"Sing me a song of a lass that is gone ..."
Hello everyone!
Twelve years ago, Starz decided to premiere a time-travelling show that was a big risk at the time, because it would have to compete with titans like Game of Thrones, and yet somehow, somewhere, someone decided that this was a great idea.
And it paid off.
Because since then, for eight seasons, fans around the globe have watched the unfolding drama around Jamie and Claire Fraser with baited breath, willing them to succeed in their endeavours, and supporting all the other characters around them in some way or fashion.
That all came to an end this past weekend, with the airing of the very final episode.
If you've been a long-time fan, or if you only came into the show (binging it, really) recently, then I bid you welcome all the same. Because we'll be taking a look at the final season tonight, saying goodbye to our beloved characters.
Ladies and gentlemen, one last time: Outlander.
Outlander, as told elsewhere, follows the story of nurse-turned-doctor Claire Fraser, who first falls through time into the Jacobite Rebellion, returns back to her own century, and then goes BACK in search of her one true love, Jamie. She then remains by his side through trials and tribulations, their family grows, and they relocate to America, where their loyalties are tested between the Old Guard and the Rising New State.
By season eight, however, it's pretty obvious Jamie is, and always will be, a rebel, so even though he resigned his commission with George Washington, he's still trying to make this country a better place, for the sake of the future and the children born within it. Claire is still supporting him, knowing that a free America means a much better world on the whole, regardless how it's all turning about right now in the real world.
But they do have a couple of things to handle first before they can actually go do what needs doing.
Their daughter, Brianna, returns to the past with her husband Roger and their children, after the parents specifically sent them back to the future, but it's revealed later about all the problems they ran into, the bastard Cameron, and the fact that Buck, who also reappears, was the one to save them.
Oh and also, they need to be with family, so, ya know.
Brianna also brings back gifts for everyone, including The Lord of the Rings, which is hilarious to me but Jamie will probably love it and identify with Aragorn and Boromir, but the most important piece she brings is a book posthumously released under her father's name, aka Frank wrote a book about Scots in America.
And as Jamie reads it, he finds his own name in there. And the fact he dies at a place called King's Mountain.
There's so much irony in that statement I won't even start going into it (Jamie always did say he needs a mountain if he is to live as a man, for one), but the important part here is that he and Claire spend the first half of the season believing Frank is tormenting Jamie from the grave, which is further supported by Tobias Menzies voice-overs as both Frank and Black Jack Randall.
Once they deal with a rebellion right under their noses as some idiots try and take Jamie out of the picture so they can stay "nice and safe" (they wouldn't have, but anyway), they can focus on the final fight that seems to be coming.
To that effect, Bree and Roger travel to the coast to get more weapons, where the plot realigns with lord John Grey and his son, William, who now knows who his actual biological father is. He's floundering, but thankfully Bree's there to at least help him a little bit, as she'd gone through the same thing, so he finds himself enough to go on a quest and discover whether or not his cousin is actually dead, and his widow a widow.
The subplot with said widow is a bit rushed and eh, because nothing really comes of it in the end; while William does in fact learn his cousin defected and faked his own death to preserve the family name and save his father the dishonor, he eventually tells the chit he won't be marrying her and he wishes her well.
It does, however, serve as a bit of a catalyst because it embroils John in military and espionage matters once more, and Richardson is the name that keeps popping up all over the place. John has an axe to grind with the man since William got in trouble because of the cad earlier in the seasons, and while William is recovering at Fraser's Ridge after finally learning his stepfather's gay, John gets kidnapped, because of course he does.
Lord John Grey is the kind of person this ALWAYS happens to LOL.
Thankfully he's had experience, he manages to get a message out to William, who comes rushing in with reinforcements: a ruthless Jamie and Claire, who've seen and done enough by this point that taking out Richardson, despite him also being a time traveller trying to change history, is really peanuts to them.
This brings the Grey subplot to a nice close as everyone reconciles, partly on Claire's death glares to ensure the men behave, and we can focus on other things.
