Consider the Source

‘Outlander’ Stars Caitríona Balfe and Sam Heughan on Saying Goodbye ‘The Right Way’ After Eight Seasons: This ‘Is Our Legacy’

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for “And the World Was All Around Us,” the series finale of “Outlander,” now streaming on Starz.

While the ending of “Outlander” has closed a chapter in lead stars Caitríona Balfe and Sam Heughan‘s lives, they’re still debating the fate of their beloved characters, Claire and Jamie, by the end of Season 8.

“Are they in this realm or the next? Jamie is a ghost or another ghost, maybe it’s his younger self calling Claire to him,” Heughan said during Variety‘s In Conversation With series presented by Starz, moderated by Emily Longeretta. “And if you look closely, you’ll see they’re both lying there on the magic stone, so maybe they’re in a different realm.”

“Every single person has their own idea about what, perhaps, should happen,” Balfe said. “And as people who were on the show from the very beginning and lived and breathed these characters, you have your [own] desire.”

Based on Diana Gabaldon’s historical fantasy book series, “Outlander” follows the romance between Jamie (Heughan), a Scottish highlander, and Claire (Balfe), a time-traveling nurse. Season 8 ends with Claire and Jamie lying next to one another with their eyes closed, Claire’s hair having turned grey, before they suddenly gasp for air right as the credits roll.

On the day they were filming that scene, Balfe explains it was extra emotional for her “because it was almost the end of the shoot. I remember [Sam] being really sweet because I had an absolute breakdown on one of the days … I was in bits!”

Another memorable scene for Heughan was the final montage that brings the season together and tells Claire and Jamie’s love story: “We get to see all of the wonderful moments that we’ve had on the show and all the great characters,” he said. “There’s lots of goodbyes to every character, and each character gets their moment. The series as a whole is our legacy.”

“Outlander” almost didn’t go the full eight seasons, though; the pair explain that originally, their show contracts only went through Season 7.

“At the time, it felt like we would have been cheating the story, wrapping it up very quickly,” Balfe said. “We wanted to honor this journey and say goodbye in the right way.”

Heughan added, “When we got to the end of [Season] 7, it just didn’t feel satisfying.”

Two years after wrapping production, Balfe and Heughan have said goodbye to the acclaimed show they were on for eight seasons, and made their peace. Heughan said, “But I think the last goodbye is to the fans, isn’t it?”

Instagram goldderby

A formal apology goes out to Shotts, Scotland from #Outlander stars Sam Heughan and Caitríona Balfe.

MAY THIS LOVE FIND ME ONE DAY

it’s not weird to love it and comment and leave kudos because the author will probably still see it someday and it will make them happy.

it’s not weird to like said author’s work so much that you want to go look for other fics from them.

it’s not weird to go through the authors profile and look for other fics from the ships you like (or maybe some that you’ll give a chance because you liked the author) and maybe bookmark them for later.

it’s not weird to read these other fics and like them too and comment on them because you actually like them and you want to let the author know.

it’s not weird to read fanfiction from 5, or 8, or 10 years ago and actually enjoy and engage with it because it’s perfectly normal to relate to something that’s less than a decade old!

let’s stop treating fanfiction like they’re instagram posts that stop being interesting in 24 hours! fanfiction is NOT social media, fanfiction is art!!! and art doesn’t get old in one day, one year, or even a decade!

Don’t get your hopes up. 🙈 Chapter 43 of a Three is nowhere near being finished. But at least I’ve finally gotten far enough to make a mood board!

Sorry about the delay. Life has been shitty.

When even the most die-hard fans are venting their anger all over their keyboards…. Matt & Co. you’ve got a big problem....

🤨

So, now that we know that the Outlander season 8 showrunners have decreed the following to be true:

1. Claire's parents lived.

2. Faith lived, had children, and died a horrible death on her way to find her parents.

3. Fanny is Jamie and Claire's biological granddaughter.

4. Fergus is dead.

5. Lord John is quite happy to throw all caution and his adherence to social classes and etiquette to the wind for good time, all consequences be damned.

