1 of 2 | Izzy Meikle-Small and John Bell star in “Outlander,” which wrapped up its eighth and final season Friday. Photo courtesy of Starz
NEW YORK, May 16 (UPI) — The Outlander family says filming the time-travel romance’s eighth and last season was an emotional experience, but, ultimately, they are proud of what they accomplished throughout this extraordinary journey.
Based on the best-selling fantasy novels by Diana Gabaldon, the show’s finale aired Friday on Starz and revealed the fates of British World War II nurse Claire (Caitriona Balfe), her 18th-century, Scottish husband Jamie (Sam Heughan) and the family they lived with in their adopted home of the American colonies in the late 1700s.
“It’s a victory lap, 100%. It’s been a year-and-a-half since we wrapped, so, there’s been plenty of time to reminisce and process. What are the five stages [of grief] again? We’re fully at acceptance now,” John Bell, who plays Jamie’s nephew Ian, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.
“I feel very satisfied with my ending. It’s hard to sum up 10 years of this character development,” Bell said.
“It’s been one of the most dramatic shifts, I think, of any of the characters, certainly, from the young, slightly naive, joyful, little guy that popped his head in that window one day and then to this warrior father. Yes, it’s been crazy and such a blessing, I would say, of a character.”
He joked that he’s got some more ideas of where the character might go, if anyone wants to have a conversation about an Ian spin-off.
Izzy Meikle-Small only joined the show as Ian’s wife Rachel in Season 7, but still feels deep connections to the Outlander world.
“It’s been a really, really wonderful experience that I’m just super-grateful to have had and Rachel’s arc has been great,” Meikle-Small said.
“We kind of had her coming-of-age story,” she recalled. “Then, Season 8 is kind of now she’s become a woman, seeing what those next steps are for her — being a wife, being a mother. And I feel very happy for where Rachel and Ian end up.”
As for why viewers have been obsessed with the show for more than a decade, Bell said the beauty of Scotland cannot be underestimated as a contributing factor.
“I think it was the Victorians that first fell in love with the castles of Scotland in a more romantic way and that love has continued on,” the actor said.
“So, Scotland is its own character in the show and then, I think, it’s love, isn’t it? It’s such a pure love story and it’s just portrayed with such care and passion by our two leads. They are our department heads, in a way,” he added. “We look up to them and that energy, attitude, professionalism that they bring every day is inspirational. So, we all tried to bring the same kind of attitude.”
Spoilers ahead.
The last moments of the show see Jamie and Ian heading into battle against the British on what is believed to be the day Jamie dies — at least according to a book that was written in the future and brought back to Jamie’s timeline.
Although our heroes win the skirmish, Jamie is ultimately shot by a captured prisoner and appears to bleed to death. Ian and Jamie’s other men then kill the shooter.
Healer Claire refuses to leave Jamie’s body and a series of memories plays out from the couple’s lives as she mourns, including the mysterious Season 1 scene when Jamie visits Claire as a ghost before she first travels to his timeline.
Returning to the present, it initially looks like Claire might have died of a broken heart, alongside her beloved, but THEN, both Claire and Jamie open their eyes before the credits roll.
“It was waterworks the whole season. I think I started at the first read-through and I did not stop till the end,” executive producer Maril Davis said.
“I, personally, just wanted to be on set as much as possible, hang out with our cast and group and just enjoy it. That was kind of my mindset going in — ‘Enjoy it, kind of understand this special moment you’re in and sit in it and appreciate it.’ And I felt I did that.”
Show-runner Matthew B. Roberts said he coped with the sadness of the show ending by trying to come up with the perfect wrap gift for those who had been with the production since the beginning.
“That’s the legacy — what that final wrap gift was,” Roberts quipped.
“For everybody who’d been there from Day 1, we made a map of all the places that we’d gone, and we listed them all,” he added. “For me, it was really daunting to figure out what to give.”
Although the flagship series is done for now, a prequel about Jamie and Claire’s parents has been green-lit for a second season and there might be future shows set in the Outlander universe.
“There is a ton of material there and a ton of different stories that we weren’t able to get to and we’d love to do more spin-offs,” Roberts said. “We’ve been talking about some just very recently. So, knock on wood, hopefully, hopefully we hear more about that.”
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