It all started with a vase. “I’d never lived anywhere long enough to justify having such a simple thing,” said the second world war nurse Claire Randall in the narration, as she eyed one through a shop window on her honeymoon in Inverness. “At that moment, I wanted nothing so much in all the world as to have a vase of my very own.” Did she buy it and live happily ever after with lovely professor husband, Frank? Did she heck! Instead, Claire found a magic stone circle, fell through time to the 18th century, fell in love with flaming hot Scot Jamie Fraser and embarked on TV’s wildest journey.
Twelve years have passed since the adaptation of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander books gave us the time-travel bonkbuster we didn’t know we needed. You can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief for its stars, Caitríona Balfe and Sam Heughan, whose chemistry has sizzled admirably across eight long seasons (it took 17 months to film the first one after Covid). As it limps towards its finale this week, the end is long overdue – but it is a bittersweet farewell to a wonderfully ludicrous show.
In its prime, Outlander was a perfect period drama: beautiful, brave protagonists; endless sweeping shots of the Highlands; intricate attention to historical detail; cunnilingus in the ruins of a castle. But that magical twist in its first episode also opened the story up to go absolutely bananas. And – in the words of Claire – “Jesus H Roosevelt Christ”, did it!
I barked with disbelief when the series’ first villain, British army officer Black Jack Randall, not only turned out to be an ancestor of Claire’s first husband, Frank, but was even played by the same actor, Tobias Menzies. (He was also a sadist, obsessed with Claire’s new husband, Jamie, who he eventually tortured and raped – but more on that later.) Luckily, Claire is a woman who can navigate such mind-boggling events. She is also a walking, talking encyclopedia – which is extremely fortunate for someone constantly trying to survive history’s sticky spots.
She and Jamie do everything a couple dream of doing together: escape a witch trial; attempt to stop the Battle of Culloden; move to Paris to do business with the king; spend 20 years apart; reunite, survive a shipwreck and settle in Carolina; prepare for the American revolution. Despite all this, the pair still look like supermodels well into their 60s! But it’s the small moments, too: Claire masturbating Jamie back to life; Claire demonstrating the wonder of waxing to Jamie (Your honey pot?” he asks, confused. “It’s bare!”); Claire casually inventing penicillin 200 years before Alexander Fleming. The only thing this defiant duo cannot do together is time-travel: only Claire can go back and forth through the stones, which led to that lengthy separation.
Beyond being delightfully preposterous, there is a lot to respect Outlander for, from the Emmy-winning costumes to digging deep into the politics of the times it takes us to. Jamie and Claire’s irresistible connection, though, is what makes the show. Yes, there is a lot of sex – the wedding night episode alone, in which Claire teaches virgin Jamie how to make love, left fans light-headed (“I said I was a virgin, not a monk”). But how nice it is to simply see two horny people both head over heels and completely equal in a relationship: “Aye Sassenach, I am your master, and you are mine,” Jamie says. (Sassenach, Gaelic for English outlander, is his nickname for Claire.)
That said, a lot of criticism has, quite rightly, been levelled at Outlander for its depictions of rape. From the moment she drops into the 18th century, rape is a constant threat to Claire – then, in season five, she is raped by a group of men. And it’s not just Claire: a whole episode focuses on Black Jack abusing Jamie, then later in the series young Fergus is raped, as is Claire’s daughter Brianna. Balfe has said that the show “maybe [hasn’t] always gotten it right” but she stands by the decisions to include such stories: “I don’t think you can pretend these things don’t happen.”
Such critique hasn’t stopped Outlander from becoming a global phenomenon – its first series has been distributed to 87 territories and it is huge with US audiences. The prequel series, Blood of My Blood, launched last year – with a whopping 10-minute sex scene – and season two is now in production. VisitScotland says the “Outlander Effect” has ramped up tourism over the past decade. Filming locations report that visitors have doubled – and one even claims a 60-fold increase. Outlander’s legacy is undeniable.
What, then, of this last episode? Admittedly, I tapped out of Outlander in season five, after an episode proved that it had completely lost the plot (they find a shack in the woods and it plays out like a Netflix horror series). But this is a show I have such a soft spot for that I used it as a litmus test for potential boyfriends. Play me a montage of Jamie and Claire’s best moments and I will sob for hours. I own an Outlander mug that I got from a trip to Linlithgow Palace. I have interviewed the stars multiple times and really had to keep it together when, after asking what his ideal first date in Scotland would be, Heughan suggested an alfresco fish supper in Skye. (That was the moment I pivoted from vegetarian to pescetarian.)
So, for nostalgia’s sake, I have been watching the final series. Despite it now being painfully slow, with yawn-worthy sex scenes, the absurdity lives on: Jamie and Claire have – somehow – met a young girl they believe is their granddaughter, which means their baby daughter, who they thought died in Paris decades ago, did in fact survive … Most crucially, though, Jamie has a book, written by Claire’s ex (and now dead) husband, Frank, stating that Jamie will die at the battle of King’s Mountain. Will this be his fate? Theories are swirling on the internet – perhaps Claire will resurrect him (hopefully not the same way as last time), or his ghostly appearance in the first episode will at last be explained.
This is Outlander, though. Anything could happen. There are only two final things I ask for: a return to Scotland and one last burning declaration of love to Sassenach.