Outlander just finished its epic run, and it turns out the ending is just as confusing to its star as to the audience.
Caution: This article contains SPOILERS for the Outlander series finale.
After eight seasons, Outlander came to its grand conclusion on May 15, and it’s little surprise that it was a tearjerker. It looked like Jamie (Sam Heughan) was going to cheat destiny by surviving the Battle of Kings Mountain to the joy of his wife Claire (Caitríona Balfe). But at the last moment, Lord Ferguson shot Jamie in the chest, and he died in a tearful Claire’s arms.
Claire refused to leave Jamie’s body, staying with it all through the night. She finally laid down next to him and seemed to pass away to join her beloved, while we saw Jamie’s spirit at the manor in 1946, where the series started. After a montage of scenes of the pair’s beautiful romance, the scene cut back to a now white-haired Claire opening her eyes with Jamie as they both appeared to come back to life.
Caitríona Balfe doesn’t “fully understand” Outlander’s ending
So what happened? Did Claire finally come into her full magical powers like Adawehi said would happen? Was this some sort of dying dream? Is this how the pair entered the afterlife together? Balfe spoke with Entertainment Weekly, noting that the producers had filmed several alternate endings and she herself didn’t know which one it would be until the episode aired.
“I'm not sure that I fully understand the ending,” Balfe stated. “I don't really know what happened, but I thought it was really cool that they went and did the Jamie ghost thing again, and that in some way, maybe, he was calling her, or he pulled her into his orbit. But as to what happens when they're lying on the stone, I don't know.”
Balfe doesn’t know if this was some sort of afterlife vision. That said, she confirmed she played the role as if Claire was dying with her husband, and that Claire clutching her chest when Jamie was shot showed their connection.
When it came to what the pair may do if they are indeed alive in post-Revolutionary War America, Balfe joked about how they’d want to take it easy.
“I think maybe after this one, they're going to enjoy the quiet life,” Balfe quipped. “They're going to settle down, maybe take a holiday or two. Claire can introduce that concept to the 1700s. They’ve got their beehive. They’ve got their garden. Let’s just chill.”
We don’t know what the other endings were yet, so it’s unclear as to whether they may have made more sense. Perhaps some had Jamie living or he and Claire returning to the present together. As it happens, there was a post-credits scene that Balfe has thoughts on, too.
She has a theory on Diana Gabaldon’s cameo
After the closing credits, the audience was treated to a scene set in the 1990s with author Diana Gabaldon playing herself at a book signing for her novel…Outlander. Notable was how she had Claire’s leather journal on the table beside her and when asked, said, “It’s a wee bit of inspiration.”
That looked like just a fun cameo honoring the author who started it all. But Balfe has a wild theory as to how Gabaldon was really playing.
“I was thinking about this the other day, actually, after I saw the episode,” Balfe explained. “Diana is Claire. Diana has a gorgeous, very tall, red-headed husband called Doug. I think Diana's a time traveler, because she does not age. If you go back to when we first started this series, Diana looks the exact same. My theory is that Diana is Claire. Doug is Jamie. She's a time traveler. She wrote all these books based on her life story, and she's just hiding in plain sight.”
This would be a fun turn, but of course, Gabaldon hasn’t commented on that. Still, it shows how Outlander closed out with a finale that leaves a lot open, which is oddly fitting for this time-traveling tale.
Every episode of Outlander is available on STARZ.
Add us as a preferred source on Google