Showrunner Matthew B. Roberts explains “one of the great full-circle moments” with that Highlander reveal

Outlander boss breaks down the series finale, that post-credits scene, and the stories they never got to (exclusive)

Showrunner Matthew B. Roberts explains "one of the great full-circle moments" with that Highlander reveal

By Amy Wilkinson

Amy Wilkinson

Amy Wilkinson is a former senior editor at **. She left EW in 2018.

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May 15, 2026 1:20 a.m. ET

Sam Heughan as Jamie and Caitriona Balfe as Claire on 'Outlander'. Credit:

Robert Wilson/Starz

- *Outlander *showrunner Matthew B. Roberts wants to leave the series finale up to fans' interpretation.

- Roberts share the decision behind the post-credits sequence, calling it a "love letter and a thank you to all the crew that had been there from day one."

- He also reveals the stories they never got to tell.

**This article contains spoilers from the *Outlander *series finale, "And the World Was All Around Us."**

For eight seasons, time-traveler Claire (Caitríona Balfe) and her Highlander husband Jamie (Sam Heughan) have endeavored to alter history — to twist fate to protect their future and the futures of those they hold dear. But destiny has had a way of winning out, whether it be the bloody Battle of Culloden or the fire that burnt down the couple’s home on Fraser’s Ridge.

With a new threat looming — the revelation from Frank Randall’s (Tobias Menzies) book, *The Soul of a Rebel*, that Jamie would die during the impending Battle of Kings Mountain — the couple once again threw themselves into destiny’s path. Could this time be different?

Whether Claire and Jamie did indeed rewrite history in *Outlander*’s series finale — or history was simply jotted down erroneously in the first place — is one of the many burning questions we posed to showrunner Matthew B. Roberts, as he sat down with ** to discuss the conclusion of the long-running Starz series.

Jamie leads his men in the 'Outlander' series finale.

Robert Wilson/Starz

**: When we spoke for our *****Outlander* cover story****, you mentioned that you’d known how the series would end for a few years now. Take us back to that moment when inspiration struck.**

**MATTHEW B. ROBERTS:** I always knew I wanted to incorporate [Jamie’s] ghost. It was really important that the moment have some kind of closure. And the other thing that I've said for anybody who would ask in meetings about the reality and authenticity and history and all these things — there's magic in *Outlander*. I have to remind people, she came through time. And the question has always been why? This is my interpretation — and everybody should have their own — that this is never ending and never beginning. In a weird way, it just keeps moving. A true love story, to me, is born in the stars, like they say. We laced these things in. They're there. Jamie says in an episode, “That's us. We're up there in the stars and will never end.” In the dialogue, if you've been paying attention all along, this story's already been told. I'm just showing it at the end.

**Just in case there is any ****confusion for viewers****, can you confirm that both Claire and Jamie survived the series finale?**

**Matt, that’s devious.**

I'm not going to tell any single fan how to interpret that last beat.

**Can you at least confirm that we see both Claire’s and Jamie’s eyes open at the end?**

I do. Listen very carefully too.

**In the moments before, when a grieving Claire is crying over Jamie’s body and she says the line “he is home” and releases her breath, what does that breath represent? A spell? The breath of life?**

I’m not doing the work for you, Amy. That's what I love about doing this, is that when someone asks me, “Explain this to me,” I'm like, “No, you explain it to me.” That's, to me, how stories work. They make you feel a certain way. I don't want to tell you how to feel. I don’t want to tell the audience how to feel. We had a massive reaction because Fergus died, and people were like, “Oh, it’s a negative.” And I was like, “No, they felt pain for this guy dying. They felt pain for Jamie and Claire. They felt pain for Marsali.” That's drama. That's how it works. That's what needed to happen on the television show. In the books, it's different because you spend more time with Henri-Christian [Fergus’ son who dies in *Written in My Own Heart's Blood*], but not on our show. We only saw him in a couple episodes. He doesn't carry a lot of weight in the show. For the non-book reader, that would have had no impact, right? I get it for the book reader, but for the non-book reader, who make up quite a big chunk of our audience, they have to feel, and Fergus was the one that they would feel for — and it shows.

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**Presuming that Jamie did, in fact, survive being shot at the Battle of Kings Mountain, would that mean the couple was finally able to change history?**

I've read a lot of things in history books in my day that ended up not being true.

**So was Frank confused? Lying? Only telling half the story?**

Let me put it this way: Say you were documenting that battle, and Jamie got shot on Wednesday, and everybody mourned his death on Wednesday night. You, as the historian, went back to wherever you were from, Philadelphia perhaps, and wrote the story on Thursday that he died. Frank would have read that dispatch. He would have dug down in history and found that this man, in fact, died on this day.

**For the flashback scenes in which we see Jamie’s ghost watching Claire, was that all new footage? Or were you able to splice in shots from the pilot episode?**

Anything on his back is old, and then anything on his face is new, because we never filmed that coverage of Sam back in the day.

**So in the pilot, that was Sam who played the mysterious Highlander? I don’t believe that has ever been confirmed.**

Yes. And that was on purpose. That was, to me, one of the great full-circle moments coming back to that. When Sam and I met on day one of the season, I told him I hadn’t written it yet but that we were going to close that loop. And he was like, “Oh, great. I love that. I really want to. I think the fans really want it too.”

Caitriona Balfe as Claire on 'Outlander'.

Robert Wilson/Starz

**Why did you decide to film a post-credit sequence?**

It's our love letter and a thank you to all the crew that had been there from day one. Everybody in the bookstore is someone who had been on the show from day one. We also wanted to say thank you to [author] Diana [Gabaldon] for creating the world. It's really her story. I thought it was fitting to say thank you to her and give her the last image.

**I was told you were also in the post-credit sequence, in the back.**

That was funny because we filmed that, and I wasn't. I was talked into doing a walk-through, so we did me on blue screen, and they put me in.

**You’ve said in the past that it would be impossible to tie up every loose end on the show. Are there one or two you wish you could have, if given more time?**

There are so many other stories in the books that we certainly would have loved to have tried to do or spent more time with the character. There are so many amazing characters that it's hard to pinpoint just one. John Grey’s character is so fantastic. There are books, you know, I might want to look at doing something there. With William, that storyline, to go off and see what happens to him and how that affects Jamie and build that. And then the Fanny storyline — not just where she goes, but more scenes with her and Jamie, and more scenes with her and Claire. I think that would have been lovely to build out too, but we just didn't have enough time.

*This interview has been edited for length and clarity.*

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*Outlander *is available to stream now on the Starz app.

Original Article on Source

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