Outlander has been very hit-or-miss in its 8th and final season. I listed a few of the big problematic turns the hit Starz romance series has taken as it strays further from the books by Diana Gabaldon, leading us toward an ending that will, by necessity, diverge rather wildly from the author’s upcoming tenth novel. But as I pointed out in that piece, it hasn’t all been bad and that trend continues with the latest episode.
“In The Forest” – the 8th episode of the 8th season – was written by Ronald D. Moore, a fan favorite in the Outlander community. This coming week’s penultimate episode was written by Gabaldon herself. It was a pretty good episode, though it didn’t do much to fix what might be the biggest problem of them all, which I’ll get to in a moment.
The big, momentous event in last week’s episode was William showing up to Fraser’s Ridge and finally having the big heart-to-heart with his father, Jamie, who he’s been angry with since discovering the truth of his parentage. William has been a brooding, one-note character for a long time now, and this tearful exchange not only puts an end to that, it’s a reunion (of sorts) that we’ve been waiting to see for many years.
Jamie left William with Lord John Grey all the way back in Season 3, Episode 4, “Of Lost Things” believing he was doing the wee lad a kindness. When William finally breaks and says “Why did you leave me? I loved you!” it’s genuinely heartbreaking. Jamie explains his reasoning – he was a traitor to the crown, penniless, with nothing to offer young William other than a life of hardship – and tells his son that the only reason he didn’t look back is because he knew seeing the boy would have broken his resolve.
It’s the kind of scene I think a lot of us longtime Outlander fans have been hoping to see all season. We’ve had very few big cathartic moments like this in the final season. You could say Young Ian meeting with his former wife and bringing their son home with him and Rachel is one, but he’s a secondary character and their relationship was a blip in the larger story.
And so we come to perhaps the biggest problem with the season, and one that this episode didn’t do much to fix: Claire and Jamie are the protagonists. They are the main characters of this story. Their relationship is not just central to the story, it is the story. The fact that the cast has expanded, that we have a dozen or more time-travelers now, that we’ve explored nearly as many other romantic entanglements along the way, does not change this.
Still, for reasons I cannot fathom, as much time was spent on William and Amaranthus’s fraught courtship as has been spent on Jamie and Claire. Meanwhile, much of Jamie and Claire’s relationship has been spent arguing over Lord John Grey and Claire’s accidental infidelity.
Count the number of times Claire has left the house on Fraser’s Ridge this season. I don’t mean to go outside. Has she left at all beyond the opening scene when she and Jamie get revenge on the pirates? At least Jamie has been out and about, fending off Loyalists and going toe-to-toe with Captain Cunningham. Still, at this point, with just two episodes remaining, it doesn’t feel like much of an ending for this epic romance. Jamie and Claire have fought for their love over continents, over centuries . . . and now here we are, just sort of hanging out on Fraser’s Ridge waiting for Jamie to die because Frank wrote it down in a book. It’s lackluster to say the least.
There is another character that I’d like to highlight here. One that is missing entirely from the final season and one that to me, and to many other fans, is almost as important as our two heroes: Scotland.
The fact that this story is ending in America is deeply infuriating. I didn’t get invested in Outlander to spend several seasons on the American Revolution. I am not nearly as interested in the Carolinas and Fraser’s Ridge as I am the Scottish Highlands and Lallybroch. That is where this story should have gone, and where I had hoped it was going when they teased a return to Scotland before Season 7. That this return was so brief and unsatisfying only heightens my disappointment.
Finally, yet another big plot twist and storyline was introduced at the end of the latest episode. Fanny, having been comforted rather sweetly by Roger (who is really coming into his own this season, at least) goes to talk to her dead sister, Jane, at the cairn she’s built. She prays for a sign and finds a gemstone, but when she picks it up, it breaks and cuts her hand and she begins to hear a buzzing, the same buzzing people hear when they’re near the magical time-traveling stones. The episode ends with her covering her ears, the buzzing is so loud.
It is unclear at this point if we’re simply being told that Fanny is a time-traveler or if she’s going to be whisked away to another time. Either way, this is either another dangling thread to be resolved in the next two episodes and/or a setup for a Fanny-centric spinoff and/or she’s going to end up in the prequel Blood of My Blood’s second season. I don’t really like any of these options.
I admit, I did not finish Blood of My Blood. I was absolutely onboard for a prequel that gave us some expanded story about Claire and Jamie’s parents, but once Claire’s parents were revealed to be time-travelers I checked out completely. I keep meaning to go back to it, but then I think about how annoyed I was and watch something else.
This is the problem a lot of superhero shows have. You begin with maybe just one or two superheros and it’s fine. They have helpers – the tech nerd, the tough guy, the best friend, the ex-girlfriend – but none of these people have powers. But then the show starts giving them all powers and pretty soon it’s this massive team of superheros and the focus is gone. The story of the superhero we came to watch the show about is spread out, like too little butter over too much bread.
Claire has been robbed, both of her uniqueness and her screen-time, and really of anything interesting to do all season. I could accept her daughter time-traveling because it made sense for the story. She was Jamie’s daughter, too. Okay, maybe Roger also. But now there are so many travelers, Claire is just one in a crowd. Her parents were off in Scotland, in the same place she ended up, before her!
It dilutes her story for no reason. Claire’s parents could have had a really fascinating love story that took place in the 20th century, a nice parallel to Jamie’s parents. And I’m not particularly interested in Fanny as a time traveler, either – or as Claire and Jamie’s granddaughter, which is another subplot developed this season that has driven me up a proverbial wall. And not a nice, old stone Scottish wall covered in moss, more’s the pity.
Claire has been sidelined in Season 8 and her romance with Jamie has taken a backseat to all sorts of 11th hour subplots and twists. What a shame.
P.S. What on earth is Marsali thinking leaving Fraser’s Ridge and her entire support network along with her four kids and unborn child? Why did Jamie and Claire agree to let her go? Her reasoning, that she wanted to keep fighting the good fight with the power of the pen, is noble and stupid. It’s also so incredibly unrealistic that I almost thought it was a joke. Let her stay, get the help she will so desperately need, grieve the (ridiculous) death of Fergus and find her feet. I’m pretty sure she’s given enough to the cause. Just an unbelievably silly decision for the writers to make here.