‘Outlander’ Stars Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan Break That ‘Horrifying’ Season 8 Cold Open: “Claire’s Reaction Is, Of course, Violent”
The Outlander Season 8 opens in the middle of an intense chapter in Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and Jamie’s (Sam Heughan) story that fans of the Starz hit may find literally “shocking.”
**Spoilers for The Outlander Season 8 Episode 1 “Soul of a Rebel,” now streaming on Starz**
The Outlander fans know that Season 7 Part 2 ended with the shocking revelation that Jamie and Claire’s firstborn, Faith, may have survived as an infant, tragically dying after giving birth to Jane (Silvia Presente) and Fanny Pocock (Florrie Mae Wilkinson). The Starz show doesn’t pick up where season 7 left off, but in the middle of a new adventure where Jamie and Claire are weighing in on a shady smuggler named Vasquez (Miguel Álvarez).
“We’re on the scene and we’re in the middle of this conversation,” Sam Heughan told DECIDER. “It was one of the first things we shot and for ourselves, it was amazing to be in the story of Jamie and Claire in this mission to find out more about what happened to Faith.”
Jamie and Claire lure Vasquez to a shady spot with the promise of a whiskey trade. However, Jamie soon says he wants to expand his business into human trafficking. He gets Vasquez to open up about how he raided the boat Jane and Fanny took to America. The Spaniard brags about how stupid the Captain, Pocock, was to bring his family. Pocock was willing to give the smuggler his property, but not his family, so Vasquez killed him.
Vasquez then explains in a disgusting, vivid way how he kidnapped young Fanny knowing she was too young to trade for sex, but in the end he would fetch a large sum of her beauty. He sexually assaulted Jane, who was obviously still a virgin. He then expresses his regret for not hurting their beautiful mother, who had “wild hair” and “velvet skin.” He became “angry” when he touched the girls, hitting her with his claws. So he threw him into the sea because “death would silence him.”
This time, Claire explodes. He came from the corner with a knife and stabbed Vasquez to death. Jamie quickly dispatches Vasquez’s man. The couple leaves. Does Claire have any regrets? Killing him quickly.
When DECIDER caught up with Caitrona Balfe recently, she shared that while she “can’t condone” Claire’s violence, she “maybe can understand.”
“I think about Claire and Jamie, I mean, you never go through the loss of a child and find out that he was alive or maybe he was alive and that they missed that life? I mean, that’s another pain and that’s another set of grief to go through,” Balfe said. So when they found out, especially what happened to him – if it really was him – it was really bad. And I think Claire is doing something very shocking.”
Sam Heughan agreed. “Claire’s reaction is quite violent. It’s not how she’s used to acting, I think, but you can see the emotion in her and the love that’s there.”
“I think Jamie is shocked by it, but also as published and killed by their confidence in finding the truth about what happened,” Heughan said.
Interestingly, the actors who play Jamie and Claire were surprised by that The Outlander Fandom’s biggest Season 7 reveal as the fandom was.
“I had no idea where that was going at all,” Balfe said. “We didn’t have those last two episodes of Season 7 until very late. Right before we started filming. So that was kind of a big revelation for us.”
Balfe then shared that Outlanderr’s last season also kept him and Heughan on their toes. For the first time, showrunner Matthew B. Roberts didn’t give the stars and EPs a season-long breakdown before filming began.
“I think Matt, because he had a lot of responsibility to finish the show that everyone has an opinion on, he was keeping his cards close to his chest and not giving us the details of the season,” he said. “So going into the season, we started with two scripts and then we kind of went script by script. So we were surprised where this whole story was going to go.”
There are 10 episodes in total in the eighth and final season The Outlanderwhich means there is no telling where Claire and Jamie’s story will go next. Especially after that action-packed cold open.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s a solid start for both of them, right?” Heughan said, before joking about Claire’s violence. “Yeah. I think his body count is getting higher than Jamie’s, for sure.”
The Outlander Season 8 Episode 1 “Soul of a Rebel” is now streaming on Starz.
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