R/Outlander: A subreddit for the Diana Gabaldon book series and STARZ television show. Show S5E8 Famous Last Words. Show S5E8 Famous Last Words. The Frasers must come to terms with all that has changed in the aftermath of the Battle of Alamance Creek. 6 days ago 'Famous Last Words' will likely go down as one of the better episodes of Outlander. It's sad, but it's beautiful- and ultimately hopeful.
Episode 508: “Famous Last Words”
Written by Danielle Berrow, Directed by Stephen Woolfenden
“And I will stay up through the night
Yeah let’s be clear, I won’t close my eyes
And I know that I can survive
I walked through fire to save my life
And I want it, I want my life so bad
And I’m doing everything I can
Then another one bites the dust
It’s hard to lose a chosen one”
– Sia, “Elastic Heart” (2013)
It is difficult to watch the eighth episode of the season, “Famous Last Words,” and not think of where our society and world are right now with social distancing and new paradigms of communication and relationships. Hashtags such as #alonetogether and #flattenthecurve are meant to unite us in a shared agreement to modify our behaviors in order to combat an invisible threat that has no boundaries or victim profile. As we shelter in place, we are encouraged to reach out to friends and family and community members who may live alone through the computer and phone in fellowship and support and to conduct classes and meetings through online video and audio chats. The ultimate goal is to communicate together as much as possible while remaining physically isolated to preserve the threads of society that will help us come together again after the threat recedes, but we will never be as we were before.
The episode opens with Roger, who we last saw hanging from a tree after the Battle of Alamance, reviewing the assessments of essays with his students at Oxford in 1969 as Brianna observes from the sidelines. The theme had been to analyze the last words of a famous person and why they were meaningful. I always wondered if those famous last words of history really were the actual words that a person said after the alterations of time and culture and media. Furthermore, if there was proof of their last words, were they put into context for future generations to understand? As we’ve seen in science fiction films like Alien and horror films like Event Horizon, misunderstanding a verb or pronoun can lead to disastrous results. On a lighter note, what if it were a Seinfeld-esque situation where one’s last word is taken as profound and mysterious but really just referred to a brand of chocolate milk?
“People live and die by their words,” Professor Wakefield says, further mirroring our current situation, “they have impact…make them meaningful.” After the class is dismissed, he and Brianna agree to watch a marathon of silent movies, which transition to the structure of the episode back to that tree where we find out through dialogue panels meant to resemble a silent film that he did not die by hanging. Jamie feels him breathing, and Claire performs a field tracheotomy, which saves his life. “You’re alive,” Jamie tells Roger as he looks upon his wife and in-laws, “You’re whole. All is well.”
Three Outlander-universe decades and six years and four seasons ago, Jamie retreated to the darkness to cope with the rape of Black Jack and subsequent trauma. It took Murtagh, Father Anselm, and primarily Claire to bring him back. Roger’s near-death experience was shorter but more abrupt, enough so to almost transport him into another dimension where he is back at home but not as an active participant; rather, he responds to family and routine as an automaton, human in outward appearance but without energy or spirit. The hanging plays in his mind like a broken record, and in the brief reprieves where he doesn’t see it behind his eyelids, common household items like braided rope or creaking wood bring it up again. Amidst all this “mental noise,” he retreats into physical silence to survive; the pain of his tracheotomy scar gone, but the pressure of the scar tissue against his windpipe a constant emotional barrier that keeps the invisible bubble stable and family members at arm’s length.
Kudos to director Stephen Woolfenden and cinematographer Stijn Van der Veken for framing Roger almost claustrophobically tight, concentrating on his face while others talk over him or down to him with the best of intentions. In silent films, the dialogue is scarce since it has to be printed onto framed panels; in this episode, Woolfenden uses that to show how Roger has compartmentalized his traumatic experience into the bare minutiae of survival and the few stimuli which anchor his suppression.