6. William is unable to experience any emotional growth and is stuck as a petulant child.

7. Lace makers have better medical skills and resources than pretty much everyone.

8. Master Raymond can time travel and bring people back from the brink of death but he can't remember to return a baby, that he stole, to their mother once said mother is feeling better. He can also determine that a song Claire sang to a dead baby would be much better than an episode of Find My Family or DNA testing to determine a blood relation.

9. Jamie can't seem to muster up a good old fashioned breakdown when his son dies unexpectedly. (I know Jamie is stoic, and strong for everyone else, but, come on, it was Fergus!!)

10. That Jamie and Claire no longer need physical touch as one of their love languages despite it being their main love language THE WHOLE TIME.

Given all of this, how is the season is going to end? I mean, all gloves are off. Source material? Pfft, what's that???

Is Jamie going to die? Is Claire going to die? Will Faith magically reappear on the Ridge? Will Jamie summon the ghosts of his family to give him strength as he goes into battle, just like Harry Potter did? Will the bear's family turn up at the ridge and enact a bit of payback? Is Frank really black Jack Randall and he can time travel? Is Jamie somewhere in a shower, aka Bobby Ewing? Will Frank walk into their room at the B and B and find Claire asleep in the same comfy chair we saw in the first episode, book open in her lap. Will Frank wake her gently with a kiss, and as she returns his kiss the book falls to the ground and we see that the book is in fact Outlander and it has all been a dream. Her dream.

(Ohhh, I probably shouldn't have put that last one out into the universe.)

So, what is your best guess? Lay them on me.

In 1445, a Flemish painter painted a hovering angel almost entirely in black. With dark robes and dark wings, it presses its hands to its face, crying. The contrast with the pale background sky is deliberate: the figure is engulfed in darkness, but its agony is clearly visible. Rogier van der Weyden, Crucifixion Triptych, detail.

There are four mourning angels in total in the scene, all painted in these dark tones. They’re positioned at the level of Christ’s body, suspended above the earth.

There’s an interesting detail about this triptych: originally, it wasn’t a triptych at all. Van der Weyden painted it on a single panel, painting the frames directly onto the surface using the trompe-l'oeil (optical illusion) technique. Shortly after it was finished, the panel was sawed into three pieces.

On the right wing, Saint Veronica holds the veil bearing the imprint of Christ’s face. Veronica isn’t in the Bible. Her name doesn’t appear in any canonical texts. Her first written record is in the Acts of Pilate, an apocryphal text from the 4th century, and even there, she has nothing to do with the veil. She’s simply mentioned as a bleeding woman who was healed by touching Christ’s cloak.

The veil story emerged much later, in the 13th century,in Roger d'Argenteuil’s French Bible. The motif of Christ wiping his face on the way to the crucifixion and leaving a miraculous imprint on the veil was only added then. The origin of her name is also debated: according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, it was formed by blending the Latin word vera (true) and the Greek word eikon (image) in popular speech. So, the veil was first called the ‘vera icon’ (true image), and this description later turned into a woman’s name. Pope John Paul II said this clearly during the Stations of the Cross in 2000: 'Perhaps this name describes what the woman did, rather than who she was.’

In this panel, Van der Weyden painted Veronica as a young, elegant woman with a flawless complexion. While traditional iconography usually shows Veronica with an old, wrinkled face, Van der Weyden did the exact opposite. On top of that, he painted Mary Magdalene as an older woman, even though she’s usually depicted as young.

Art historian Erwin Panofsky wrote this about Van der Weyden’s work: ’…A brilliant pearl born of the most intense emotion. It epitomizes what the Italians admired most in Early Flemish painting: pictorial brilliance and sentiment…’ Van der Weyden is considered the first artist in European painting to depict scenes where figures are visibly crying. Before him, grief and agony were conveyed through facial expressions, body posture, or hand gestures. Van der Weyden took this a step further: genuine, glistening, wet teardrops are actually flowing from the figures’ eyes.