Who is the new mystery figure in ‘Outlander’ season 6?

SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 5 OF SEASON 6 OF ‘OUTLANDER’

We are already five episodes into the sixth season of ‘Outlander’and dark clouds are already gathering over the heads of our favorite Fraser’s Ridge settlers as the American Revolutionary War draws near.

A nice mini break in Wilmington to visit Aunt Jocasta and listen to Jacobite heroine Flora MacDonald (a real life historical character) speak at a fancy gathering sounds like a good way for Jamie and Claire to forget about their future problems for a while, isn’t it?

You’d think so, but this being ‘Outlander,’ the Frasers’ journey has its share of bumps in the road, beginning when Mrs. MacDonald reveals she discovered a man ransacking her room shortly before she arrived at the reception.

Fortunately, the thief was stopped outside the inn and arrested by the sheriff, and the stolen emerald necklace was returned to her, with a missing stone that was not found on the thief.

His brush with a criminal doesn’t seem all that remarkable in the overall scheme of things, until we get to the last scene of the episode.

As Jamie and Claire prepare to head home, Claire hears a faint, whistled tune, but dismisses it as the wind. The final scene reveals that she did not imagine it: a man is whistling a song behind the bars of the Wilmington jail.

He has the lost emerald in his hand. We only see the back of her head and her long black hair as the episode ends. Who is she?

The song that the thief is whistling is the first clue: it is ‘Colonel Bogey’s March’, composed by Kenneth J Alford (the pseudonym of British Army bandleader FJ Ricketts) in 1914 and is best known as the theme song for the 1957 war film ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’.

yesOnly a time traveler, like Claire, Roger and Bree, could know a tune that was written almost 150 years in the future. And we already know from the experiences of the Fraser family traveling through stone circles that a gem is needed in order to successfully go to the future, which would explain why this mysterious man has Flora’s emerald in his hand.

Considering the prisoner’s long wavy hair, the imprisoned thief must be none other than Wendigo Donnerwhom Claire first met in the season five finale.

One of Lionel Brown’s men, Donner, who kidnapped Claire from Fraser’s Ridge, revealed to her that he was a time traveler by asking her if she recognized the name Ringo Starr. He was not one of the men who assaulted Claire, and he was already gone by the time Jamie and the men from Fraser’s Ridge rescued her and killed all the men present.

Claire discovered that she was one of the ‘Montauk Five’, a group of Native American activists who traveled back to the 18th century from 1968 in hopes of persuading tribes to ally with British forces in the coming Revolutionary War and change the world. course of history. (Claire and Jamie already know that meddling in the story never works outas they tried and failed to stop the Jacobite rising that brutally ended the battle at Culloden).

Donner has no idea what happened to her time-traveling companions, but Claire does: she met the ghost of Donner’s companion, Robert Springer, in season four and also has his diary (young Ian got it from her). gave in the fifth season, since the Mohican gave it to him).

Springer had traveled further back in time than the others and allied himself with the Mohawk.where he became known as Otter Tooth, before eventually being exiled for his “madness” (talking about how in the future, Native American tribes would be nearly wiped out), and ended up being killed when he returned to the tribe.

It remains to be seen what Donner’s reappearance will mean for Jamie and Claire.. He didn’t seem to want to hurt Claire the first time he met her, but his knowledge of where a stone circle is located in North Carolina could mean he’ll turn to her for help getting back to his own time, and his recent crime. in Wilmington indicates that you may not ask nicely.

It should be noted that Donner’s first name, Wendigo is also the name given in Algonquian folklore to a cannibalistic monster or evil spirit.which doesn’t bode well for the Frasers either.

Of course, fans of the books Diana Gabaldon will know what happens next with Donner from the pages of ‘wind and ash‘, a story we won’t spoil here. However, it’s safe to say that we haven’t seen the last of that whistling man, and his determination to return to his own time could impact Jamie, Claire, and all of the settlers on Ridge in a devastating way in the last three episodes of this series. season…