‘Outlander’ Season 2 News: Season 1 Finale Laid the Framework for Season 2, But it Will Be a ‘Different’ Story
Season 1 of "Outlander" ended Saturday with some of the most harrowing scenes ever depicted on a television series. Since the show aired on premium cable channel Starz, it was well outside of the FCC's reach, so anything was up for grabs.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the season finale was an emotional and turbulent episode that found Jamie (Sam Heughan) broken out of Wentworth Prison, but his mind was an ominous presence in his post-freedom world. The extreme nature of his ordeal while in Wentworth, at the hands of Black Jack Randall (Tobias Menzies) and his sexual deviance, had left Jamie in a state of inner turmoil.
Several times he attempted suicide, even begged for death. But it was his devoted wife, Claire (Caitriona Balfe), who guided him out of the initial darkness and stabilized him enough so that he could endure the journey to France aboard the ship that waited for them.
Flashback scenes showed the graphic nature of the sexual and physical torture Jamie endured, scenes which will no doubt be hastily scrutinized by political talking heads and other forms of media for months.
But the big picture is that the episode featured the graphic content in the form of realism that gave the viewer an intimate feel of the situation. USA Today reports that Twitter had blown up with chatter about the episode.
The finale did however deviate from material in the novel series created by Diana Gabaldon. A few good examples of that would be the first-person narrative and events after the escape, as pointed out by the show creator Ron Moore in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
"As the book is a first-person narrative all the way to the end, we split the point-of-view starting in episode nine, so that gave us the ability to then, in episode 15, to cut to the story of [Jamie's] encounter with Black Jack Randall," Moore said. "In the book, everything that happened to him we got related through Claire much later in flashback. So what we were able to do by switching it was play it in real time as Claire's trying to rescue him."
Moore also pointed out that the finale gave them the opportunity to revert to the novel story being told in flashbacks because the audience would be able to then see what was happening to Jamie in his head after he was rescued.
He also said that staying true to the story, which was shocking because no one that followed the series ever imagined the story was going to lead to what happened in the last two episodes, is what he wanted for the show.
That concept also carries over to Season 2, which follows the second book, titled "Dragonfly in Amber."
"It's very different. We're still following the books for season two, with the second book. In the very last scene, they talk about going to France to try and stop the Jacobite Rebellion and that's what they go do. They go to Paris," Moore said. "So we're prepping and shooting a completely different show. They're in one of the most populated cities in the world at this point. It's French aristocracy, it's the court of Louis XV, it's cobblestone streets filled with people -- the costumes are completely different, [as are] the sets. It has a whole different mood and palette to it. It's more about conspiracies, lies and politics."
Moore confirmed that Season 2 inevitably turns into a different show, but the aftermath of Jamie's torture and Claire's impending delivery of a baby are still a theme that is very present in the season.
The premiere date for Season 2 has not yet been announced.
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