Even Outlander star Caitríona Balfe doesn't know how the show will end

It feels strange to say it, but we're nearing the end of the road for the Starz time traveling romantic drama Outlander. The series first debuted all the way back in 2014, and now, more than a decade later, the second half of its seventh season is due to hit screens later this year. After that, the show will wrap up with an eighth and final season. It's going to be very emotional for all involved.

That's especially true for stars like Caitríona Balfe, who has been playing the lead role of Claire Fraser since the very beginning. Balfe and the rest of the cast and crew are currently in the middle of filming season 8. “It’s a strange thing to be at the end, but still have five months to go with filming," the actor told VIP Magazine. “We had our first read through about a month ago. We all got a bit choked up because we’ve been together for over 10 years and for better or worse, we’re totally a family. We’ve all grown up together on that show. We’ll be so sad to say goodbye to it.”

Outlander is in an interesting place as adaptations go. It's based on the long-running Outlander book series by Diana Gabaldon, which as of this writing is not yet complete. Gabaldon has currently published nine out of 10 mainline books for the series, and is still hard at work on writing the big finish. The show, meanwhile, is attempting the gargantuan task of adapting not one, but three books in its seventh season, which will leave season 8 open to cover Gabaldon's most recent novel, Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone.

"Season 7 is actually a melding of Books 6, 7 and 8," executive producer Maril Davis told TV Guide last summer. "It is unbelievably supersized, and we did have to change some stuff. We had these four episodes that really close out last season and Book 6. But when you are opening a new season, the energy is different and our trajectory is different. So we kind of had to alter them. Then we worked our way into the next two books."

Caitríona Balfe on the Outlander ending: You can never please everybody"

Even if Outlander pulls this all off, there's still the question of how it will end the story. After all, Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone is not the final novel in Gabaldon's series. It turns out that not even integral players like Balfe — who is also an executive producer and director on Outlander — know for sure how it'll wrap everything up.

“I don’t even know what’s happening in the end, they’re keeping it very top secret,” Balfe said. “What we do know though is that you can never please everybody, but we all just hope that they [the writers] make what they believe is the best version and we have to hope people aren’t too upset."

Since we're writing on a Game of Thrones site and no stranger to endings which incite the ire of fandoms, I'm going to hope that Balfe is right and everyone loves the Outlander ending. Outlander may have been one of the few true rivals to Thrones during its run, but hopefully it can avoid the pitfall of a toxicly divisive eighth and final season.

Fortunately, Balfe is quick to find the silver lining. “But they’re going to get a prequel, so the audience will forget about us very quickly," she added. That prequel, Blood of My Blood, has been in production since February. According to Deadline, it will explore the parallel love stories of Claire and Jamie's parents in dual timelines, with one part of the story taking place in 18th Century Scotland and the other in World War I-era England.

Whether fans are moved to happy tears or bitter fury by the end of Outlander season 8, Balfe already has her post-finale plans in mind. “There’s going to be a holiday for sure! I’ll be straight on a plane to somewhere with a beach with a drink in my hand," she said.

Outlander season 7 part 2 is slated to premiere sometime in November 2024.

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