[Spoilers Season 8B] Finally managed to gee myself up to watch the finale. .. I feel empty now.
I don’t know where to start, I’ve been hiding from this subreddit since season 8B began, apart from one post about the Outlander gallery and auction in London last week that managed to slink onto my homepage. I’ve been very very well behaved in not looking at this sub while I drip fed myself the second half of 8. Side note, in fact, this is one of the handful of series I’ve watched all the way through where I haven’t sneaked a peek at the related Wikipedia page or subreddit to find an answer to a question which spoils the future plot for me.
I think that’s why I was so anxious to get to the finale, as soon as the trailer came out earlier this year for the home stretch of episodes and I heard Jamie’s voiceover about Kings Mountain, iirc it made me dread the inevitability of the seasons end. All I could hope for the TV storyline finale was that they did the Outlander universe that Gabaldon had mothered, a good level of justice. But I didn’t want Jamie nor Claire to perish as a result, I don’t know what I wanted in totality, I knew a cookie cutter ending wasn’t plausible but jf by chance it was one of those it would have numbed the pain of the story ending, but it wouldn’t have been Outlander for me and I know it would have felt out of place. I also didn’t want to watch Claire’s world smash into a million tiny pieces if Jamie died in battle, they’d skirted death each so many times and they never truly knew retirement and their golden years together, they’d earned the right as characters to live out the rest of their days on the porch in the back country on hand carved rocking chairs reading books and watching their family grow around them.
I eventually made peace with my racing mind that if it was a Sopranos style ending I’d be content with that, given the circumstances of the story, world building and historical period which the story is set in. I’m mostly a realist, I like historic correctness in period dramas but I’m also wildly spiritual so the realisation this season that Claire and that pesky little oink Master Raymond possessed healing abilities made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside (my late Nana IRL was a deeply spiritual woman, sat in healing circles but was rugged in her upbringing in the countryside of the north of England , so I do believe there are things in life that cannot be explained by science, science only goes so far then comes god etc).
So last night comes along and I give my partner the nod about 9.30pm that signals ‘I’m ready, let’s finish this’—- it took me a week to get to this point. I really had drip fed 8B to myself episode by episode sometimes leaving a week or 10 days between viewings.
I cried at the intro, obviously, then the voiceover of James Frazers last will and testament, made me cry more. Jamie and Claire’s conversation about the bees and feets was wholesome, cried a bit more there. I managed to settle down mid way through, then came the battle, my heart pounded non stop as I watched the militia men carry out the techniques and formations they’d been learning a few episodes previous. Loved the setting of the uphill rugged battle, historically accurate and somewhat brutal. When the wind was howling and the British were all but declaring defeat, and Jamie survived, I paid close attention to the weather and didn’t let myself be happy just yet, it felt eerie. I shouted at the screen ‘Claire don’t go back down that mountain’ . The gun shot, the heart ache Claire instantly felt, Jamie’s men losing their shit at Ferguson as target practice and an axe sharpener (Ian), the bowing before their clan leaders lifeless body, the emotions on their faces, Claire refusing to leave his side, the cut scenes the day lapses, the night sky, the begging to a higher power by Claire to help bring him back.
The forget me nots!! The bloody forget me nots!! The man standing by that monument on a cold rainy Inverness evening.. it was always him as we all may have come to suspect.
When I saw the flapping wings in the montage of their journey in love together, I stopped weeping, took a deep breath and said ‘oh please please please’. I had hope again. Cut to Claire lying on that grassy mountain meadow, her hair grayed once more, I knew, she’d became wise, but also… Jamie gasped in time with Claire eyes just opening— And scene fades to black!
I got my Sopranos ending, and now it’s over I feel empty, I feel like when you get back from a holiday and you get the holiday blues, you feel lost, empty, without purpose.
This was one of the best watches of my life, the good, the bad, the boring, the sad, the traumatic, the anxiety… all of it was a masterpiece.
I now plan to read the books (well, listen to them)
I don’t think I’ll be able to rewatch the entire series just yet, I might never do that, I never rewatched Six Feet Under because that was tied up in a realistic yet traumatic little bow for me too in its ending. Outlander wasn’t quite the same in its own, but I feel like I can close the book so to speak on the tv series and imagine that Claire helped Jamie down off that mountain top, and took him home, to finally enjoy retirement.
It’s been a journey guys. I’m not fussed if anybody reads or replies to this post, I just wanted to get my feelings out.
Slanja