After More Than 100 Episodes, Caitríona Balfe Bids Farewell to Outlander

Some spoilers below.

Caitríona Balfe has spent a quarter of her life playing Claire Fraser on the Starz historical fantasy Outlander. She first stepped onto the set in 2013; she finished filming the eighth and final season in the fall of 2024. The Irish actress has since had to say goodbye to the character—and the entire Outlander experience—in waves: first, when “cut” was called for the final time on the set in Scotland; and second, as Claire and Jamie Fraser’s (Sam Heughan) enduring love story airs its final chapter this month.

Much as Claire must in Outlander’s penultimate episode, “Pharos,” Balfe is still processing the legacy of this story—and its profound impact. “It’s huge,” Balfe tells ELLE. “It will be a massive, defining part of my life. I was a struggling actor before I got the show. I’d only done a few little things. It has given me a career. I’ve changed countries. I met my husband; I had my son.”

Adapted from Diana Gabaldon’s book series of the same name, the time-travel romance has traversed continents and centuries, depicting an unbreakable bond between former World War II nurse (now surgeon) Claire and 18th-century Scot Jamie. Season 8 sees the couple return to Fraser’s Ridge in North Carolina, circa 1789, where they hope to leave the American Revolutionary War behind. But while the settlement is thriving, others who live on the land are loyalists conspiring on behalf of the British army. This threat, coupled with troubling information from the future about Jamie, put the Frasers on a collision course with another bloody conflict as the pair face their destiny one last time.

Caitríona Balfe as Claire Fraser in Outlander season 8.

At the start of May, Balfe jumped on a Zoom call with ELLE from her home in London, having recently returned from an Outlander event in Madrid to the chaos of moving house. But spring has sprung, and the sun is shining as the Irish actress looks back on the events of the penultimate episode; shooting her final scene with Heughan; and where the actors’ story began. Outlander “came on the heels of quite a few shows that pushed through the glass ceiling, as it were,” Balfe says. “There was Claire Danes in Homeland, you had Nurse Jackie, and a lot of shows that had these female characters front and center. It was great to be part of that wave. I feel very proud of the show that we have created over the decade.”

Much has changed across the television landscape in the 12 years since Outlander’s debut, when streaming was still in its infancy. “When you’re in the middle of it, it’s hard to see that whole journey,” Balfe admits. “Now, we’ve been doing a lot of looking back. It’s such a privilege. There are so few shows now that go this length of time. It does feel so mad when you look back to season 1 and how different things were.”

In the summer of 2014, Balfe and Heughan immediately caught viewers’ attention with their sizzling chemistry steaming up the Scottish Highlands. Intimacy coordinators are an industry standard in 2026, but not when Outlander debuted. “Everyone has intimacy coordinators [now],” Balfe says. “I feel very grateful to have been a part of that time when that came in. Seeing the before and after, I think it is such a benefit.” (It wasn’t until the sixth season that production hired its first intimacy coordinator.)

Real-world challenges, including the COVID pandemic and 2023’s WGA and SAG strikes, prolonged the show’s planned production timeline, but Outlander persisted, and this week the series hits an impressive milestone: 100 episodes aired. “We felt very proud of that achievement,” Balfe says. “Sam and I especially were like, ‘Wow, that’s an amazing thing to have done.’ I think it was important that we have that number.” To celebrate, the cast and crew had cake on set—“Weirdly, it was a black cake,” Balfe says—and fizzy apple juice as a stand-in for champagne. (They were in the middle of shooting.)

David Barry, Caitríona Balfe, Sam Heughan, and showrunner Matthew B. Roberts celebrating Outlander’s 100th episode.

Gabaldon herself wrote the eventful 100th episode, in which Claire and Jamie leave Fraser’s Ridge to rescue Lord John Grey (David Berry), who has been kidnapped. But at the front of Claire’s mind is a ticking clock and a battle even closer to home—one that will supposedly end with Jamie’s own death. How does Claire know this? As a refresher: When Claire and Jamie’s daughter, Brianna (Sophie Skelton), and her husband, Roger (Richard Rankin), returned to Fraser’s Ridge after spending some time in 1980s Scotland, they brought a few books from the future, such as The Lord of the Rings, Goodnight Moon, and The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, Thirteenth Edition. But it is The Soul of a Rebel: The Scottish Roots of the American Revolution, written by Claire’s first husband, Frank Randall (Tobias Menzies), that has the biggest impact on the family’s mood in season 8. In the book, Frank includes information about a pivotal battle at the nearby Kings Mountain, where the Patriots whom Jamie is fighting for are ultimately victorious…but he perishes in the process. By the end of episode 9, Jamie is about to head to Kings Mountain—and Claire is terrified that he won’t come back alive.

