Outlander Raises Frustrating New Questions About Jamie's Fate In New Season 8 Footage, But I'm Just Hyped By Starz's Surprise Treat For Fans
The long wait for Outlander's eighth and final season will officially extend beyond the end of the 2025 TV schedule, but that doesn't mean Starz will leave fans of the original series hanging for the rest of the year while Blood of My Blood delves into the lead duo's parents. San Diego Comic-Con's 2025 panel not only dropped the first footage for the last season (complete with nostalgic nods to the past), but also ended on a major surprise treat for fans that guaranteed that I'm not going to be too troubled by the questions about Jamie's fate just yet.
That is, a major treat if you're as much of a fan of the show's opening theme as I am! But let's start with the first glimpses of Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan in their last season as Claire and Jamie Fraser. After all, 'frustrating' isn't a bad thing when it comes to teaser trailers – we're never going to get all the answers ahead of time, and half the fun of speculating and the frustrating lack of answers!
Outlander Revisits The Past In The First Look At Season 8
The teaser (seen above) admittedly features more footage of the first seven seasons than glimpses of the eighth, but I actually loved the nostalgia. Not only was it a blast to the past that hooked me into the saga of Claire and Jamie, but it really reminded me of how well the show's makeup team managed ageing up Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan. Sure, the actors wouldn't look as young as they did when they filmed the 2014 pilot by Season 8 anyway, but Sam Heughan during the SDCC panel clearly wasn't as old as his fictional counterpart by Season 8's point in the timeline. (Caitriona Balfe was unable to attend.)
And Season 8's point in the timeline might not be great for Jamie. While the cliffhanger of Faith's possible survival and time travel status isn't addressed in the trailer, it does suggest that perhaps Outlander will address its longest-standing mystery before the final credits roll: the spectral image of Jamie that Claire saw before she traveled back to the 18th century for the first time.
The mention of Frank's book combined with those flashes to the earliest days of the show (including Tobias Menzies as both Frank Randall and Black Jack Randall) already had me thinking back to when he was Claire's beloved 20th century husband, as he was when Ghost Jamie first appeared. Throw in the question of whether this truly will be the season when James Fraser meets his doom, and there's a lot to ponder ahead of the 2026 return.
The stakes are sky-high in a final season when a show doesn't actually have to prevent its main characters from being killed off for good, and Outlander foreshadowed Jamie's ghost (sort of) way back in the beginning. Alas, we just have more questions than answers at this point, and I'm left frustrated that the Season 1 scene of Claire spotting Jamie in the 1940s wasn't one of the nostalgic flashes.
But my frustration and need for more answers didn't last as I sat in San Diego Comic-Con's Outlander panel.
Raya Yarbrough's Surprise Performance
If the name 'Raya Yarborough' doesn't ring a bell for you, you must not have spent as much time as I have listening to the Outlander soundtracks. Yarborough performed the iconic 'Skye Boat Song' that has been featured in every Outlander episode to date, with different variations for the first six seasons before Sinéad O'Connor's version was used for Season 7.
There were variations to the tune throughout the seasons with different arrangements, and one of my favorites was the Jacobite version from Season 2, which includes the drums of war and tied perfectly to the Battle of Culloden. The duet version with Griogair kept the lyrics but changed the tone by adding a male voice to go along with Yarborough's, and was a fun surprise back in 2018.
But the fun surprise from SDCC this year? Raya Yarborough herself took the stage to perform 'The Skye Boat Song' on the Hall H stage between the end of the Outlander panel and beginning of the Outlander: Blood of My Blood panel. As if that wasn't enough of a treat for fans like me who would never dream of skipping ahead through the opening credits of an Outlander episode and missing the credits, a four-man concert of bagpipers turned up to play 'Scotland the Brave.' And if you've never heard a bagpipe played in person before… well, it's loud, thrilling, and a pretty great way to hype the end of one show and start of another!
While the wait is still on for Outlander to get a more specific release date than the news that Season 8 will arrive in 2026, the wait for Blood of My Blood won't last too much longer. The spinoff premieres on Friday, August 8th at 8 p.m. ET on Starz, with the fun coincidence that the date is almost exactly eleven years to the date from Outlander's series premiere. The series has also already been renewed for Season 2, so there's no need to worry if the stories of Claire's parents and Jamie's parents will be cut short.
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