The Droughtlander is over! Outlander returns to Scotland, birthplace of the Frasers’ epic love story when the Starz series finally returns for the first time since August 2023.
“You see how emotional it is for Jamie,” Sam Heughan says in the new issue of Us Weekly. “He’s an honorable man. He loves his family and his sister, and he promised he’d bring [his nephew] Young Ian home.”
Jamie (Heughan) and Claire Fraser (Caitríona Balfe) left Scotland five years ago, in season 3. (After a Jamaican detour, they’ve been adventuring in the New World: America!)
“They’re older, time has passed — there’s a lot to deal with,” Heughan continues. “There are [also] relationships Jamie hasn’t put to rest.”
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At Lallybroch estate, Young Ian (John Bell) is indeed reunited with his parents, but his mother looks a little different as actress Kristin Atherton takes over the role of Jenny from Laura Donnelly.
“There’s certain characteristics to Jenny we want to still see — this feistiness. But Jenny has a lot of heart,” producer Maril Davis tells Us. “Kristin stepped into a tough situation and nailed it and embodied that sense of Jenny as a character.”
Bell, meanwhile, notes that Ian isn’t exactly the same when he sees Jenny and Elder Ian (Steven Cree). “He’s arriving there a very, very different person to the boy that left all those years ago,” Bell tells Us. “There’s a mix of trepidation and anxiety about what exactly he’s gonna discover when he finally gets home.”
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Outside of his relationships with his sister and brother-in-law, Jamie will come face to face with ex-wife Laoghaire (Nell Hudson). “I don’t think it goes as well as he was hoping,” Balfe quips of the encounter. (A pitchfork is raised!) “Claire is like, ‘What are you doing? She tried to shoot you before!’”
Season 7B also will see the return of Geillis Duncan (Lotte Verbeek) —”It’s good to see the evil witch back!” Bell jokes — and Dougal MacKenzie (Graham McTavish). “It felt like we were back in season 1!” Davis says of the clansman’s return.
Meanwhile, the Frasers’ son in-law, Roger MacKenzie (Richard Rankin), has gone through the stones at Craigh na Dun to find his kidnapped son, Jemmy. But wait: “It’s an unpredictable thing, time travel,” Rankin teases. “You never know where you’re gonna end up. And Roger finds himself in quite an interesting time and place.”
Roger’s journey to rescue Jemmy leaves his wife, Brianna Fraser (Sophie Skelton), with daughter Mandy in the 20th century.
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“It’s really fun to play this season because Brianna’s always had to be an extremely tough cookie, and she has always been her own first and last line of defense,” Skelton tells Us. “And now the stakes are completely different. She’s a mother, so the emotional turmoil is very different. She snaps into action very quickly and she’ll do anything to save her family and to keep them safe. … Ahe very much has to keep herself together while she’s completely torn apart inside and that’s a very cool thing for the audience to be let in on.”
The series’ eighth and final season wrapped in October, and Balfe promises a “beautiful” farewell. But first, let’s enjoy these eight episodes she describes as “intense, shocking — and heartbreaking.”
Outlander returns to Starz Friday, November 22 at 8 p.m. ET.
With additional reporting by Andrew Nodell