Earlier, I mentioned that weapons were being acquired. They were, but in the process, Fergus Fraser dies in a fire. This is a death that shocks audiences because it diverts wildly from the books, and it also cracks that particular subplot in places you wouldn't have expected. Fergus dies after his printshop is set alight since he pisses off both sides of the American conflict, but he manages to save his children so there's that. The show also reveals he's the trueborn son of the Comte St. Germain, which means he gets to inherit vast tracts of land.
Marsali eventually decides to take up that offer for the sake of the children, and off they ride into the sunset.
At the Ridge, meanwhile, Claire and Jamie now know for certain that their first daughter, Faith, lived, and had children of her own. Ole Froggy from France who Claire got to know and sort of helped and apprenticed to, saved her, took her to a lacemaker, and told her to find the Lady Broch Tuarach if he doesn't return, but by the time the lacemaker started making moves, Claire was already gone to Scotland. Faith then grew up and had children of her own, one of which, Fanny, is now with her grandparents at least. The other unfortunately didn't make it, but the solace in this story is that Faith was, in fact, making her way to America to find her birth parents.
It's not the best subplot ever introduced, and because Fanny is also a time traveller it implies there might be more, but everything gets overtaken by Jamie's quest to at least do the right thing and fight with the person he absolutely despises, but who might help him win against the Crown at King's Mountain at least.
He and Claire also realize the book isn't what they thought - it's for Brianna, who Frank loved above all, and he wanted to help her, but she never read it. Now they know he's been trying to help them all along, and so there's a positive spin to it, I suppose.
King's Mountain happens exactly as in the book - and exactly as in there, Jamie dies.
No, really, he DIES, dies, as in he gets shot point blank.
But there's a little ditty that doesn't get enough mention: Claire can heal, with her own soul or energy or whatever, but she can. And she refuses to leave his side as they lie there on what looks to be a broken standing stone, while a montage of their central moments plays across the screen for everyone to see.
Jamie's ghost, or essence, or memory, or whatever it is, pays Claire a visit, goes to the standing stones, and causes the blue flowers she initially looks for which bring her to him in the past to grow, before disappearing.
By the time the camera pans back around to them lying there, Claire's hair is fully white.
The focus changes, the quiet is intense, and James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser suddenly takes a deep breath, opening his eyes to the world once more.
And the show ends.
WHAT A SHOW. It had ups and downs, and certainly there's plotlines I absolutely despised, but the emotional beats are all there when you look at season eight, PLUS we know Jamie lives, which is in itself a reward. We also learn, briefly, that Young Ian's son with his Native American wife is actually well and alive and he and Rachel take him with them upon his mother's urging, for his own sake and protection, so I mean Jamie has grandchildren galore around him to boot, what with Bree also having given birth again and Marsali being pregnant by the time Fergus died.
It means our Frasers finally might get to live a quiet life, the one they fought so hard for, because Jamie is now officially off the map, and they can do so.
And after fourteen years on screen, it's a fairly fitting tribute to the show as a whole. They brought back the original opening song for the very last episode, the original opening credits, and a whole lot of nostalgia and emotion to sucker punch you in the gut with.
They also give you a post-credits scene with Diana Gabaldon herself, signing Outlander books, with Claire's personal journal on the table next to her, implying she's merely transcribing what Claire herself already wrote.
It's a beautiful bow to a wonderful run, ending on a pretty high note in comparison to some stuff you see on TV nowadays, and honestly?
It'll get rewatched over and over again.
Thank you to the wonderful cast and crew for all the years and the adventures you've given us. You were with us through the good and the bad, and you weathered every storm with terrible script writing and persevered.
In itself, that is a gift. Together with the monumental task of bringing the mammoth books Gabaldon wrote to life? Yeah, it's an achievement.
So, thank you. And may we meet again somewhere along the way.
Slàinte mhath!
xx
*images and video not mine
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