Outlander: Blood of My Blood Couples Break Down Season 1 Finale, Preview Season 2

[Warning: Spoilers follow for Season 1 finale of Outlander: Blood of My Blood. Don't say we didn't warn ye!]

Home is not where the heart is after the Season 1 finale of Starz's Outlander: Blood of My Blood, as the central couples of the prequel series fled into the Highlands after choosing love over duty.

In the feature-length episode, the wedding of Ellen Mackenzie (Harriet Slater) and Malcolm Grant (Jhon Lumsden), as predicted, doesn't go as planned. The promise she made to her brother Colum (Séamus McLean Ross) to go through with the arranged marriage and reject her hand-fast love Brian Fraser (Jamie Roy) for his own safety was contingent on Colum not trying to hurt her strapping Scot in any way, shape, or form. But when Brian risked his neck and brought word of the attack on him at the end of last week's episode — and his discovery that Colum was the one who ordered it — Ellen decides the wedding agreement is null and void. Ellen and Brian's love story for the ages is back on!

But their plan to flee Castle Leoch with a little help from Jocasta (Sadhbh Malin) hits a snag when they run into a drunken and jilted Malcolm, who refuses to let them pass. Brian pleads with him to stop, but ultimately kills the relentless royal in a struggle, tainting what should have been the first step of the rest of their life. But fear not, someone did get married. In Ellen's absence, a reluctant Dougal (Sam Retford) was forced to marry Morven Grant (Lauren Grace) to keep their clans' deal intact.

Meanwhile, Julia (Hermione Corfield) planned her own escape from Castle Leathers with Henry (Jeremy Irvine) and their son. It takes some clever trickery to slip away from Lord Lovat (Tony Curran) and his brute force, but they make it. However, Henry's absence is exactly the sign of his disloyalty to Clan Grant that Arch Bug (Terence Rae) has been waiting for. So he pursues the couple all the way to their planned escape through the stones at Craigh Na Dun. In a split-second decision, Henry makes Julia touch the rocks first in case their son doesn't have the same time-traveling gene and doesn't make the trip. But whether any of them make it will have to wait for Season 2.

As the first chapter closes on the new prequel to Diana Gabaldon's story, TV Guide talked to both couples about the intensely emotional finale and what's next for their characters in Season 2.

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Ellen and Brian

Murder — or at least death by self-defense — isn't the kind of blood you want on your hands at the start of forever with your soulmate. But alas, that is the kind of mess Ellen and Brian leave in their wake as they flee their lives to be together. When they finally meet up with Murtagh (Rory Alexander) to lay low, Malcolm's death hangs over what should be a joyous moment. But Ellen comforts Brian and assures him and Murtagh there was no other way out.

"I don't know if he forgives himself as much as he understands it," Roy says of Brian's mindset. "He understands why he had to do it because he gave Malcolm several chances to get out of it, right? It's fight or flight. It's going to be either Brian or Malcolm in that situation. Brian's very pragmatic in that sort of situation, but that doesn't mean that any of the weight is lifted off because he doesn't want to kill him. I think it's something that's going to weigh on him for a long time to come."

With all of it behind them — at least until the Grants find the body — Ellen and Brian are looking at a new life and dynamic for themselves. Season 1 was about longing to be together. Now that they are, what does that mean for them as they try to find some normalcy after casting aside everything for love? Well, for one, the fiery crosses of the Jacobite rebellion being lit in the final moments will certainly throw a wrench in any plans they had in mind.

"They're handfast and they have a year and a day to get married from the day of being handfast," Slater says. "But obviously, there's also this Jacobite uprising, which is another obstacle that they're going to have to overcome.
Whatever happens, the way we see them at the end of Season 1, they are very much a team. They see themselves as husband and wife because they will one day marry officially. So there's that security going into Season 2 that they have chosen each other and left everything behind. They left their entire lives behind for each other."

"Brian didn't leave much behind, did he?" Roy jokes. 

"You left your mom, but you brought Murtagh with you" Slater reminds him.

But Brian doesn't have many choices in front of him with the start of a new rebellion because Scotland's clan system had very strict rules as to what a man should do if war was called. And one of those rules wasn't to run off with the woman you are handfast to from an enemy clan. First and foremost, he will have to figure out what he is going to do about his repugnant father, whom he completely disavowed at the end of the season. 

