Outlander: Blood of My Blood Episode 5 “Needfire” joins two soulmates together forever. Halfway through the latest episode of the Starz show, Brian Fraser (Jamie Roy) and Ellen MacKenzie (Harriet Slater) slip away from the Beltane festivities for a few sacred moments alone in a derelict chapel. There, they profess their undying love in two ways well-known to Outlander fans…
**Spoilers for Outlander Blood of My Blood Episode 5 “Needfire,” now streaming on Starz**
Yes, Jamie’s parents, Brian and Ellen, not only handfast to each other — much like granddaughter Brianna would do with future husband Roger — but they consummate their romance right there in the rundown church. It’s a beautiful, dizzying, passionate sequence of events that come together rather quickly for an 18th century couple, right? Sure, Henry Beauchamp (Jeremy Irvine) and Julia Moriston (Hermione Corfield) hop into bed together immediately, but that’s after they’ve exchanged tons of letters during the height of World War I.
Are Brian and Ellen moving a wee bit fast for a pair that’s only met in person a few times?
“Yeah, well, I mean, we know from Episode 1 that they’re making this promise together,” Blood of My Blood star Jamie Roy told DECIDER during a recent junket. “There’s going to be obstacles in our way, but we’re going to we’re going to go through them as they come, together, as a team.”
Roy was emphatic that Brian’s actions were born out of the love and respect he had for Ellen.
“He knows when they’re in that church the repercussions of what would happen and that could ruin her, but he trusts Ellen so much. She’s so strong-willed that he trusts that, if she says, ‘This is what I want,’ he’s going to take her at her word and be like, ‘Okay, well, I trust you. We’re in this together. We’re a team. We’re equals…I don’t know any better than you,'” he said. “They really have that trust together in that moment.”
“It does seem fast,” Harriet Slater said, “but at the same time, months have passed between them first meeting and seeing each other again.”
“Every scene together has so much weight because they don’t know when they’re going to see each other again. It could be months or maybe never. You know, the stakes are so high. Death is around the corner all the time.”
Death is not only a natural force in this 18th century world, but a violent one. Part of what inspires Ellen and Brian’s pledge to each other has to be the knowledge that she’s about to be promised to Malcolm Grant (Jhon Lumsden). The only reason the lovers are even able to meet is because Ellen attends Beltane with Malcolm. They can express their attraction for one another right in front of everyone so long as they don’t make it obvious. Indeed, there comes a moment in Blood of My Blood Episode 5 “Needfire” where Brian slyly dissuades Ellen from choosing him over Malcolm as “King” to her May Queen.
“Brian doesn’t have an ego, so it doesn’t matter to him if he was made king or not,” Roy said during a recent Zoom chat, before reiterating how much the couple’s love is built on trust. “He knows that he trusts Ellen. He knows that she loves him and she knows that he loves her. So they have that, you know, understanding.”
“So as much as Ellen, I think, wants to pick Brian, he gives her that sort of nod. Like, ‘Don’t be silly. Our lives are on the line. Like, we’re literally right next to the guy who… You know, these Grants could demolish us at any second.'”
During the junket, Slater also reiterated the danger the Grants pose to the couple. “They really are risking everything every time they meet because they’re dealing with the Grants, who are a very dangerous bunch.”
“So I think they’re really ‘all in’ and they just take every opportunity that they have,” Slater said. “Like Jamie said, they make that promise in Episode 1, on the bridge, that they’re all in. This is it.”
“But that scene in the chapel really is the point of no return, I think. It changes both of them and it changes their relationship completely.”
Brian and Ellen haven’t just made a sweet vow on a picturesque bridge. They’ve pledged themselves to each other in a holy place. Whatever happens next, they are bound to each other.