The seventh season of Starz’s historical-fantasy behemoth Outlander ended on a cliffhanger, with Claire (Caitríona Balfe) telling Jamie (Sam Heughan) that she believed their daughter Faith, long believed to be stillborn, actually lived.
That suspicion was confirmed in the first episode of Season 8. Jamie and Claire learn that not only did Faith indeed survive, but she also grew up to have two daughters of her own—one of whom is actually Fanny (Florrie May Wilkinson), the young girl that Jamie’s son, William, rescued from destitution and asked Claire and Jamie to raise. How Faith was brought up, Jamie and Claire still do not know, but a man confesses to having killed her at sea. (Claire, in turn, takes this man out with a knife.)
A departure from the action in Diana Gabaldon’s original Outlander novels—to which the Starz series has otherwise been largely faithful—the revelation rocked the show’s fans and actors alike. “It’s really sad, because you find out that there was this whole other life that could have been lived,” Balfe says, speaking to Vogue with Heughan from London. “And then to only find out after she’s already gone is really tough. As an actor, you’re trying to understand, then, where that grief sits, because the grief over losing a child will never leave you. To then add a new component to it… it was hard to find it.” Turning to Heughan, she adds: “But you’re amazing in that scene.”
“I think when we first read it, we were like, ‘What? How can this be?” Heughan recalls. “And I still don’t know if I know the truth. But Florrie just imbued it with so much.”
This week’s episode, titled “Prophecies,” came with a different sort of twist, marking Balfe’s first time directing. And what a time it was: Not only was the episode densely plotted—featuring a birth, a funeral, and a wedding—and Claire in most scenes, but it also included a bear, dropped into the story just three days before filming. (The cougar the production had wanted at the outset was no longer available.)
Her co-star is not shy in his praise of the result. “She’s why there are some really strong performances in this episode,” Heughan says, before addressing Balfe directly. “Everyone’s amazing, and you’re the conduit to that.”
“Caitríona was thrown into the deep end,” Sophie Skelton—who has played Claire and Jamie’s daughter Brianna since Season 2—tells Vogue. “They say kids and animals are hard to work with, and she got a big ol’ handful of both.”
