brian-in-finance

[brian-in-finance]

Good article about Cait's role in "The Cut". 👏👏👏

Caitriona Balfe’s journey from the Scottish Highlands to the boxing ring represents one of the most compelling career pivots in recent Hollywood memory. 

In THE CUT, Balfe transforms herself into Caitlin, the wife and trainer of Orlando Bloom’s enigmatic protagonist known simply as The Boxer. This isn’t merely another role for the actress—it’s a profound exploration of how we use physical discipline to mask emotional wounds.

Balfe’s Caitlin serves as both enabler and witness to this psychological unraveling. Her character understands that boxing has kept her husband on “the straight and narrow,” but she also recognizes that this singular focus has merely pushed deeper problems into the shadows. The actress brings a nuanced understanding to this dynamic, drawing from her Irish heritage where boxing holds cultural significance, yet approaching the material with fresh eyes after her intensive training regimen.

The timing of THE CUT in Balfe’s career feels particularly significant. Following her acclaimed performance in Kenneth Branagh’s BELFAST, which earned the 2021 TIFF People’s Choice Award, she continues to select projects that challenge both her range and her audience’s expectations. Where OUTLANDER showcased her ability to anchor a sweeping romantic drama across multiple timelines, THE CUT strips away all romantic notions to expose raw human desperation.

Balfe’s performance grounds this exploration in genuine emotion, her Caitlin serving as both the voice of reason and a fellow traveler on the path to destruction.

THE CUT represents another bold choice in Balfe’s evolving post-OUTLANDER career, demonstrating her commitment to complex, challenging material that refuses easy answers. In stepping into the ring, she’s found a role that matches the intensity she’s brought to every project, while opening new possibilities for where her remarkable talent might take her next.

https://www.irishfilmtv.com/caitrionabalfe-thecut/?fbclid=IwY2xjawMGzrxleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFHT1BJdXMxdDV3T0t1M3pYAR7PbevI-DkwQIs1pTYXQfuvlzoc2ArOPkMZfsqLhxdauUTiavTRNUkxho15vw_aem_fhdRbAJBd5_21NivCizlHw

Thanks for the message, Anon. 😃 What a glowing review of Caitríona’s performance! 👏🏻

Photo: IFTV

Photo: CineDump

Remember… where OUTLANDER showcased her ability to anchor a sweeping romantic drama across multiple timelines, THE CUT strips away all romantic notions to expose raw human desperation. — IFTV

[brian-in-finance]

Hubs Watches BOMB 102

Hubs:  This is a brutal scene.  But it is as good as any Hollywood movie

Me:  it is incredible filming.

Hubs:  Nice parallel between Henry and Claire and the horrors of war

Hubs:  What an tedious job that must have been, redacting personal mail.

Hubs:  Seriously, these war scenes are very cinematic

Hobs:  Now how did Henry know that was Julia?

Hubs:  There we have it. The gemstone is gone

Hubs:  Jeez;  I didn’t see that kidnapping coming

Hubs:  So they’re not showing up how Henry got through?  Or knew Julia had?  

Hubs:  The Grants are bougie. 

Hubs:  So he’s a lawyer.  Useful.  I get it now.

Hubs:  Uh oh.  Bad news for the bladier

Hubs:  A fait accompli

Hubs:  So, I guess they’re going to spend the whole season separated like this.  

Hubs:  I see where Jamie gets his gallantry from

Hubs:  Yikes! . And I thought the Grants seemed nice.

Hubs:  I love all the younger versions of the characters

Hubs:  So, Ned is a pimp now?

Hubs:  Oh, I forgot Julia was pregnant.

Hubs:  It’s interesting so far

[brian-in-finance]

Hubs Watches BOMB 101

Hubs: Here we go...

Hubs:  Someone is dead already?

Hubs: This scene looks familiar

Me:  Yeah. They are already using lots of parallels.

Hubs:  Thats how Jacob died?  Hahahahaha

Me:  This opening is making me a little weepy.  It reminds me of how I got wrapped up in this fandom to begin with.

Hubs:

Hubs:  Why are they wearing masks?  

Me:  Trying to poach the herd of coos

Hubs:  Oh, they have Colum limping right form the get go.

Hubs:  Lord Lovat is a real charmer.

Me: Yeah a real asshole.  Wait! Is that Claire’’s mother??

