It Can’t Let Go Of The Past

Once upon a time, Starz’s romantic time-travel saga Outlander was focused on the past. That is, the past becoming the future, with Claire (Caitríona Balfe) and Jamie (Sam Heughan) trying to change history anytime it suited the plot. Their failed attempt to change Scotland’s fate in the devastating Battle of Culloden in Seasons 2-3 is one of the series’ best storylines.

But that was six seasons and one decade ago. Outlander Season 8, the series’ final installment, is so focused on revisiting the series’ greatest hits that it doesn’t build a thrilling season that stands on its own.

Outlander Season 8 plays out like a sequel to Season 2, barely addressing the five seasons that came in between. Much of Season 2 followed Jamie and Claire’s exploits in 1740s France. They lost their infant daughter Faith shortly after her birth, Claire was briefly believed to be a powerful witch for her healing abilities, and they befriended enigmatic time traveler Master Raymond (Dominique Pinon).

Despite it being the final season, Outlander Season 8 leaves us with unanswered questions.

With Outlander Season 8 taking place in 1770s North Carolina, you might not expect any of those Season 2 elements to reappear. But all of them do, to the season’s detriment. Instead of moving forward through time, it’s too preoccupied with repeating chapters long closed. Bringing back earlier plot lines does little to add to what should have been a sensational final season.

Much of Outlander Season 8 is devoted to the Frasers’ young ward Fanny (Florrie May Wilkinson), a former child prostitute left in their care by Jamie’s son William (Charles Vandervaart). Fanny’s a sweet addition to the Frasers’ family, but here, she’s given a storyline that deviates from the books’ canon.

Fanny’s revised history connects her to Faith and Master Raymond in a way that completely overrides the impact of Faith’s death in Season 2. The idea of “found family” is so prevalent in Outlander that making Fanny a blood relative of the Frasers misses the point of their family dynamic entirely.

There’s a lot of focus on Fanny, which detracts from areas the season could have explored.

We’re given no explanation or finality about Claire’s magical abilities in Outlander Season 8. After being accused of witchcraft and sorcery across the years, she demonstrates genuine, mysterious magical abilities in Season 8 that seem to revive the dead. It’s given so little screen time or thought that it doesn’t feel like a fantastical element, but an unresolved plot thread. It’s not like Outlander left out explaining its fantastical elements in the past. We had some concept of how time travel worked as early as Season 3.

The nice thing about revisiting the past, however, is the return of fan favorites. Fergus (César Domboy) and Lord John (David Berry) return and receive great closure. Fergus, once an orphaned pickpocket, is now a father and business owner whose support of the patriots’ cause lands him in trouble. Lord John and William wrestle with William’s knowledge that Jamie, estranged to them both, is his real father. The groundwork has been laid for these characters’ journeys for years. Outlander Season 8 serves these three in particular very well.

At least when Outlander Season 8 bothers to focus on the future, it’s consistent. Frank (Tobias Menzies) wrote that Jamie dies at the Battle of Kings Mountain. Menzies, who last appeared in Season 4, returns with Frank narrating as an ominous voice in Jamie’s head. It’s terrifically effective, as Frank’s voice marches Jamie closer to a death he fears he can’t escape.

The villain of Outlander Season 8 can’t compare to the sheer terror of Black Jack Randall.

The dread of Kings Mountain is the only consistent arc across all ten episodes of Outlander Season 8. There’s not even a consistent villain. Kieran Bew’s bitter Captain Cunningham swaggers through the first half of the season, but is a distant memory by the end.

Major Ferguson (Charles Aitken) is given an enormous amount of responsibility in the narrative in the finale despite barely appearing onscreen. Black Jack Randall (also Tobias Menzies) may have been a vile presence in the early years, but at least he was a palpable, ever-present threat to Jamie and Claire!

Outlander Season 8 builds to a finale that ultimately lands like a regular season finale, not a series finale. It leaves far more questions unanswered than answered. Why spend so much time on, say, Fanny’s expanded new arc instead of addressing Claire’s unexplained magic? It’s hard to see the Frasers’ story conclude when it feels this incomplete. The final moment lands like a cliffhanger rather than a satisfying end.

While the final season didn’t quite hit it home, the romance between Claire and Jamie stands the test of time.

Even the visual and artistic language of the series hasn’t stuck out in some time. The early years took Jamie and Claire across centuries and countries, spanning from 1740s Scotland and France, 1760s Jamaica, and 1960s Boston, among others. The novelty of Outlander‘s colonial era wore off years ago. There’s not much variety in costuming, music, or set design to really distinguish Outlander Season 8 from any of the four previous colonial seasons.

But across eight seasons, the show’s most consistent quality is the chemistry between its two leads. Balfe and Heughan are strong actors individually, but soar when Claire and Jamie are onscreen together. Even their most mundane interactions stand above the rest of their casemates in ease and charm. Their flirting, fighting, and adventuring have been compelling, even when the plot in Outlander Season 8 fails to match their allure.

Outlander Season 8 may not have been the most satisfying journey, but it’s nice to visit these beloved characters one last time. It’s not hard to see how this show lasted over a decade. Though the time-travel premise was its initial hook, its protagonists and their ever-expanding chosen family made it worth watching. Maybe it really is the journey, not the destination, that made the Frasers worth the watch in the end.

All episodes of Outlander Season 8 are now streaming on Starz.