, “Heart emoji, love, fans, five seasons, and here’s to many more.”

My love of #woo hasn’t given me psychic powers (yet), so I’m just going to speculate one season at a time. I had always assumed Season 6 was the wrap, so Caitroina Balfe could go make movies with Greta Gerwig while Sam looked for scripts with the words “pew pew” in them. Do the stars want to be making this show four or five years from now? Shhhhhh . . . did you hear that? It was Cait whispering, “Noooooooooooo.”

This post contains SPOILERS!

Who Did What Now?

For this piece, I had to do research, because in my mind, the events of A Breath of Snow and Ashes and Echo in the Bone run together like syrup and bacon on a breakfast plate. I’ve re-kilted twice, and if you held a gun to my head, asking me which book Claire is in a New Bern gaol, I would go ahead and start picking out clown portraits for my Icelandic bungalow in The Good Place.

So to those people who make Outlander wikis, I salute you!

In season 5, we left The Fiery Cross and have moved well into ABOSAA with the Committee of Safety and the kidnap and rape of Claire. Bonnet is dead; praise be (!) we don’t have to endure any more of that story line.

If this is indeed the last season, I hope they keep Jamie and Claire together as much as possible, by making Claire the focus. Claire in the background, offering melodramatic self-help quotes she stole from “girlboss” Instagram, is not good TV.

Here are some other things I would love to see in S6:

Something in the Ether

Claire creating ether to boost her surgery game is some very good #ridgeshit. Playing mixologist with a barrel of alcohol and oil of vitriol let’s Claire be Claire. It could also add tension, allowing Claire to push through the fear of being Dr. Rawlings, to continue to help the people of the Ridge even after her brutal treatment by Lionel Brown & co.

We could see her being afraid to use the ether until forced, when Amy McCallum’s son comes down with a case of appendicitis. Claire embodies a healer, a witch, and Jesus in that scene. Lazarus . . . come forth!

Henri-Christian

Henri-Christian is one of my favorite characters in the books, and his birth will allow Marsali to shine even more. I am here for Marsali Mamma Bear. Nobody puts Henri-Christian in a basket!

Seeing Fergus struggle with being the father to a child with dwarfism will give him the screen time he has been needing.

Roger the Vicar

Please let Roger figure out real quick in S6 that he is meant to be a man of the cloth. He needs a vocation, and if he doesn’t find one soon, he’s going to start asking Lizzie, “Have you ever heard of a man called Jordan Peterson?”

Lizzie’s Favorite Number Is 3

I had just taken a mouthful of raw spirit. At this, I choked, sputtering whisky down my chin.

“They what?” I croaked, wiping my face with a corner of my cloak. “You mean . . . both of them?”

Lizzie might look all prim and proper, but underneath that pale yellow veneer, this girl is on fire. The Beardsley twins went to the woods to set a rabbit trap but accidentally set a thirst one instead.

One of the twins knocks Lizzie up, and since all dicks look alike in the dark, she hasn’t a clue who is the father. Oh Maury! Using trickery, she gets Jamie to hand-fast her and Kezzie, and then has Roger marry her and Jo. If this were 2009, these three would have a show on TLC.

“What’s a bigamiss?” Jem inquired.

“A very large young lady,” Roger said.

Wee Ian in Love

Though he doesn’t meet Rachel Hunter — the Quaker, not the Aussie model — until Echo, Ian deserves some love in S6.

Episode 1, let Ian take Bree to find the woolly mammoth and unload on his grief about his Mohawk wife, Emily. Let him heal, and then let him find his person.

Mandy. The person, not the dog in the Barry Manilow song

We did not go through Roger/Bree/Jemmy’s first attempt of trying to go back through the stones for nothing.

Imagine the scene: Bree lays her hands across her belly and looks wistfully at Roger. Roger, being so in tune emotionally and physically with his wife, says, “Och, did you eat too many under-cooked turnips again?” Six months later, the turnip, Mandy is born.

After Claire discovers that Mandy has a heart defect that she cannot repair — ether or no — the MacKenzies attempt to travel through the stones again. In ABOSAA, they travel two by two. First Bree and Mandy, and then Roger and Jemmy. Maybe that was the trouble, that unlike Lizzie, the stones do not like a menage.

This is a good way to end on a cliffhanger. Will Bree find her way to Lallybroch so she can join every single English literary character in complaining about their old AGA range?

The Family Christie

The Christie’s bring a lot of drama in ABOSAA. Thomas Christie is secretly in love with Claire, which he handles by being a dick to her. Allan Christie is raping his sister, Malva, and when she gets pregnant, she says Jamie is the father. Then Malva turns up dead, and the Browns swoop in and blame Claire. Thom then swoops in (so much swooping!) and takes the blame for the murder, saving Claire’s life. The real killer? The rapist brother, Allan. Wee Ian kills him. Whew! That is a lot.

Will we see all this play out in S6? Is there a rape? Yes. Do the writers listen to fans asking for no more rape? Nope. So . . . welcome to the Ridge, Christies!

Wendingo Donner

We know he ain’t dead. He didn’t hurt Claire, but he didn’t help her either.

I would love to see an episode from the perspective of Donner. The White American government has been no better than Hitler’s regime when it comes to treatment Native Americans, and the Donner party’s goals were pure. But when tossed into a unknown, mostly lawless time with no real tools save a ball-point pen, Donner ending up with bad folks for survival is very believable.

The Fire

Every episode should open with a countdown, like an advent calendar for conflagration.

117 days until January 21, 1776
56 days until January 21, 1776
3 days until January 21, 1776
312 days past January 21, 1776

The house actually burns down on December 1776. Can you imagine the Big House Christmas decor that is going to combust? It’s going to be a glitter/clove/evergreen massacre.

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