Hubs:  What do you mean?

Me:  I’m utterly confused.  WTH?  How is she in the past?

Hubs:  How do you know thats her?

Me:  Because they’ve introduced the cast and thats the actress playing Claire’s mother

Hubs:  Rupert and Angus?  

Hubs:  I see the sex is back

Hubs:  Dougal is the Sonny Corleone of the clan

Me:  Wah!  That is Claire’s father, Henry.  

Hubs:  Oh, interesting.

Me:  Well, here’s the answer to the... are they time travelers or not... question.  

Hubs:  Young Dougal an even bigger asshole than older Dougal

Hubs:  Wouldn’t the boars hear them coming with those drums?  

Hubs:  Didn’t we just watch something where they were killing boars?

Me:  Yes.  That Hunting Wives show.  

Hubs:  Everyone hates boars.

Hubs:  Oh he saw her leave to go meet Brian.

Me:  Well, not sure he knew exactly where she was going, but yeah…he knows he got rejected.

Hubs:  Oh, its Romeo and Juliet

Hubs:  Dougal always not thinking things through 

Hubs:  Ok.  This is a big shift.  

Me:  I still want to know how the heck they are in the past

Hubs:  The resemblance of this actress is uncanny

Hubs:  Ooooh.  

Me:  Clearly they don’t die in that car accident

Hubs:  Uh oh.  The stones. Dun dun dun....

Me:  Ah.  So she went through first.  That explains the separation.  

Hubs:  I like it.  It’s very, very good.  

[brian-in-finance]

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[brian-in-finance]

https://www.vogue.com/article/outlander-and-outlander-blood-of-my-blood-casts-comic-con

Thank you 🧡

Outlander’s Sam Heughan, Sophie Skelton, and Richard Rankin with Outlander: Blood of My Blood’s Harriet Slater, Jamie Roy, and Hermione Corfield on Day 2 San Diego Comic-Con. The latter series premieres on August 8.Photo: Joe Scarnici/Getty Images

Jamie Fraser was just a man in a kilt in Diana Gabaldon’s head when she decided, some 35 years ago, to try writing her first novel. That book would become Outlander, its story centered on Claire, a war nurse in 1945, and Jamie, a Highland warrior in the 1700s.

Now, more than a decade after Caitríona Balfe and Sam Heughan first brought Claire and Jamie to life in Starz’s beloved television adaptation of Gabaldon’s historical-fantasy series, fans are preparing for the show’s eighth and final season to air in early 2026. But the Outlander story will continue on with a new prequel series, Outlander: Blood of My Blood, built around Jamie’s parents, Ellen MacKenzie (Harriet Slater) and Brian Fraser (Jamie Roy), and Claire’s parents, Julia Moriston (Hermione Corfield) and Henry Beauchamp (Jeremy Irvine), who are time-travelers just like their daughter. Premiering on August 8, it’s “the love stories that created the love story,” as Outlander showrunner and creator Matthew B. Roberts describes it.

As Vogue rode along with the casts of Outlander and Blood of My Blood for two days at San Diego Comic-Con in late July, the actors got a chance to talk legacy, family, and the Season 8 moments that made them cry.

Day one kicks off with the OG Outlander gang—Heughan, Sophie Skelton (Claire and Jamie’s daughter, Brianna), and Richard Rankin (Brianna’s husband, Roger MacKenzie)—jumping into hair and make-up at 6 a.m., then into cars headed to Hall H, the biggest venue at the San Diego Convention Center, with a capacity of 6,500 guests.

Of course, one crucial member of their group is missing—Balfe, who is in the UK filming Georgia Oakley’s new adaptation of Sense & Sensibility. (She will play Mrs. Dashwood.)

Caitríona Balfe and Heughan at San Diego Comic-Con in 2014 Photo: Getty Images

“The show isn’t the show without Caitríona. She’s such a strong force and such an amazing human being,” Heughan tells me in the green room before their panel. “She’s sorely missed. It’s a nice family reunion. We’ve had these moments, since we finished, where we met up—most recently, at Richard’s wedding. Everyone was dancing. It was wonderful. It was the first time we’d all kind of been together since wrapping properly.” (He adds that he was “delighted” when he learned about Balfe’s Sense & Sensibility casting. “I think we started doing really bad impressions of previous versions of Jane Austen. But she’s brilliant. I know she will bring something very different to that role. But Caitríona’s in a corset again. She’s wished it on herself!”)