"We see this friction really burning throughout these 10 episodes, and I think Brian was quite happy to let his father go," Roy says. "They break up, essentially, father and son. It was a long time coming. But with the fiery crosses being lit, Brian's got two options. He's either got to leave the country and be in exile for the rest of his life, or go back to his clan to report for war. So I guess we will have to see where he goes."

In other words, fans might want to brace for the most awkward family reunion in Outlander history. For now though, Ellen and Brian are together and they don't have to hide it because everyone who shouldn't know about them now does. Slater and Roy previously revealed to TV Guide that they ended production on Season 1 by going back to the beginning and reshooting the first time Ellen and Brian meet. Now that fans know where they end the season, they say they feel like the surreal chance to go back to the beginning was not only "crazy" — Slater's word — but also reinforced the entire Season 1 arc. 

"It was a breath of fresh air to go back to this lightness, and the innocence of it and knowing what's to come," Slater says. "We also knew each other so well by that point. We were such good friends, and I think that really adds to the feeling of it because, when I see that scene now, I feel like they recognize each other. It's like there's a moment of 'It's you.' It's almost like a reunion of souls as opposed to a first meeting. It just adds to the feeling that they were always meant to be together."

More on Outlander: Blood of My Blood:

• Claire's parents speak! Hermione Corfield and Jeremy Irvine on the secret to Julia and Henry's unmistakable chemistry
• Outlander Blood of My Blood review: Starz's prequel will have you swooning
• Everything to know about Outlander: Blood of My Blood

Julia and Henry 

While the season finale features Julia and Henry taking the enormous risk of fleeing from the respective iron grips that Lovat and Grant have on them, they spend most of the finale on horseback. Literally, there are long periods of time where aerial shots show them in transit to the stones. So what did they talk about on the ride?

"Do you have Sudocrem in the States?" Irvine asks with a cheeky grin. "It's a cream that you use for nappy rash, and I think I was telling Julia how much of it I was going to need when we got where we were going. They let us do a bit of riding on the horse, but obviously for the close-ups, you're on a mechanical horse being towed behind a camera vehicle and it's on springs. It doesn't move itself. So you have to do that. It's a motion that can only be described as humping and it was bizarre, wasn't it?"

"You still get a nice view of the Highlands as you are doing it though, so I quite enjoyed it," Corfield adds with a laugh.

Beyond what Irvine calls "waddling like John Wayne" after hours on the fake horse, Julia and Henry do have a lot to discuss. Brian has already filled Henry in on why Julia had to marry Lovat to keep herself and their child safe. But there is plenty more to say about Henry's actions after he thought Julia was dead and her continued (albeit forced) union with Lovat. "I think they are going to have to tackle a few things that have occurred," Corfield says. "It's not going to be plain sailing. They are not going to immediately be able to return to who they were. Conversations are going to be had. I think we are going to get real insight into how they handle conflict in Season 2."

"That's real, that's marriage," Irvine adds. "There are good times and bad times. For Henry, he hasn't met many friendly people in this world in the Highlands in the 1700s. So I'm not sure he completely trusts Brian. He's also a very handsome man who has been hanging around with his wife. But I also think they just haven't had time to deal with anything yet. In Season 2, maybe there is a bit of time for them to have some confessions and very difficult conversations."

But what awaits them on the other side of those stones, should one, two, or all three of the Beauchamps make it through? Well, for one, the family is back together and they have a new child to raise, which hasn't been the case all season. The episode ends on that note of family though, with a flashback (or rather flashforward) to when Julia and Henry said goodbye to a 5-year-old Claire and set off for their fateful trip to Scotland. 

"I like doing the flashbacks because it feels like a real gear shift from what we're doing in 1700s Scotland," Corfield says. "It feels more domesticated, less high stakes. It's lovely to see because they are not a unit in the 1700s. They're separated. So Henry hasn't really gotten a chance to be Williams' father."

Where, or rather, when exactly will they get to be a family again? Irvine gets nervous before he gives even a crumb of intel as to what awaits them in Season 2. "I've got to say, with Season 2, it starts off in a place that I had no idea. I went in for a costume fitting and they showed me the outfit, and I went, 'What? What the hell is that for?' So, yeah, there's some big surprises coming up."

Outlander: Blood of My Blood is now streaming on Starz.