Episode 810: And the World Was All Around Us

“Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon; The world was all before them, where to choose their place of rest, and Providence their guide; They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, through Eden took their solitary way.” -John Milton, Paradise Lost

Similar to Milton’s telling of Genesis, our Outlander story ends on a note of hope. Let’s discuss the series finale and a television show we have loved so much.

Warning-Contains spoilers from Outlander episode 810: And the World Was All Around Us

In Milton’s Paradise Lost, Adam is offered a vision of humanity’s future by the Archangel Michael, and it is unsettling to say the least. Betrayal, flood, murder, sin…Adam is horrified at what is foretold. This is the tension set forth for humanity, and thematically it is also the tension for our characters this hour—how do we survive in a world where the future contains known heartache? How does the Fraser family move forward when they, too, have had their futures foretold? The Battle of Kings Mountain is upon them, and so is Jamie’s predicted death.

Perhaps, then, this is why much of this episode is spent in reflection and focused on the past. As Jamie and Claire revisit their shared memories, we as audience members also share in the nostalgia of their history. This is where it all began, this episode tells us with its use of the original opening credits. This is who these people were, it reminds us with Claire’s recollections of her childhood and young adulthood. This is why it has all been worth it, the show argues as we remember a love that has spanned decades. Let us say goodbye.

Goodbyes, unsurprisingly, compose a large part of this final episode, as our characters take their leave of us and to each other. The show did a lovely way of showing different goodbyes: Jamie and Claire’s is passionate and deep, Roger and Brianna’s is cerebral and forthright, and Ian and Rachel’s is an unspoken promise. Their goodbyes are as different as their characters…something for us all.

Which is fitting for a show that provided, well, something for us all. It can be difficult to explain a love for this story for those outside the fandom, but we never stop trying. We love stories of time travel for the imagined glimpse they give us of a different world…a world that seems simpler and offers a chance of redemption. We love Gabaldon’s novels for their thousands of pages of beautifully crafted words, and we love this show for bringing that prose to life.

More than those things, however, I’d argue that we love Outlander for the permission it gives us to feel all that humanity offers—all that which Adam saw upon leaving Eden. Love, pain, hope, regret, fear, courage….we experience these things collectively, no matter the century. If a story can manage to convey that shared human experience while also telling the story of a time-traveling woman and the handsome Scottish Highlander who loves her? Well, all the better.

Because this final episode necessitates reflection, it’s worthwhile to revisit the many years and seasons that lead us to this final hour. In Season One we are young and love finds us unexpectedly. Danger exists but we have the confidence to see it through to the other side. In Season Two we are older, and we know that tragedy is an inevitable part of life. Loss, grief, and goodbyes….they await us all, no matter our intention.

In Season Three we are older still, and we must decide how we want to live our remaining years. We reclaim what we want, assured by the wisdom of our lived experiences. In Seasons Four through Seven we realize that change is slow and we must all work within the systems afforded to us. Injustice and inequity exist despite our efforts, but we persevere with noble intention.

Finally, in Season Eight, we reminisce on our lives and reflect on our legacy. Whether it is a Last Will and Testament, or whether it is a new country with a new constitution, the final season asks us what is worth leaving behind. Over its many years this show has forced us to examine what is worth fighting for— a culture and way of life; family, neighbors, and loved ones; an assertion that all men are created equal. The political is personal in Outlander, and it always has been.

Which is why the episode opens with the calling of the clans. It is a gathering of Jamie’s men, yes, but it is also a reminder of what can be lost in a matter of one generation. The Scottish Highland culture was deliberately dismantled in the wake of the Jacobite risings, and gone with it was a language and community that had survived for centuries. Here, in this final episode, we are transported back to the Highland culture as we knew it in the first season, and we are reminded of all it stood for.

Goodbyes follow, and Claire’s scene with Francis was especially poignant. Claire is not one to make promises she cannot keep (as is illustrated later in the episode), and so she cannot tell Fanny with certainty that she and Jamie will return. But family is connected, she argues, and we feel our loved ones even after they are gone. In this way no one is ever truly gone forever which, of course, is a bit of foreshadowing.

The farewells continue as Jamie says goodbye to Brianna, who has had to say goodbye to her parents twice before. Perhaps the greatest gift we can give our children is the assurance that we are proud of the people they’ve become. The gift they give us is the hope of their future—through our children and grand-children we are all time travelers of sorts.

Jamie says a final goodbye to the bees and quotes, “And I shall have some peace, for peace comes dropping slow.” It is a line from “The Lake of Innisfree” by W.B. Yeats, and it isn’t the first time the poem has been referenced in the series—Episode 410’s title, “The Deep Heart’s Core,” is also taken from the poem. It is a fitting piece of poetry for this moment and for this show, as it argues peace cannot be rushed. A good life is earned, it asserts, and it is up to us to look for the beauty in the small details of the world around us. Not coincidentally, it is also a poem that evokes nostalgia of the natural world….this is also a bit of foreshadowing.

The Battle of Kings Mountain ensues, and it unfolds exactly as documented by Frank Randall. It also enfolds exactly as predicted for these known characters. Claire can’t stay still, even as Jamie warns her not to follow. The Patriots claim victory, but relief is short-lived. As it happened in actual history, Ferguson shot and killed a Patriot after being approached for surrender. In our fictional history, that man was Jamie Fraser.

Claire, understandably, refuses to leave Jamie’s body. It is fitting that it is Roger who shares these final moments with Claire. They have always had an understanding with each other, rooted in their similarities. Each raised by a kind man after losing both parents at a very young age, and each understanding that the loneliness in this world is thwarted by a suspension of disbelief. Sometimes we need to believe in a bit of magic. Sometimes we need a bit of faith.

And so it happens that a man of God and woman of medicine find themselves yearning to heal that which cannot be mended. Do not both professions rely on a certain amount of hope? A certain amount of faith?

Faith, it turns out, is exactly what this moment calls for. Because here in these final minutes we see the bigger picture. All is revealed—the story of Jamie and Claire cannot happen unless Jamie dies. The ghost in the rainstorm, the Forget-Me-Nots at Craigh Na Dun…the ending determines the beginning, and what has happened before will happen again.

The best television shows typically leave their endings open to interpretation, and I suppose this one is no different. For me, however, the ending seems fairly unequivocal. Jamie and Claire are bees, asleep in a flower, waiting to wake in the warmth of the dawn. Claire’s hair is white—she has come into her full powers. As it happened with the stillborn infant, a blue-tinted light encompasses them both. Every conversation this season about Faith? It was not an accident. People can be revived, this show argues, resurrected by the power of love, magic…and faith.

Go tell the bees we have said goodbye, and let us—as Americans—take with us the wisdom of a hive. May we all work together for the goal of a common good. May we learn to put the needs of a group above our individual desires. May we learn to communicate with each other to the benefit of ourselves and others. May we, as a country, be adaptable and resilient and understand that sometimes change is necessary. And finally, may our small actions provide the world with beauty and abundance.

With wandering and slow steps we all walk toward our future, hand in hand, and the world is all around us.

Slàinte.

(Similar to the show, I will also leave a post-script in tribute to Diana Gabaldon. Thank you, Dr. Gabaldon, for this gift of a story. Art is the original time-traveler, living forever in the hearts of generations to come.)

Screengrabs provided by outlanderwatch.com