“Caitríona and Joey”—as in Phillips, another member of the cast—“were having a great time,” Rankin agrees. “Everybody brought their A-game.” An Outlander wedding with dancing and no drama? Imagine.

Skelton, who plays Brianna, Jamie and Claire’s daughter, calls being back at Comic-Con “such a full-circle moment.”

“Richard and I did San Diego Comic-Con for our first season. Tobias [Menzies] was there too,” she says. “It’s great that we could be here to pass the baton to Blood of My Blood, and celebrate the legacy that Outlander has created.”

Photo: Araya Doheny/Getty Images

Heughan, Skelton, Rankin, executive producer Maril Davis, and Roberts soon gather for a pre-panel group-hug-slash-huddle, which has become something of a ritual. Then, they take the stage for a conversation moderated by comedian Aisha Tyler. It ends with a teaser trailer for Season 8, as well as a live performance of Outlander’s main theme, the 19th-century Scottish ballad “The Skye Boat Song,” by Raya Yarbrough.

What was it like, I ask Heughan later, to watch a trailer with upwards of 6,000 fans? “Probably my favorite trailer I’ve seen, because there’s so much material going back through all the seasons,” he says. “It makes you realize how much we’ve done, how much drama there’s been, how much adventure and romance. It’s pretty epic. It really was one of those pinch-me moments. It’s the beginning—and it’s the end of that chapter.”

Heughan and Matt Roberts’s selfie from the Comic-Con stage Photo: Sam Heughan

Did anything make him emotional? I wonder. “The scene from Season 1, where Jamie first captures Claire, where he has his sword and we’re sort of covered in blood… That was probably one of the first major scenes we did,” Heughan says. “That one, for me, was just sort of iconic. I was like, ‘Oh, we look good. We look young.’”

It was then time for the Blood of My Blood panel, moderated by Kate Hahn. The Outlander gang took a moment to chat with the slightly nervous new cast—including Slater, Roy, Corfield, Seamus McLean Ross (the young Colum MacKenzie), Sam Retford (the young Dougal MacKenzie), and Rory Alexander (the young Murtagh Fitzgibbons Fraser)—before heading to their own first press stop.

Skelton and Slater, who plays Brianna‘s paternal grandmother, Ellen, on Blood of My Blood Joe Scarnici/Getty Images

When Heughan, Skelton, and Rankin later lead the Blood of My Blood team to their inaugural Comic-Con fan meeting and autograph signing, it is organized chaos, with fans lining up in droves.

As Jamie Roy and I jump into the car for the second press day—both casts will do more than 10 interviews and photo shoots over the course of the weekend, arguably their most chaotic being the Outlander crew’s sit-down with MTV—I mention I’m worried my dress is riding up.

Roy empathizes, remarking: “I know how you feel. When I wear my kilt, that happens.”

Roy tells me that he loved Outlander long before he was cast in the franchise. His favorite episode may surprise people. “I was recently watching ‘The Wedding.’ It’s such a great episode, because of the journey that Jamie and Claire go on. At the start, they’re kind of hesitant and nervous. Then they have this beautiful, long conversation, talking about families and really personal things. You see them fall in love in 60 minutes, which is such an ambitious thing to do on TV. They do it so well. It’s so beautifully written and really beautifully performed by the two of them.”

Roy says that he auditioned with a scene from “The Reckoning,” an episode from Outlander’s first season, in which Jamie and Claire get in their first fight. Roy calls it the “You’re tearing my guts out” scene. “When I was watching that scene, I thought, Oh, wow. The way that that was acted, that’s so impressive. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to have to get to that level.” When he found out that was the scene he’d have to do for his screen test, he couldn’t believe it. (As it happens, Balfe and Heughan had to do the same one for their chemistry test.)

Hermione Corfield, another longtime Outlander fan, also rewatched the series before she auditioned for Blood of My Blood, initially going in for the role of Ellen, Jamie’s mother. (When she and Roy did their screen test, it was another scene from “The Reckoning.”) Corfield recalls that after some time had passed, she got a callback. “Then I got the sides, and I was like, ‘Who’s Julia?’” (She jokes that she’s still waiting to hear back about Ellen.)

