'Outlander': 5 burning questions from the finale
Warning: This post contains spoilers for the “Eye of the Storm” episode of Outlander, as well as the book Drums of Autumn.
Due respect to Titanic‘s red-hot lovers Jack and Rose, but Jamie and Claire Fraser showed what it really means to never let go on Sunday night’s Season 3 finale. The climax of “Eye of the Storm” finds the couple’s ship, the Artemis, being battered about by a blustery storm that dumps Claire over the side and into the briny deep. As she sinks to a watery grave, she leaves thoughts of survival aside and seems to embrace the “quiet happiness” of the great beyond. But Jamie’s not about to let her be the Jack Dawson in this romance. Diving after her, he steals an underwater kiss before bringing her back to the surface, where they cling to debris from the ship as the titular storm’s eye passes overhead. Unlike Rose, Jamie ensures there’s room enough for the two of them.
That rescue capped an eventful hour that bid farewell to one major Outlander character (Geillis Duncan, now minus a head), saw the rescue of another (Young Ian Fraser, Jamie’s trouble-prone nephew) and left the Frasers washed up on the shore of a new world with new adventures in store. But even with all of that incident, “Eye of the Storm” didn’t have time to answer everything. Here are the five burning questions we’re left with about how Season 3 ended and how Season 4 might begin. (Spoiler alert: We may have peeked ahead in Diana Gabaldon’s book series — including the fourth novel, Drums of Autumn — for some early answers.)
How long until Jamie and Claire are back on Scottish soil?
After being away from Scotland for 20 years, Claire barely had time to enjoy her adopted land’s finest print shops and brothels, before embarking on a high-seas adventure to the Caribbean. And now her return trip has deposited her in another one of her adopted homes: the future United States of America. Following the hurricane, she and Jamie wash up on the shores of the colony of Georgia, and while the rest of their traveling party — including Young Ian, as well as newlyweds Fergus and Marsali — aren’t on their portion of the beach, a local family helpfully informs them that the remains of the Artemis aren’t too far away. Scotland may be far away, but Claire could take Jamie on a tour of her Boston stomping grounds … 200 years before she’s actually a Beantown resident.
Don’t expect their sojourn in colonial America to be over quickly. While there are Scotland-set sequences in Drums of Autumn, they don’t involve the Frasers, who remain in the colonies, if not necessarily in Georgia, for the foreseeable future. “It really does shift the whole foundation of the show to the American colonies,” Outlander executive producer Ronald D. Moore told Deadline in a postmortem interview. “The show’s always going to have a foot in Scotland. It’s not going to completely abandon, like, Lallybroch and Inverness and some of the stories back there, but you know the balance of the story and the weight of the story is definitely going to be in America from now on.”
Will there be a mother and child reunion?
Claire and her daughter, Brianna, may not be in the same city — let alone the same century — anymore, but she’s still a fiercely protective mother. Heck, she’s even willing to commit murder to keep her child safe. Having learned that Brianna is the 200-year-old child referenced in Margaret and Archibald’s prophecy promising the rise of a Scottish king, Geillis promptly sets about offering up Young Ian as a sacrifice so that she can slip back through the time stream to the present day and spill some 20th century Fraser blood. Luckily for the unsuspecting Brianna, Claire allows her daughter to keep her head by separating Geillis from hers.
That’s something Brianna can thank her mom for when they meet again. Because even though they went their separate ways in Season 3’s fifth episode, convinced they’d never see each other again, circumstances in the present day will necessitate a trip to the past for both Brianna and her beau, Roger Wakefield, whose own family tree traces back to William Buccleigh MacKenzie, the illegitimate spawn of the temporary union between Geillis and Dougal MacKenzie. We hope Brianna brings her own “bat dress,” along with plenty of extra penicillin, on her way through the stones.
Are there other time travelers?
“I’ve never met another time traveler — only you,” Geillis tells Claire in “Eye of the Storm.” That’s partly true. Neither Geillis, nor Claire, has consciously met another person who has journeyed back through the centuries. Nevertheless, it’s a big world out there, and there are several time jumpers in it, two of whom we actually met in Season 2. That would be Master Raymond and the Comte St. Germain, who were part of the France-set storyline that dominated the first half of that season’s story arc. At the time, neither man made Claire aware that they were all three part of a secret time travelers’ club—and they haven’t crossed paths with her since—but Gabaldon has made it clear in separate novellas that they’ve each visited different eras and had their own adventures.
Claire will be able to say that she’s met another time traveler besides Geillis — and mean it — when Brianna makes her time jump in Drums of Autumn. (And should the show reach the sixth novel, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, both mother and daughter will encounter a time traveler by the name of Wendigo Donner.) And while she takes the same route to the past that her mother did via the stones at Craigh na Dun, “Eye of the Storm” revealed that there are other time portals scattered around the globe. Geillis, for example, plans to dive through a glowing pool located deep within the Abandawe cave. Future books reveal that other gates to the past and future can be found on North Carolina’s Ocracoke Island, as well as Hadrian’s Wall in England and Loch Errochty in the Scottish Highlands. Forget pub crawls — the next big thing in tourism should be time-portal crawls.
Where’s Murtagh?
Jamie’s right-hand man, Murtagh Fraser, was never supposed to survive the Battle of Culloden. But the show departed from the novels in a major way by granting his bearded brother-in-arms a reprieve, much to the relief of fans and actor Duncan Lacroix. Murtagh and Jamie encountered each other again at Ardsmuir Prison, where Jamie kept a careful watch over his sickly friend. “It’s a big role reversal,” Lacroix told Yahoo Entertainment. “Murtagh has always looked after Jamie, and Jamie’s the one now taking care of him.”
Unfortunately, Jamie wasn’t able to protect Murtagh from being shipped off to the colonies along with the rest of Ardsmuir’s prison population. But now that the duo appear to be on the same continent again, a reunion has to be in the offing. And one way that could come about is if Murtagh replaces a character fans know from the books: Duncan Innes. Also an Ardsmuir prisoner, Duncan joins Claire and Jaime on their mission to rescue Young Ian, and stays with them as they build a life in the colonies. He also meets and marries Jocasta Cameron, Jamie’s aunt, who runs a plantation in North Carolina. It’s already been announced that Orphan Black‘s Maria Doyle Kennedy will play Jocasta in Season 4. Maybe Murtagh will have found his way into her heart in place of Duncan? Not that Lacroix will spill any details. “If I told you, it would cost us both of our lives,” he remarked to us, not entirely joking.
Will Jamie and Claire ever age?
A 20-second teaser trailer for Season 4 that aired at the end of “Eye of the Storm” revealed Jamie and Claire discussing how the American dream might also become their dream. That’s dramatic stuff to be sure … but not as dramatic as the pronounced streaks of gray running through Claire’s hair. Although the Frasers made frequent mention of the fact that 20 years had passed since their separation and reunion, Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan still looked eternally youthful once they were back in each other’s arms. Claire’s gray hair, along with Jamie’s rugged stubble (grown at personal request from his bride in “Eye of the Storm”), suggests that they may start acting — and appearing — their age in Drums of Autumn.
Outlander returns in 2018 on Starz.
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