Outlander Season 7 has returned and each of the two episodes released so far has been a constant rollercoaster for Richard Rankin‘s Roger MacKenzie. Roger, alongside his cousin, Buck (Diarmaid Murtagh), have traveled back in time to search for Roger’s kidnapped son, Jemmy (Blake Johnston-Miller). The mid-season premiere saw the pair landing in the wrong time period, with constant shocking revelations following. Friday’s episode was no different, as Roger’s world turns upside down even further, as he realizes that the faerie man who he’d presumed to be Rob Cameron (Chris Fulton) – the man who kidnapped Jem – was in fact his own father.
Friday’s episode began closing out with Roger receiving his father’s dog tags from Graham McTavish‘s Dougal MacKenzie, before his kinsman ventured into seclusion with Geillis Duncan (Lotte Verbeek). It presents the possibility of a likely reunion between Roger and his father, who he believes is long dead. Calling the moment both “complex and profound” for Roger, Rankin goes on to explain to RadioTimes.com what that means for his character. “I think that’s a very complex moment,” Rankin said. “It’s a very profound moment when he gets those dog tags because the realisation that his father might be in the 18th century throws a lot of things up in the air for Roger, a lot of things that he’s believed.” Adding, “He believes his father died when he was very young flying a Spitfire that came down over Europe in the war. I think there’s a lot of disbelief for him, and to then come to the conclusion that hang on, the body was never found, so he must have himself made his way through
stones and been trapped back here.”
Roger is the son-in-law to Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan), Claire (Caitríona Balfe), and had he landed in the correct timeline, would have expected to meet Jamie’s sister, Jenny (Kristin Atherton) at Lallybroch, alongside her brother and his wife. However, Roger’s present predicament brings to the fore several scenarios regarding the welfare of his father and son. He adds:
“But that obviously leads to a lot of other potential conclusions: Is Jemmy then not here? Is this the Jeremiah that we’ve been attached to because you need that sort of anchor point when traveling through the stones? Or, is Jemmy somehow safe with him if his father is still alive and still well in that time? Because talking about the 18th century and to travel there back alone, presumably without the knowledge of it happening, presumably his father hasn’t done that more than once. Then he could be leading it to a kind of a dead end or leading them to the conclusion that his father may have suffered a fate there. So it asks a lot of questions, I think, and it becomes quite a complicated point in the story for Roger to try and piece these things together, struggling on trying to find Jemmy, but I think it’s starting to look a little less likely that Jemmy himself is there so that starts to worry Roger quite quickly as well.”
Chaos Pulls Roger Closer to the Divine
While the theme of faith is strong for those who are residents of the 18th century in the Frasers and MacKenzies. It isn’t quite the same for the likes of Claire, Roger, and his wife, Brianna “Bree” MacKenzie (Sophie Skelton). However, the present chaos in Roger’s life might have him turning his eyes towards the divine as Season 7 progresses. Rankin adds:
“I think it does solidify Roger’s faith because he starts to come to the conclusion that this is predestined from a sort of a higher place, and all of these things are meant to be. We come to the kind of conclusion, I think, as a group throughout the show, that you can’t change, as much as we often try, you can’t change history. So that has been in some way set. I think that’s to bring Roger anyway to the belief that it must be set by God and everything is part of God’s plan. I think that’s where he arrives at, I think.”
New episodes of Outlander Season 7 premiere on Fridays on the Starz app and at 8 PM ET on Starz.