In truth, Corfield bears an almost uncanny resemblance to Balfe. She recalls the moment she realized just how much they looked alike: When Corfield got the role, she had to dye her red hair a dark brown—upon which “the makeup artist looked at me and was like, ‘Oh my gosh. That’s Caitríona.’”

The central cast of Blood of My Blood: Jamie Roy, Hermione Corfield, Harriet Slater, Rory Alexander, Seamus McLean Ross, Graham McTavish, and Sam Retford Photo: Joe Scarnici/Getty Images

Harriet Slater, who did book Ellen, says that getting to meet the franchise’s fans in person for the first time is “overwhelmingly exciting.”

“Up until this point, it’s just been lovely online support,” she adds. “But to look up and see thousands of faces...”

As for what she thinks Ellen would have made of her daughter-in-law, Claire, had they been able to meet? Slater beams. “Oh, I think Ellen would have absolutely loved her. [Jamie] grew up with a very, very strong, strong-willed, fiery, feisty mother, and I think he probably recognized that in Claire.”

Two weeks into filming, Slater had a “really lovely phone call” with Balfe about joining Outlander’s heady universe. “She chatted to me for an hour on a Sunday, which was so great. It was just so welcoming and supportive. Her main piece of advice was just to enjoy it and really soak it all in. She said, ‘Nobody else is going to know what this is really like on the inside, only you guys are. So, just stick together.’” (This, Skelton tells me, is characteristic of Balfe: “In our industry, it’s sometimes very hard to have women supporting women. It’s talked about quite a lot, but people don’t always put their money where their mouth is. And I will say that Caitríona has been a huge support.”)

Roy shares that he got similar guidance from Heughan, who told him, “It goes by so quickly. There are days where it’s going to be rough, but you just have to step back and appreciate it. Slow down and enjoy it.”

At lunch, I check in with Seamus McLean Ross and Sam Retford, who play Colum and Dougal MacKenzie, two brothers battling to be laird.

“I think there’s been this highly Apollonian and Dionysian contrast between the two,” Retford remarks.

“Don’t know what either of those words mean,” McLean Ross deadpans.

Retford explains: “It’s a fantastic story: two brothers, Apollo and Dionysus, and their various approaches as gods of chaos and order, and how they balance each other out.”

Seamus McLean Ross and Sam Retford Photo: Joe Scarnici/Getty Images

Retford used to help friends with their Outlander auditions. He was thinking about retiring from acting before he auditioned for the role of Brian Fraser in the prequel. “I was eating a pork chop in the self-tape or something ridiculous like that,” he tells me. Three months later, he received sides for Dougal. “I remember reading him on the page and thinking, Dream job.” His second audition was no less chaotic: “I didn’t know what time it was, my phone had broken, and I ended up just sat cross-legged outside [casting director Suzanne Smith’s] office, eating a watermelon with a knife.”

McLean Ross plays Slater’s brother, and he loves their dynamic. “Harriet breaks my heart when I’m acting with her. It’s so hard, because Colum breaks her heart on the show. He loves her, but he also loves his clan. He’s driven by this ambition he doesn’t fully understand.”

Heughan can’t wait to see the new series out in the world. “I’m hugely excited. I’m probably going to be the biggest fan. They’re a beautiful cast. I’m really happy for them.”

Another Heughan selfie, now with members of the Blood of My Blood cast, including Rory Alexander, Jamie Roy, Richard Rankin, Sam Retford, Harriet Slater, Seam McLean Ross, and Hermione Corfield Photo: Sam Heughan

For the Outlander gang, Comic-Con weekend is bittersweet. “I feel like I could cry now,” Rankin says, thinking back to watching Balfe and Heughan shooting their final scene. “We just felt like we wanted to be there. What we didn’t know is that it was a closed set. There were 100 of us just all standing around, waiting for Sam and Caitríona to wrap because it was the last shot. I definitely welled up.”

“It was a seven-and-a-half-minute take, a ton of dialogue, very intimate. And, obviously, you know that all the crew were there—you could feel the tension,” Heughan remembers. “I did my close-up first, and I was just trying to get through it, to be honest. I think I sort of shut down internally. I could see Caitríona getting more emotional. I think it was her eyebrow or her cheek—something was twitching the whole way. Then we wrapped and walked out, and everyone was there. They called a wrap on it and I was crying. There were tears in our eyes. Caitríona was a mess—she was proper, I think she said, ‘ugly crying.’ I was very emotional as well. It was exhausting—but also wonderful.”

