Critic’s Rating: 4.8 / 5.0
4.8
From the beginning of Outlander Season 8, there’s been one book storyline we have all been preparing for.
It’s the big fire at the printshop, which in the books leads to a devastating death.
While the show loves to break our hearts as the book does, this change to the story hurts the most, but it’s going to have a much bigger impact.
William Exposes the Truth
Outlander Season 8 Episode 7 decided not to waste any time on Denny getting William out of the Continental Camp, and I’m glad. We didn’t need it.
Instead, the episode had to focus on William exposing the truth.
There are a lot of emotions flying around throughout his scenes with Amaranthus and Lord John Grey, and for good reason.
William feels angry and betrayed — again!
Amaranthus has all this guilt and shame, but there’s also anger, as she never asked for any of this.
Then there’s Lord John Grey, who goes from happy to shocked and disgusted.
Amaranthus didn’t really have much of a choice. Ben had his mind set to switch sides, and Amaranthus had to play a part to protect her son.
I want to believe that that has been her motivation all along, but something didn’t sit right with me in the scene when she threw the glass into the fire.
I’m not sure if it was poor acting, poor writing, or Amaranthus trying to cover up her devious ways, but there didn’t seem to be enough anger in her words to throw the glass.
William does forgive her rather quickly, but that’s his infatuation with her, and it’s not surprising that John has picked up on it all.
However, John isn’t really going to have much of a leg to stand on.
For 20 years, John has been able to hide his sexuality from William, but the truth comes out as we get some not-quite-necessary backstory with Percy.
Why exactly did John think it was safe to kiss Percy in a room with open doors, knowing that William and Amaranthus were around?
I’m not sure, but the secret is out, and it’s going to be exciting to see where the story goes with this.
The Faith Plot Is Explained
Even though the Faith storyline isn’t a favorite for many Outlander fans, an explanation has been needed. There have been too many questions regarding Master Raymond and Mother Hildegarde.
Well, we got all our answers and more.
Yes, Faith is one and the same as Fanny — Claire and Jamie’s granddaughter.
I appreciated the ending, as we flipped back to Paris in 1744, where Master Raymond entrusted the baby to the lacemaker and taught her the song.
Everything falls into place so simply. Mother Hildegarde likely had no idea, and Master Raymond did nothing out of malice.
As Claire had said, he needed to get out of the city and likely didn’t have time to tell her anything.
By the time the lacemaker had worked out who Lady Broch Tuarach was, it was too late. Claire and Jamie were gone.
Master Raymond chose a good woman, one who eventually made sure Faith knew where to look.
I also think it was a great choice to have the song play at the end in full, giving us time to quietly sob over everything that happened during the hour.
Fanny’s reaction to everything after finding out about the letter — the story Jane told the journalist before her death — is calm and collected.
She’s taking it all in, trying to figure out how it’s possible, and is also somewhat grateful to have a family.
Of course, that’s when everything comes crashing down for her.
The people she loves the most are taken from her, and now she has more people to lose. It doesn’t help that as Marsali returns to the Ridge, it’s with the heartbreaking news of loss.
I love and hate how mature Fanny is, because while it means a quick resolution with so little time left, it means she’s been through hell and had to grow up quickly, and she should get to be a child.
And no, the Faith storyline hasn’t taken up too much time in the final season. “Evidence of Things Not Seen” will be remembered for the Marsali and Fergus storyline rather than anything to do with Faith.
At least she’s able to think a little more pragmatically than Claire. I still cannot believe Claire would think Frank would write a fake history book just to hurt her or Jamie.
Of course, it was real. But that doesn’t mean Jamie has to die.
It just means that a James Fraser dies, and we all know that Claire is coming into her powers. That wasn’t added in for the fun of it!
A Death That Changes Everything
Let’s rip the bandage off and talk about that death. I’ve tried to hold off long enough!
OMG! I’m not sure I can think of this without tears forming, and I feared that this was the route Outlander Season 8 would take.
The minute I saw Fergus on the roof with his sons in the trailer, I had a feeling that the show would opt to kill him off instead of Henri-Christian.
Something just told me that Matt B. Roberts and Maril Davis couldn’t bear to bring the death that many of us have hated from Written in My Own Heart’s Blood.
There’s also a bittersweet buildup to the fire.
We know that there are tensions in Savannah, as people don’t like journalists who remain neutral. That is the point of real journalism, though: report on the news itself.
No opinion, no discussion. It’s just about the news.
Sure, Fergus has his sedition side-business, but the papers that he prints are all about what’s going on.
We see in the world today that if you remain neutral, you’re considered on the other side by people. I can imagine that that’s how it would have been in the 18th century at the height of the American Revolution.
However, Marsali and Fergus were trying to push through it all and set up a life for their children.
We got to see some of that, with Fergus and Marsali’s game of ranking the poems they receive and Fergus teaching his sons how to use the printing press.
Henri-Christian is just the sweetest, and I couldn’t help but curl up into a ball every time he was on the screen, fearing what would come.
Instead, adding Roger to the story changed everything.
Marsali gets the girls out, while Fergus rushes to the roof for the boys. Fortunately, Bree and Roger were elsewhere, so they were outside when the fire took over.
It’s then that Outlander opts to change everything.
Sure, Henri-Christian falls to the ground below, but Roger is able to swoop in and save him — similar to the way Roger’s dad saved him all those years ago.
There’s a haunting mirror image there, but it doesn’t do enough to protect anyone from heartbreak.
Just as I feared, it wasn’t Henri-Christian we had to worry about, but Fergus.
As everyone watches Fergus lower Germain down from the roof, the roof gives way, and Fergus crashes down into the fiery pit below.
There is no surviving that. While we never see his body or the melted metal hand — and I’m grateful Outlander doesn’t show us any of that — we know that Fergus is gone.
Everyone is in shock and grieving.
Bree asking Roger if he would go back to their own time if something happened to her is something that we’ve all wondered about, each and every one of them who can time-travel.
No, the past is their home — all five of them. Yes, Bree is pregnant!
Then, Bree being the one to hold Marsali as she silently screams out her grief is enough to make the toughest of men bawl like a baby.
Lauren Lyle clearly gave that scene everything she could, her whole body curling up as she finally allowed herself to cry, knowing Bree was there to hold her.
Nothing is going to be the same after all of this, and that’s what makes Fergus’s death so much more heartbreaking than Henri-Christian’s in the book.
In fact, I think it means more that it’s Fergus.
Germain and Henri-Christian now need to decide if they can continue their dad’s fight — the pen is mightier than the sword.
The whole family needs to grieve and feel this loss, but they also need to decide whether those who started the fire — and we all know someone who did — get to win.
The flashbacks of Fergus throughout the series were a beautiful touch, and I adore how they were all from Jamie’s memories.
Not one was something Jamie wouldn’t have seen for himself, making it clear that he was remembering the mark his son left on him.
I don’t think I’m ready to go on, though. Can someone pass me the whiskey?
How are you holding up, Sassenachs?
Now’s the time to get all those feelings out, whether it’s anger, shock, sadness, or absolutely anything else. We’re here as an Outlander family to support each other!
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