As the Ridge tries to move on from Alamance, a familiar face returns, though not the same countenance as before. Young Ian (John Bell) is back from his time with the Mohawks, no longer a feisty, rascally young man but one who has aged only a few years physically but a few decades emotionally. If Roger chose his words carefully before, he seems downright chatty compared to Ian, who regards the Big House and cultivated fields of the Ridge as a former home with everything changed, and a growing extended family who care for him but are alien to the world from which he has just come. Ian is also haunted but for a different reason, one about which he tells his uncle Jamie, “I canna give you the truth of it now; I haven’t the words.”
I love how each family member does their best to reach out to Ian as they did with Roger: Claire is more practical, Jamie more endearing, Marsali pushier but in a gentle way. Ian certainly needs the bonds of family, or he would not have returned. Still, while his depression has caused him to retreat inward similar to Roger, his is an invisible prison of good rather than a prison of the familiar. For Ian, who has lost someone he deeply loved (not giving anything away), that person has become synonymous with feeling good and warm and joyous. In the after, anything that would cause him to feel good actually makes him feel bad, and that means a constant bombardment of radioactive particles – familial love, the comforts of home, kindness, laughter, physical touch – are slowly breaking him down spiritually and emotionally.
The surveying trip to plot Tryon’s land grant to the Mackenzie’s is accepted by both Roger and Ian, the former who needs to escape, the latter who needs to be released. As they work, they study each other, both recognizing shared traits and detecting true intentions. Each knows the other is at the breaking point (watch the framing in the scenes at camp, as they continue to be boxed in either my a canvas shelter or a thin woven blanket), but it takes a recognition of surrender (Ian buries his hatchet, a Native American symbol of making peace, and brews a tea from poisonous hemlock root) to cut the tension and literally break the silence. Ian chides Roger for wanting to leave a wife and child; Roger is firm on Ian to take up his weapon and fight his way out of his own darkness. The best line is when Ian confesses he doesn’t know how to do that, and Roger doesn’t give him an easy answer but rather advises him to fight, knowing that it will eventually lead to one.
I noted the different forms of verbal communication in the episode: funeral dirges, farewells, vows, cultural idioms, lullabies, terms of endearment, arcana readings, prayers, tête-à-têtes, confessionals. Then, there are the multitudinous nonverbal dialogues between spouses, friends, and fellow sufferers. There is what we say and what we mean, what is understood, and what is perceived. There are pauses and intonations and body language that can alter a message 180°. Furthermore, there are things we say that others may remember for the rest of their lives. As Aunt Jocasta tells Jamie, “How careful would we be if we kent which goodbyes were our last?” As steadfastly excellent as ever, in his brief scene Lord John (David Berry) gives Brianna an astrolabe intended for Roger, an instrument to “find our place in the world.” Many of us could use such an instrument right now, but as John advises, “We must have patience.”
NEXT WEEK, SUNDAY, APRIL 19TH AT 8 PM ET: EPISODE 509: “MONSTERS AND HEROES”
Photos and clips are courtesy of Starz.
Warning: The following contains spoilers from Sunday's episode of Outlander, 'Famous Last Words. Read at your own risk!After the heartbreaking death of Murtagh on, it would have been too much for the Frasers to handle if Roger had died in the Battle of Alamance as well. Thanks to some quick reflexes — and a miracle — Roger managed to slip two fingers under his noose after the British mistakenly had him hung for treason, saving him from strangulation and keeping him alive until Jamie and Claire arrived and cut him down from the tree we found him hanging in after the battle.Sunday's episode of Outlander, 'Famous Last Words,' focused on how Roger survived the unspeakable trauma of almost dying, and the three month period after he was saved as he tried to find his way back to normal living. Despite his throat and vocal chords healing after he was cut down, Roger spent most of the episode not talking. While he was physically OK, the mental and emotional damage of the situation left him with paralyzing PTSD as Brianna and the rest of the family tried to coax him back to his old self.However, it was only young Ian , returning to his family after staying with the Mohawks at the end of Season 4, who was able to pull Roger back to some semblance of self after the two headed out to outline Roger and Brianna's new property together.