Skelton shares that Balfe was there for her own final scene. “I saw that she was behind the camera with the crew, waiting to clap and wrap me out. She was the first person I went over to. I hadn’t had any tears until then. But she was quite teary, and her being teary got me teary. We were just crying off each other’s tears. I took my wig off, she sat with me, we had a little toast in the makeup trailer. Then we went to where Sam was doing his final scene. They said, ‘That is Sam wrapped on Outlander forever.’ Those are very big words to hear. There was just a sea of people clapping, and he just sort of parted a path and found me and Caitríona, and the three of us had a big hug. We all had a little cry.”

Skelton gets choked up. “As we walked back to base, somebody said into the radio—and I’m getting goosebumps now—‘That’s the three of them back at base, for the last time.’ And that made us just break down.”

Even now, Heughan is still processing it all. “Recently, I drove past the studio. I knew that they were there shooting Blood of My Blood, and I felt sad. I thought, Oh, everyone’s at work and I’m not. It does feel quite hard.”

Can we expect him to make a cameo, perhaps as baby Jamie? I ask. “No, I don’t think so,” he replies with a laugh. “I might need a little help with that!”

After more than 11 years together, Heughan says that he and the rest of the Outlander cast are forever bonded. “I think it’s kind of evident, even over this weekend, [how] we just sort of fall back into our silliness a little bit. They really are not just friends. They’re family. I haven’t seen Caitríona as much—we’ve met up a couple of times—but it’s just so nice, because you suddenly realize you know this person extremely well, and you can kind of share anything with them. I know that we’re all going off in our own directions, but that bond will always be there.”

As for what’s next for Heughan, he’ll be on the stage, playing Macbeth at the Other Place—the Royal Shakespeare Company’s intimate theater in Stratford-Upon-Avon—this fall. “It’s a return to my roots,” he says, “and I now need to go learn the lines.” Talk about the start of a new chapter.

Outlander: Blood of My Blood premieres August 8 on Starz, where you can also watch all seven seasons of Outlander.

[brian-in-finance]

Caitríona Balfe in the ’the cut’ trailer. coming to the UK and US on september 5th.- via catrionabalfefiles

[brian-in-finance]

The Cut trailer release. Cait is 2nd billing after Orlando.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WulPTSIZLM

Thanks Anon 🧡

Looks good!

[brian-in-finance]

Caitríona Balfe as “Caitlin” and Orlando Bloom as “Boxer”Photo courtesy of Republic Pictures

Aug 6, 2025 2:38 PM EDT

Since Outlander wrapped its eighth and final season, series star Caitríona Balfe has looked to film for her next projects.

First released, and currently streaming on Hulu, was The Amateur, an action thriller. Balfe stars opposite Rami Malik in the story, based on the 1981 novel by Robert Littell, about a brilliant CIA decoder whose world comes crashing down when his wife dies in a London terrorist attack. When his supervisors refuse to take action, his intelligence becomes the ultimate weapon as he embarks on a dangerous trek across the globe to track down those responsible, with a little help from Balfe’s character Inquiline.

And today, the trailer for her next film, The Cut, was released. Co-starring with Orlando Bloom and John Turturro, the movie depicts the story of a boxer (Bloom) who comes out of retirement to vie for his championship title through a grueling and unsanctioned weight-cutting program with a coach (Turturro) who knows no limits. As a result, he alienates himself from reality and loved ones, including his girlfriend Caitlin Harney (Balfe), as he spirals out of control.

In the dramatic trailer, we see Caitlin’s concern for the boxer, who has to drop an impossible 26 pounds in six days but also get into the best shape of his life. She says, “He’s not a competitive fighter anymore.”

Boz tells the boxer, “The problem is your girl loves you, so she’s only going to hurt you so much. What you need is someone who loves something more than you. To me, you’re just a poker chip.” Regardless, Bloom’s character seems more locked in than ever to put his body on the line for the chance at a belt.

