To the relief of many patient fans, the Frasers are finally heading back to their beloved Scotland in the second part of the seventh and penultimate season of romantic time-travelling (melo)drama Outlander.
On 22 November, Part 2 of Outlander Season 7 will premiere on Binge in Australia, with new episodes dropping weekly.
The first half premiered in June 2023 with the storyline featuring the Frasers caught up in the American Revolutionary War, but this second instalment picks up with Claire (CaitrÃona Balfe), Jamie (Sam Heughan) and Young Ian (John Bell) leaving the colonies and arriving in their Scottish homeland.
Ten years of Outlander‘s famously fraught marriage
It’s been ten years since the 2014 premiere of the first season of the steamy Scottish series which was adapted from Diana Gabaldon’s international best-selling Outlander books about a British Army nurse after World War II, who finds herself transported to 1743 and into a mysterious world where her freedom and life are threatened.
Despite already being married, Claire is forced to marry strapping Scots warrior Jamie Fraser, who has a complicated past and a saucy sense of humour. The forces of history, war, time travel – and the issues of Claire’s bigamy and Jamie’s sexual trauma – have fuelled multiple plotlines.
The Outlander books have sold an estimated 50 million copies worldwide, with all nine of the books gracing the New York Times best-seller list. The first season of the TV adaptation saw 5.1 million multiplatform viewers, and inspired a slew of feminist thinkpieces, many of them focusing on the way the show honoured a feminine gaze and female sexual desire.
Claire’s agency as a character, and Heughnan’s hotness as an actor (along with his character’s humour, vulnerability, victimhood and ability to wear a kilt) were examined in detail.
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Subsequent seasons have seen the characters travel to the French Revolution and the American one. But Scotland is where the series began and where, arguably, its best seasons have been set. The first season of the series was the most critically acclaimed, with The Huffington Post calling the first episode ‘… A masterpiece of impressive depth … It is amazing!’
Subsequent series have tested the patience of some critics and fans, though writing about the first part of Season 7 for Collider, Carly Lane praises the enduring chemistry and maturity of the onscreen marriage:
‘Seven seasons in, and there’s no denying it:Â Outlander‘s leads still have some of the best chemistry on television. Some of that is likely due to the consequence of time itself; Heughan and Balfe have spent as many years inhabiting these characters as we have watching them at home, and the proof is in every single one of their scenes together, which remain the highlight of the series overall … what comes across with warm clarity is how the romance between Jamie and Claire feels lived-in and natural rather than anything that seems to be afforded active thought.
‘The actors’ off-screen friendship no doubt contributes to this — after all, there’s always been something of a fighting-in-the-trenches mentality surrounding the number of love scenes that this duo has gorgeously brought to life over the years — but it also means that the Frasers’ marriage is as evocative as it is comforting to watch.’
Could Claire and Jamie ever settle down and live in peace? The course of true love must never be easy if we are to have more seasons (and an eighth and final one has already been shot).
So here’s the synopsis of this Season Seven, Part 2:
‘The perils of the Revolutionary War force them to choose between standing by those they love and fighting for the land they have made their new home. Meanwhile, Roger (Richard Rankin) and Brianna (Sophie Skelton) face new enemies across time, and must battle the forces that threaten to pull their family apart.
‘As loyalties change and painful secrets come to light, Jamie and Claire’s marriage is tested like never before. With their love binding them over oceans and centuries, can the MacKenzies and Frasers find their way back to each other?’
Alongside Balfe, Heughan, Skelton, Rankin and Bell, Outlander also stars Australian actor David Berry as Lord John Grey, Charles Vandervaart as William Ransom, Izzy Meikle-Small as Rachel Hunter and Joey Phillips as Denzell Hunter.
Watch the trailer for Outlander Season 7 Part 2
Production credit: Matthew B Roberts serves as showrunner and executive producer on both series with Ronald D. Moore, Maril Davis and Jim Kohlberg serving as executive producers on both as well. Moore and Davis developed Outlander for television, under their production banner Tall Ship Productions.
Toni Graphia, Luke Schelhaas, Andy Harries, CaitrÃona Balfe, and Sam Heughan also serve as executive producers on Outlander which is produced by Tall Ship Productions, Left Bank Pictures, Story Mining & Supply Company and Sony Pictures Television.Â
Outlander Season 7 Part 2 premieres Saturday November 23 on BINGE and Foxtel One at 4pm and available On Demand.
