'Outlander' Season 8

Courtesy of Starz

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for “Evidence of Things Not Seen,” the seventh episode of Season 8 of “Outlander,” now streaming on Starz.

César Domboy wants “Outlander” fans to know one thing after this week’s episode: “I’m not responsible for any of this.”

He laughs as soon as he says it, not because it isn’t true but rather because he knows, after being part of the global phenomenon for nearly a decade, that fans are going to have some big feelings about the episode. Heading into the hour, readers of Diana Gabaldon’s book series were bracing for one of the most tragic turns in her decades-spanning story. But what they got was among the biggest twists in the show’s 12-year history.

In a heroic act of sacrifice, Fergus (Domboy), the adopted son of Jamie (Sam Heughan) and Claire (Caitriona Balfe), meets a fiery end while trying to save his sons from a fire. Whereas, in Gabaldon’s books, it is his son Henri-Christian (Benjamin Moss) who dies as a result of the fire.

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“The way it was written in the books didn’t really suit wrapping the show like they are,” Domboy tells Variety. “When they asked me to come back for Season 8, which was obviously a yes, they reminded me what happened in the books, but said, ‘Maybe we could change that into a very heroic sendoff for Fergus.’ Saving his kids definitely adds another layer of heroism to his character, and I was happy with it. I’ve never had to do something like this before in my career as an actor. So I was very much looking forward to it.”

Now living in Savannah, Fergus and his wife, Marsali (Lauren Lyle), are raising their four children, while he runs a successful printing press out of their home, following in the footsteps of Jamie’s own printing career in Edinburgh. But Fergus is also producing seditious material in secret to further the Patriot cause in the American Revolution, making his family a target of escalating threats on their home and his business. When someone makes good on those threats, Fergus and Marsali awake to their house in flames.

 

Marsali and their daughters get out safely, but Fergus races to find his young sons, Germain (Robin Scott) and Henri-Christian, trapped on the roof. In Gabaldon’s books, Henri-Christian, who was born with dwarfism and has faced persistent persecution in an intolerant time, dies after falling off the roof while trying to escape the fire. The show makes it seem as though it will stick to the source material at first, as Fergus lowers his sons down on a pulley from the roof, only for Henri-Christian to lose his grip on his older brother. But in a clever fake-out, he’s caught at the last second by Roger (Richard Rankin). Relieved they are out of harm’s way, Fergus looks out on Marsali below, only to fall through the burning roof to his death. It is a massive change to the book’s storyline, especially given that Gabaldon is not yet done with her series, where Fergus is still alive. It is also the most significant death in the TV series since Jamie’s uncle Murtagh (Duncan Lacroix) in Season 5 –– itself a huge variation on the books.

But on the day of filming, Domboy and Lyle needed some convincing as to why it had to happen.

“It was a challenge for Lauren and I,” Domboy says. “It’s beautiful when you read it in a script, that last look they give each other. But when you’re doing it, we were like, ‘Why isn’t he fucking jumping instead of taking the time to give this look?’”

“They really had to sort of explain to us how there was no way out for him and she knew it,” Lyle adds. “They said to me on set that she knows this is what’s about to happen, and yet nothing can prepare you for what that actually means. But it’s an iconic ending, and it felt really iconic doing it.”

The nighttime shoot was one of the biggest set pieces in the show’s final season. As Fergus Fraser & Sons goes up in flames, a horde of background actors flood the scene and a colonial-era hand-pump fire engine is rolled in to help put out the blaze. “It was wild,” Lyle says. “It really felt huge and cinematic. There were people everywhere.”

In the moment, when Fergus falls through the roof as Marsali looks on, the terror that she goes through was something Lyle only had a small window of time to capture.

“We had seven minutes left of shooting the night we filmed his death, and I said, ‘Just don’t cut, just roll,’” she says. “So they rolled, and I just told them to tell me the beats of when he falls and what I am reacting to, and I just really went for it and sort of let loose in the most guttural way you could ever experience something like that. As much as fans might be upset, hopefully this will hit extremely hard in a way that feels quite real and impactful, and like you’re experiencing it with us.”

The loss of Fergus affects everyone in the Fraser’s orbit, all of whom learn of his death by the end of the episode, which ends with a montage of Fergus’ greatest hits. Jamie, who was closest with his adopted son and publicly gave him his last name after raising the brothel-born lad, breaks down while making a casket for Fergus, even though there is nothing to bury.

Had this not been “Outlander’s” final season, Domboy says he could have seen this going another way. “It’s ‘Outlander,’” he says. “If they were doing another season, they could easily give you a scene where we see Fergus escaping the fire and Jamie putting ashes into a coffin, but it’s actually to protect his family because people wanted him dead for the revolution. I’m just fan fictioning right now.”

“Or Fergus the ghost,” Lyle contributes to speculating. “Marsali goes mad and starts seeing his ghost.”

“Or an evil twin twist, with an even stronger French accent!” Domboy suggests, exaggerating his own French dialect.

While he admits he did plead with the creative team, half jokingly, to keep Fergus alive, Domboy is happy with sending his character off as a hero, an incredible arc for a character that has come so far.

“It’s not so many times in your career where you have the chance to portray a character for so long,” he says. “Fergus in ‘Outlander’ is one of the characters who has the biggest arcs. I grew with him, and I was able to often match whatever I was going through or feeling as an actor on this set with whatever Fergus was going through. I’m just proud. I’m a Fraser, man!”

Marsali, meanwhile, will have to settle into a new normal after returning to Fraser’s Ridge with her children, left to ponder her next move and if she will take the inheritance Fergus learned he was owed earlier this season as the surprise son of a French dignitary. “As a woman in that time, she has to be selfish and survive,” Lyle offers. “Take the money, girl. That’s the modern way of thinking.”

“Fergus would want her to do it,” Domboy assures.

Whether she will take it is something for the final three episodes of the series to sort out. For now, viewers are left with the stinging loss of a beloved character, something that puts the impending May 15 series finale into perspective. But Domboy and Lyle didn’t want to say goodbye to Fergus and Marsali without punctuating their love the right way. In the script, their final love scene –– which, despite the show’s reputation, is a rarity for this couple –– was meant to be quick. “Passionate and performative,” Domboy says. But the actors advocated for something a bit more tender.

“We got them to step off for a minute and just give us a bit to choreograph it with the intimacy coordinators,” Lyle says. “We convinced them that it should start a minute before it did in the script, where it all gets fun and playful, because I think it’s nice to show this version of a couple that has four kids and still has this love for each other. You’re reminded of who they were because, in a few minutes, you’re going to see them, as an entity, die. For a brief moment, you see who they were 10 years ago when they first started, where it’s always been about fun and romance and giddiness and sexiness. That is about to be the last thing you see of them, and we have to see that rather than it just being sex.”

In that spirit, if Fergus had been given the chance to say a farewell to his other half, Domboy knows exactly what words he would have chosen.

“Je t’aime mon amour,” he says.