Following The Cut, the Outlander star returns to the 18th century for a role in Sense and Sensibility. She will appear in the fresh take on Jane Austen’s classic from Focus Features and Working Title Films, along with previously announced Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esmé Creed-Miles as Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, respectively.

article parade.com

[brian-in-finance]

[brian-in-finance]

📷 @jamie.roy_

Posted 11th August 2025

[brian-in-finance]

Article 8 August 2025

Episode streaming dates

Episode 1, "Providence": August 8

Episode 2, "S.W.A.K. (Sealed With a Kiss)": August 8

Episode 3, "School of the Moon": August 15

Episode 4, "A Soldier's Heart": August 22

Episode 5, "Needfire": August 29

Episode 6, "Birthright": September 5

Episode 7, "Luceo Non Uro": September 12

Episode 8, "A Virtuous Woman": September 19

Episode 9, "Braemar": September 26

Episode 10 (Finale), "Something Borrowed": October 10

[brian-in-finance]

Colour me shook… 😂

In other news, who was sitting where at the dinner table again during RR and SR's wedding?????

Remember

Wel..... Lauren just showed us!

lauren lyle IG posted 11 August

You see things do not always show what they appear to be

[brian-in-finance]

Happy 6th year wedding anniversary to Cait and Tony, today August 10, 2025. They have also been together for 11 years. ❤️💍👰🏻🤵🏻🥂

Thanks for the message, Anon. 😃 Yesterday was the first time I missed acknowledging their anniversary on its day. Real Life sometimes has inconvenient timing. I appreciate your reminder.

Lauren Lyle kindly provided a lovely photo from Richard & Sammie’s July wedding.

Instagram

Remember Team Tait? 👰🏻‍♀️🎊🤵🏻‍♂️

[brian-in-finance]

After nearly a decade of time-traveling passion, battles, and breathtaking Scottish landscapes, Outlander is finally reaching its conclusion. Season 8, the last in Starz’s hit series, has officially wrapped filming in Scotland and is slated for release in early 2026. Yes, Droughtlander will stretch just a little longer—but this final chapter promises an emotional farewell to Claire and Jamie Fraser��s epic journey.

The final season will feature 10 episodes, following the oversized Season 7 and the upcoming prequel series Outlander: Blood of My Blood. While fans are gearing up for the origin story, it’s Season 8 that carries the emotional weight. According to Caitríona Balfe and Sam Heughan, who shared photos from their final table read in August 2024, filming the last scenes felt like the end of an era. And it is.

Interestingly, producers didn’t initially know Season 8 would even happen. Executive producer Maril Davis revealed that Season 7 was originally planned as the finale. Scripts were written, arcs were resolved—but midway through filming, Starz renewed the show. That unexpected greenlight allowed the creative team to restructure the ending, giving the characters a more definitive goodbye.

For longtime fans, the announcement back in January 2023 that Season 8 would be the final installment came with mixed emotions. Starz President Kathryn Busby framed the decision as a way to honor the story’s legacy while transitioning into new storytelling territory with the prequel. And while Outlander could’ve gone on—the books certainly allow for more—the cast and crew knew it was time to close this chapter with intention.

The show’s official Instagram summed it up perfectly when filming wrapped in late September 2024: “Outlander really is more than just a show—it’s a family.” Whether you’ve been with them since the Standing Stones first sent Claire back in time or you’ve just discovered the series on Netflix, this final season is going to hit hard. With a rich mix of unresolved tension, romance, and historical conflict, Season 8 is shaping up to be one of the show’s most powerful yet.

Mark your calendars. Early 2026 is the last time we’ll walk with Claire and Jamie through the highlands. But for the Outlander fandom? The journey is far from over.

[brian-in-finance]

Tenzing Filming

[brian-in-finance]

I was about to watch for Claire's parents and hope this is not quite how this reviewer feels.

https://fangirlish.com/2025/07/31/outlander-blood-of-my-blood-season-1-advanced-review/

Thanks for the message, Anon. 😃 I’m not sure I take your point, but here is the review:

Outlander: Blood of My Blood Season 1 Advanced Review

Outlander: Blood of My Blood Season 1 is just a few days away from hitting our screens. After watching the first six episodes of the Outlander prequel, we’re ready to unravel—spoiler-free—everything that awaits us in our advanced review.