As devout fans will know, this is not the first time an Outlander character has grappled with such revelatory information about the future. In season 1, Claire informed Frank’s sadistic relative, Black Jack Randall (also played by Menzies), of the date of his own death. “It was a real weapon that she used, because arming somebody with knowledge can either be a gift or a bomb,” Balfe says. This dichotomy rings true for Jamie in season 8. “It starts to pick away at Jamie’s mindset and destabilize him in a way we haven’t really seen [from] him before,” she adds.

For Claire, the whole endeavor is confusing and worrying, further compounded by the ambiguity of Frank’s intentions. His book was published posthumously in the 20th century after he died in a car crash, so it is impossible to know whether Frank included the passage about Jamie’s alleged demise as a warning, as an act of love, or as revenge against his wife’s new husband. It’s even possible that the segment is a lie, and that Frank fabricated Jamie’s death in an attempt to mess with the Scotsman’s psyche.

“Every single person looks at things through their own prism,” Balfe explains. “For Claire, she’s like, ‘Well, is [Frank] trying to get to me?’ And for Jamie, it’s like, ‘Is he trying to get to me?’” In season 3, Claire and Frank’s marriage fell apart, in part thanks to her newfound love for Jamie, discovered in season 1 while she was separated from Frank and thrust into 18th-century Scotland. When she eventually returned to the 20th century, Frank raised Claire and Jamie’s daughter, Brianna, as if she were his own. He later dedicated his book to Brianna using the nickname “Deadeye.” Learning this information offers another interpretation of the book itself: that Frank was, in fact, giving his daughter a roadmap to find her father in the past (and that, therefore, his intentions were honorable). Unfortunately, it takes until episode 8 for Brianna to learn this connection.

“I wish Claire had read the book, and then maybe she could have seen the dedication,” Balfe laughs. “We’re like, ‘Why doesn’t she look at it?’ [The writers were] like, ‘No, no. She just doesn’t.’” But Balfe was happy to have the “essence of Frank back in the show,” with Menzies providing voiceover earlier this season.

While Frank’s motives are open to interpretation, episode 9 provides a long-awaited answer about Claire’s own voiceover narration, which has been part of Outlander’s DNA since the show’s very first episode. As it turns out, Claire is writing her own account of her journey from Inverness in 1945 back through time to the 18th century. “It’s such a nice tie-in to the beginning of the story,” Balfe says. In doing so, Claire ensures her cosmic romance with Jamie will live on, to be shared with their descendants long after they are gone.

“I love how Claire is like, ‘It’s our story,’” Balfe says. “The way I was thinking of it, with all this talk about impending death and all of that, Claire is also thinking about her legacy, and her grandchildren, and what they’re going to know.” Balfe only found out about this plot development a week or two before filming episode 9, as the cast were kept completely in the dark about the final season’s storyline in advance of production.

Books lay the groundwork for much of this season, so Claire’s decision to keep a record of her enduring love also doubles as an homage to the author of the series itself. “We are only there because of the brilliant storytelling of Diana Gabaldon,” Balfe says. “It’s such a nice nod to Diana as well.”

But Frank’s historical tome is not the only influence from the future impacting the Frasers and their loved ones. As we learn in episode 9, close family friend Lord John has been kidnapped by Captain Ezekiel Richardson (Ben Lambert), a man who turns out to be another time traveler from the 20th century. The revelation that Richardson is trying to prevent the British from losing the Revolutionary War (so the Civil War doesn’t happen the following century) eventually leads to an illuminating philosophical conversation between Richardson and Claire as they hash out whether history can be changed. “It was interesting to have this philosophical debate with somebody else who is also a time traveler about, ‘What is your responsibility?’” Balfe says. “Or, ‘What are your abilities as a time traveler to affect change or to influence change?’”

The reason Richardson has snatched Lord John is that Lord John’s brother, Hal, is due to give a speech in the British Parliament to argue for why the American colonies are not worth the fight. Richardson aims to use Lord John’s sexuality as a means to blackmail his way to his goal: He reasons that, because Britain outlawed slavery far quicker than the United States, the Civil War would not have happened if Britain had ruled on both sides of the Atlantic. “It begs the question of us all, like, what are the things that influence movements?” Balfe says. “Is it a collective consciousness? Is it one person? I’m not sure Richardson thought it through brilliantly, but it’s a very interesting conversation.” After freeing Lord John, Claire is left alone with Richardson, and after this back-and-forth, Claire lets Richardson go, but Lord John shoots him dead seconds later.

