Honestly, no one understood the ending, but it’s finally explained in Outlander Season 9
“I don’t really know what happened.”
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Caitriona Balfe as Claire on ‘Outlander’.Credit: Robert Wilson/Starz
This post contains spoilers from the Outlander series finale, “And the World Was All Around Us.”
Across the seas and the centuries, time-traveler Claire Fraser (Caitríona Balfe) has played many roles: wife, mother, hostage, lady, combat nurse, physician, and beekeeper, just to name a few. And in the closing moments of Outlander’s series finale, it appears our heroine was bestowed with one more: miracle worker.
After Jamie (Sam Heughan) was shot and killed at the conclusion of the Battle of Kings Mountain, an inconsolable Claire sat vigil over his body for hours, refusing to leave despite son-in-law Roger (Richard Rankin) telling her they needed to take him home. “He is home,” she said, before exhaling and lying down beside him. What magical alchemy happened in those moments remains something of a mystery, but just as the scene was about to fade to black, Jamie and a now-white-haired Claire opened their eyes with a start.
Did Claire become the white witch (or as the French say, la dame blanche) some had assumed her to be? And what’s next for the couple if they’re both truly alive and well? We sat down with star Caitríona Balfe to get to the bottom of these and more burning questions.
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Sam Heughan as Jamie and Caitriona Balfe as Claire on ‘Outlander’.
Robert Wilson/Starz
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Given that multiple possible endings were filmed for the finale, I’m curious to hear what your reaction was to finally watching the episode and finding out how Outlander ends.
CAITRIONA BALFE: I just saw it the other day, and I’ve only seen it once, so it’s hard to process something like that. I thought the whole battle sequence was all very exciting and dramatic and really cool. It’s so heartbreaking for Claire, obviously, when she feels [Jamie’s] dead. I’m not sure that I fully understand the ending. 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.
Do you have theories? Do you think Claire brought Jamie back from the dead?
There’s this whole prophecy that Adawehi had in season 4, and originally, that was going to be sort of a thread of this season. Then they decided to take it out. I would try and ask [showrunner] Matt [Roberts], “Well, if she has no involvement in this thing, like, what is it?” And he said, “It just is what it is,” so I guess it just is what it is. I would have loved for it to have been a bit more mystical, and that Claire had more agency in bringing him back. I think in some way, yes, she does. But then it’s like, are they alive in this time? Are they alive in a different time? I don’t know.
Or are they in purgatory?
Who knows! I don’t know!
If Claire is able to resurrect someone, does that mean she actually is a white witch?
If she is, she doesn’t know. Nobody told her. I mean, look, there’s a lot of magic that happens through the show, and I think it’s nice when we lean into it.
At first blush, I thought Claire had died too, since she released what seemed to be a final breath and lay down next to Jamie.
I think that’s what it is.
That she died momentarily?
That’s how I was sort of playing it. He is her home. It’s very Romeo and Juliet, almost, they die together on this altar or this stone. It’s what you hope happens in Romeo and Juliet. We get to change the Shakespearean ending.
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Presuming Claire did indeed bring Jamie back to life, does that mean the two were able to change history for once?
They’ve always been able to change it in the micro, it’s the macro they were never able to. As she said to Jamie, which I thought was such a cute scene in the last episode, they’ve always been able to change these insignificant things. And he sort of laughingly says, “Does that mean I’m insignificant?” Obviously not to her. This love is so powerful and so important, and their lives are so entwined that it would make sense if that’s what it was, right?
Speaking of them being so entwined, when Jamie got shot, Claire clutched her own chest in the same spot. Does that mean she actually felt his pain?
It’s a callback to when, in season 7, Claire said, “I would feel it. I would know if he died.” They’re so connected that she can feel it. I love that moment, because it is that thing of, she knew the last time—she knew she didn’t feel it, and that was part of the anger and the frustration. She knew that it didn’t feel like she felt it would, and this she felt instantaneously.
If Jamie and Claire are indeed living happily ever after in the 18th century, what other historic events do you think they’ll crash? George Washington’s inauguration?
I think maybe after this one, they’re going to enjoy the quiet life. 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.
The finale concludes with a fun post-credits scene showing author Diana Gabaldon at an Outlander book signing, with what looks to be Claire’s journal on the table beside her. Do you have any inkling as to how she might have come upon that journal?
I was thinking about this the other day, actually, after I saw the episode. 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 interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Outlander series finale is streaming now on the Starz app.
