Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan are huddled together deep in the woods outside Glasgow, waiting to film a scene that comes late in the new season of Outlander. In season 4, the show’s action shifts to North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains during the early years of America and the pair is getting used to long shooting days throughout Scotland’s wilderness. Today the actors are shooting alongside a meandering stream in Cumbernauld, near the studio where the show has filmed since the first season. It’s a chilly May day, although sun is shining through the trees, and the duo seem grateful for the layers of woven clothes that make up their rustic frontier costumes.
There’s more to season 4 than just a new setting, though. The new episodes also finally give fans what they’ve always wanted: Jamie and Claire Fraser together for the long run. Although the new season doesn’t arrive on Starz until November 4, we’ve got the inside scoop on some of what’s to come.
“You have to get to a certain point in a relationship where there’s no cliffhangers anymore,” says Balfe, whose character made a life-altering decision last season to go back to the 18th century in search of her true love. “You can disagree, you can have cycles where you’re not always perfectly in sync, but there’s no more cliffhangers with Jamie and Claire in terms of their love and devotion to each other. That’s important because otherwise you start to manipulate an audience’s emotions too much.”
The actress laughs, sitting to the side of the set with Heughan between takes. The sun glimmers through the leaves as the actors chat. She adds, “And does anyone really doubt that they should be together? She left everything, including her daughter, to come and be with him. I think we can say they’re on solid ground. There will always be external issues that intervene and may shake things up a little, but the foundation is there.”
As the new season opens, Jamie and Claire, along with Young Ian (John Bell), find themselves in the new world. America quickly reveals itself as an undeniable opportunity for the couple, offering a fresh start and the potential to create a real home and foundation. It’s a far cry from previous seasons, especially after the duo were separated by centuries for most of season 3. Now, Claire and Jamie’s daughter Brianna (Sophie Skelton) remains in the 20th century, but the Fraser couple see life in America as a chance to help sculpt the country that will become Brianna’s home. For Jamie, America is also a chance to connect with his aunt Jocasta (Maria Doyle Kennedy), who owns a plantation in North Carolina called River Run.
“They’re trying to find a place where they can settle,” Heughan notes. “Certainly for Jamie that’s the case. They see the potential in this place—and they can’t really return home either. For Jamie, he’s surrounded by his extended family and he needs to provide for them, but deep down he’s always wanted this. Now he has a chance to have it. He’s living on his wits—he doesn’t have any money or possessions, really. He begins to create a new life for himself.
“The reasons that they can’t go home are quite tragic, and for Jamie that’s a hard thing to swallow,” Balfe adds. “And America is quite a dangerous place still at this point. But I think they quickly come to realize that there is this hope of starting new, starting fresh, starting clean, building the kind of community and family they want in the image the kind of life they want to lead. This will eventually become the country their daughter will live in, so if they can have a hand in moving that in the right direction that’s giving her a gift for the future.”
The new setting allows us to see Claire and Jamie’s relationship in a new way. There are moments are tenderness and moments of bickering—as well as the passionate love scenes we’ve come to expect from Outlander—and the couple gets to finally feel some long-awaited domestic bliss.
“There is a good part of this season where we see this couple settle into a married life in a way we really haven’t been able to explore before,” Balfe says. “It’s quite nice. They’re older at this point. Their relationship is much more mature. After Claire’s return they’ve had time to actually get rid of the insecurities and realize this is them—they’ve made their pledges to each other.” Although fans have seen Claire make a life with her 20th century husband Frank, this is the first time Claire has been able to fully settle into a place of contentment with a significant other. “Having a happy marriage is not something she’s had over a sustained period of time or at least had in a bucolic sense,” Balfe notes. “I think she’s happy to live in that part of her life for now.”
Fans shouldn’t get too comfortable, though: “For a brief time you get to see Jamie and Claire finally be in a quite settled place,” Heughan teases. “For a short while.” While there may not be a question of whether Claire and Jamie will actually get together and stay together, Outlander wouldn’t be Outlander without some drama. In this season the conflicts and dramatic tension are external, although to say more would spoil the characters’ journey into the new world.
“We have some new characters and we have some old characters that come back,” Heughan hints. In terms of new characters, we do know about Aunt Jocasta and Stephen Bonnet (Ed Speleers), a mysterious pirate. There is also a new furry character in the form Rollo, a dog adopted by Young Ian (who is running around the set today). “That really is the catalyst to the drama of the season. They get to this place of building a new life for themselves and being quite settled, and then that gets thrown off.”
The actors, who will begin shooting season 5 early next year, are grateful for the chance to explore these characters together. Heughan and Balfe continue to discuss the relationship between Claire and Jamie as it unfolds during the long months of production, always considering how the characters have evolved.
“We always talk to each other about it and what we feel rings true to us,” Balfe says. “That’s been one of the great things about this show, being able to have someone you can collaborate with so easily and work together. We’ve invested so much in them and we have definite ideas about who they are. It’s nice when you do this sort of long-form TV to still have those conversations. It’s nice to still question and be surprised by things.”
“Jamie and Claire been through a lot together,” Heughan adds, grinning at his co-star before they’re called back for the next take. Their friendship is clear: “Me and Caitriona have been through a lot together as actors and we’ve grown with the show.”