When Roger found Ian attempting to take his own life, it finally pushed him to open up about his own trauma and admit what was stopping him from talking to Brianna, even months after the fact. Rankin delivers a powerful performance in the episode in which he's mostly silent. And Outlander got creative, not only with flashbacks to Brianna and Roger back in the 1960s, but framing the episode around old silent movies the couple used to watch in their own time.
It was Outlander at its best: emotional and thought-provoking as the show allowed Roger all the space he needed to figure out what this dark chapter means for the rest of his life. TV Guide spoke to Rankin about the game-changing episode, and what this means for Roger and the Frasers going forward.
Richard Rankin, Outlander Photo: Aimee SpinksWhat was your reaction when you first read the script for this episode?Richard Rankin: Fear and dread, I suppose, when I read the script, for a few reasons; I was always aware that this part of the story was coming. I just wasn't sure how it was going to be presented, what I might have to do, how I might have to take that on board and then try and deliver it to an audience. So, obviously there was an anticipation of that particular part of the story.
It's something that has often been talked about, but when I read Episode 8, I remember thinking, 'How am I going to do this? How am I going to do this? How am I going to tell the story?'
Roger is obviously the protagonist. Episode 8 is all about him and his psychological journey through this really, really sort of dark trauma.
I have do this without offering a word pretty much, for the entire episode. So, I thought, 'I have to tell such a strong story with clearly quite a lot going on with really quite complex emotions to be telling, silently.' Young Ian is the one to finally break Roger out of his depressive shell after everyone else has tried. What is it about him that is able to speak to Roger at this stage?Rankin: I think they see in each other a darkness that they don't like. It's a sort of reflection of themselves and I think it's not until you're shown something, shown a quality, shown something in yourself that you go, 'Oh wow, is that really how I am right now?
Is that really what has to come?' They don't like it, each of them. They see themselves in each other and they don't like it.
That's a really, really powerful motivator for them both to pick themselves back up, have that support in each other and carry themselves. I really like that relationship. I really like the way that they tell that story. How they come to that conclusion with that relationship with Ian and Roger is very interesting for me, and I thought it was a very clever way to pull them out of that hole.Roger was pretty determined to return back through the stones before this happened. Has this experience changed his mind on that front at all or is he more determined than ever to return back to his time?Rankin: When you see the end of Episode 8, he seems much more accepting of the situation, doesn't he? And I think one of the sort of main ports for Roger through the episode was that discovery, that realization, that acceptance of the fact that he has changed now.
His environment, his experience in the 18th century has changed him and adapted to that time. As much as he might not like that quality of himself, I think that's one of the things that has to accept — that he's a different man now.
In a strange way, he's probably less inclined to go back to his own time because he's been so affected by the 18th century.Has this experienced made him more prepared to inevitably face Stephen Bonnet?Rankin: Most definitely. It has hardened him as a man.
I think that's one of the great parts of his story. You see him evolve and adapt from Season 4 even, onward. He has a lot of troubles still to come and I think you really see him change through that journey. I think the Roger of now, post-Episode 8, is going to be much more equipped to deal with anything of that time, especially Stephen Bonnet, than say Roger of Christmas in Boston in Season 3.How does Roger's evolution change his relationship with Brianna going forward?Rankin: They are just such a solid team.
I like that about them in Season 5. I think you really see why they love each other, and just how united they can be, and just what they can achieve. Obviously Episode 8 is quite salty for Roger, but I think the outcome of that is only going to be better for them as a team, as a couple. They're always accepting of each other, and they're always very understanding of each other.
And Roger kind of outright says to Brianna, 'You're going to have to accept me for the man that I am now. He's not going to be the Roger that you were looking for, or that everyone else was looking for.'
And she's with him on that. That just brings them closer together, and they'll be stronger for it.Outlander continues Sundays at 8/7c on.