What the latter proves is Claire’s experience that “what has happened before always happens again.” The Frasers have never successfully changed the outcome of a bloody event, and thus the prognosis for Jamie in the future is not looking good.

Having spent a lot of this season on Fraser’s Ridge, Balfe was thrilled to play such a crucial gun-toting role in Lord John’s rescue party with Jamie and stepson William (Charles Vandervaart). “It felt like OG Claire again, which was quite nice,” she says.

Caitríona Balfe and Sam Heughan as Claire Fraser and Jamie Fraser in Outlander season 8.

After the rescue, the tension between Lord John and Jamie comes to a head. Last season, when Jamie was thought to be dead, Claire married Lord John as a means of protection against an accusation of espionage. One night, drunken despair and grief led to the pair sleeping together. Since then, Jamie has still not forgiven Lord John. (Balfe laughs when I describe these events as the Outlander version of an infamous line from the ’90s sitcom Friends: “We were on a break!”)

The “incident” (as Balfe refers to it) rears its head once more in episode 9. When Jamie, Claire, William, and Lord John return to the latter’s estate in Savannah, Claire is vocal about her annoyance that Jamie’s pride is getting in the way of an important friendship. Balfe takes great pleasure in scenes where Claire won’t let Jamie’s ego win—even if she sympathizes with Jamie’s jealousy. “It is very fun doing [those scenes], because I think Sam is hilarious, and he has such good comedic timing,” Balfe says. “He’s not afraid to lean into the bit and let Jamie be this ridiculous, stubborn person every so often. However, I do think Claire should be a little bit more considerate. I mean, it’s a pretty big deal [that she married and slept with Lord John].”

Claire’s multiple marriages come up when I ask if she took any souvenirs from the set. “I requested my rings because there were multiples,” Balfe says. “I feel like Claire has had many weddings. She should have the hardware from them all.” She was also gifted some pieces from Claire’s closet that she’s since sported IRL. “For the last year and a half before the show aired, I was getting away with wearing one or two of Claire’s shirts all the time,” Balfe says. Throughout the final season, Balfe says she would pop into the costume department, led by Nadine Powell, to mention items she coveted. Viewers might not think pieces designed to suit the late 1700s would fit a 21st-century aesthetic, but go back and look at the stunning tailoring. “There was so much of the stuff [where] I was like, ‘Ooh, I can wear that in real life,’” Balfe agrees. “‘Can I have that? Can I have that?’ I have a little collection.”

Filming the final season also provided Balfe with the opportunity to wear a different (figurative) hat: She got to direct for the first time, helming season 8’s second episode, “Prophecies.” Balfe relished problem-solving on the fly and working closely with each department. “It was such an exciting experience working with these people and having their talent at your fingertips to create whatever you wanted out of thin air,” Balfe says. “That’s always the thing that has forever excited me, is that you step onto a set and there are 200 people there in the pursuit of making this make-believe real. It’s the most magical thing. That’s why I love being an actor. But being a director is that, plus on a whole other level, which was amazing.”

And yet—even though Balfe has directed an episode for the final season; spent plenty of time in the edit room; and filmed every one of the show’s hundred-plus episodes, she still doesn’t know exactly how the series will end. The cast and crew shot multiple versions of the show’s conclusion, and Balfe hasn’t seen the finale yet.

“It’s going to be emotional,” Balfe teases. “That’s all I can say.”

However, Balfe did give some insight into the final scene she shot with Heughan. (Because TV shows often film out of sequence, their final scene onscreen together was not Outlander’s actual ending scene.) “It didn’t really hit me ever when I was playing anything until our very last day,” Balfe says. “The last scene that Sam and I filmed together in Jamie and Claire’s bedroom was a seven-page dialogue scene, and the stuff that we were saying to each other as we were saying it had all of these double meanings for our lives and the whole experience, saying goodbye to Claire and the whole thing.”

With all this history between the characters and the actors, Balfe struggled to get through the scene. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, because I couldn’t keep it together,” Balfe says. “I was so emotional. It hit me like a train—what a massive journey it had been, and the enormity of saying goodbye.”

Likewise, it will be tough for fans to say goodbye to this couple. “I think it will remain a constant in our lives for a long time,” Balfe says. “What a gift to have been given.”