Brian & Ellen Are the Engine of Everything in Outlander: Blood of My Blood

Brian and Ellen make the show work. It’s that simple. Don’t get us wrong, Outlander: Blood of My Blood does a great job of making us know and love—or hate—the other characters. But the truth is, it’s all about Brian and Ellen. Their chemistry is pure magic. They carry the weight, and it makes sense. Ellen is brave, cunning, and intelligent, but she’s also so much more than that. She’s a woman ahead of her time who has everything it takes to be Chief of her Clan. If only she were a man.

Not being a man not only prevents Ellen from being Chief of the Clan, but no one takes her seriously, and her brothers believe they can sell her like some kind of commodity. Ellen rebels against all this, against the role she’s destined to play. And while she tries to fight for the right to decide over her own life, she meets Brian.

Brian is also struggling, but it’s a different struggle. In Outlander: Blood of My Blood, he struggles not to let his father’s obvious contempt affect him. And he struggles not to become someone as despicable as him. When he meets Ellen, the world stops turning for him for a moment. Until it starts again… and he can’t stop thinking about her.

They both know their families would never accept a courtship between them because their Clans are enemies, so they try to resist. But they can’t. And they end up alone in the middle of the Highlands, unable to stop looking at each other, unable to stop taking a step towards each other. So, without either of them planning it, they find themselves at a crossroads: they must choose between their love and their duty to their families and their Clans.

Julia & Henry Work…But We Need Something More

While Brian and Ellen carry most of the weight of Outlander: Blood of My Blood on their back, Julia and Henry carry the rest. And their love stories are as different as oil and water. Each one has something that makes it unique, but in Julia and Henry’s case, we feel like we’re missing something. Like a puzzle piece is missing. Maybe it has to do with expectations.

We expected that Outlander: Blood of My Blood would show us the evolution of Julia and Henry’s relationship from the beginning. And while we see flashbacks about how their relationship began, the series focuses on the development of their relationship at a very specific point in their life together. That was unexpected, although it certainly answers one of the big questions we always had.

However, feeling like we’ve watched most of their relationship in fast-forward doesn’t do Julia and Henry any favors. We feel like we’re missing something to truly connect with them. In that sense, while a relationship that develops through letters like Julia and Henry’s isn’t something common, it’s also a double-edged sword.

The letters are beautiful, but they make us lose the physical connection, so we don’t feel that electricity of those first glances, those first smiles. And we need that connection to fully immerse ourselves in their relationship, to fall down the rabbit hole and never come out.

Although we get to know the characters through Outlander, this is the first time they’re more than just a memory. In Outlander: Blood of My Blood, they’re real. We get to truly see what they’re like for the first time. And we really need to feel that Jamie and Claire’s parents experienced a love as strong and special as theirs. The show makes you feel that with Brian and Ellen, but not so much with Julia and Henry. Although we’re sure they’ll achieve it.

Echoes of the Past in Outlander: Blood of My Blood

Along with the two central couples, in Outlander: Blood of My Blood, we find some characters we met in their older versions, such as Dougal, Colum, Ned, Jocasta, Murtagh, and Lord Lovat. The show had a huge challenge trying to match the image we all have of them with this new, much younger, less wise version, almost like the beginnings of the people we know they will become, but it succeeds with flying colors.

We were quite surprised to be able to look at their younger versions and see how everything fit together in our heads. However, this could have backfired. If they look too similar to their older versions, where does their growth take place? But Outlander: Blood of My Blood solves this problem very well because, while the essence of the characters is there and they are clearly recognizable, you can also see how much they still have to grow and mature to become the people we met in Outlander.

Beyond this, the power struggle between Dougal and Colum is especially interesting. While Dougal is impulsiveness personified, Colum is restraint, cunning. And much more is achieved with cunning than with violence. And don’t forget to keep an eye on Jocasta. She always felt less than Ellen. As if Ellen counted for everyone, but she didn’t count for anyone. And she’s worked hard to be seen by her family, especially her father. And jealousy is never a good advisor.

We’ll finish our advanced review of Outlander: Blood of My Blood here. Stay tuned for a weekly review starting August 8.

Outlander: Blood of My Blood will premiere on August 8 on STARZ.

Fangirlish

Remember… (about Dougal, Colum, Ned, Jocasta, Murtagh, and Lord Lovat) while the essence of the characters is there and they are clearly recognizable, you can also see how much they still have to grow and mature to become the people we met in Outlander. — Fangirlish

[brian-in-finance]

Article 31 July 2025