As Outlander celebrates 10 years since it premiered on August 9, 2014, I figured it was as good a time as any to ease this lengthy Droughtlander by rediscovering the beginnings of Claire and Jamie's story,
Revisiting that first season, I could not help but think of the similarities the upcoming Outlander spin-off, titled Blood of my Blood, will have with these early episodes. For one, Blood of my Blood is set in Scotland just like the mother-show, and it will tell the love story of Jamie's parents, Ellen Mackenzie and Brian Fraser.
While Brian briefly appeared in season 1, during which viewers witnessed his death, Ellen was only talked about on Outlander. It will therefore be fascinating to get to know her in the spin-off and to learn more about her than the breadcrumbs given to us by Jamie in the main show.
We do know some things, like the fact that she and Brian ran away together when Ellen was supposed to be married to someone else. That is a tale Jamie tells Claire about on their own wedding night, and something that we will now get to see unfold in great detail in Blood of my Blood.
But aside from Ellen and Brian, this new show will also be the opportunity to discover many characters, that fans of Outlander are familiar with, through a new lens. The casting announcements made so far indicate we will indeed get to see the youth of the MacKenzie brothers, Dougal and Colum, but also Murtagh Fitzgibbons and Ned Gowan. We'll even get to meet a young Jocasta and encounter another MacKenzie sibling we’ve never seen before, Janet.
Based on the relationship Dougal and Colum have in the first season of Outlander, which can only be described as incredibly tense, Blood of my Blood has the opportunity to dig deep into what forged those later interactions. What led them to this point? Their Outlander version portrays a war chief and a laird, brothers who seem to envy one another, so who were they before Colum inherited the title of his father?
Speaking of which, we'll get to meet Red Jacob MacKenzie in Blood of my Blood as well, and his own relationships with his different children will certainly also inform who they are and why they feel the way they do about each other.
Then there are the marriages showcased on Outlander. Dougal, when we meet him in season 1, is married to a woman named Maura. We never get to see her, learning that she lives on their estate and rarely has contact with her husband. However, when she succumbs to illness halfway through the season, Dougal is quite distressed. Blood of my Blood could take the time to explore that relationship. Hopefully, we will get to meet Maura and learn what made Dougal ultimately think that she deserved better than him.
Similarly, Blood of my Blood might dive into Colum's relationship with his wife Letitia. How did that begin? And what of Colum’s battle with Toulouse-Lautrec Syndrome? Surely, we will see when the disease first started to affect him, or at least how he had to manage it as he became laird of Castle Leoch.
Indeed, was Colum always a powerful laird as he appears to be in the first season of Outlander, or was he ever perceived as a weak man, which perhaps later forced him to lead with an iron fist? What role did his friendship with Ned Gowan play into it all? As the lawyer will also be seen in Blood of my Blood, we should get to learn more about his personal and professional relationships within clan MacKenzie.
While the first half of Outlander’s first season hints at what could be explored in Blood of my Blood on the MacKenzie front, the second half leans a bit more into the Fraser side of the story.
Again, thanks to what Starz has already revealed, we know that we will not only meet Brian in the spin-off, but also his father, Lord Lovat. Now that’s a character we don’t learn much about in season 1 of Outlander, but who appears in season 2, and who is pretty much described by Jamie as a monster.
Blood of my Blood will therefore introduce us to Brian’s not-so-nice dad, as well as his mother, Davina Porter, and a whole new cast of characters the main show never really talked about.
Down the line, should it have multiple seasons, it could also take us all the way to the birth of Lallybroch, Jamie's family estate, as he explains to Claire in season 1 that Brian built it himself.
But there is another Fraser-related character that fans of Outlander will be delighted to see again in Blood of my Blood, and that is Murtagh Fitzgibbons Fraser. Murtagh is a cousin of Brian, and will later swear to Ellen that he will forever protect her son, Jamie.
A certain pair of bracelets seen in the first season might even make an appearance. In fact, in the main show, it is no secret that Murtagh was in love with Ellen MacKenzie before she married Brian. In one episode, he tells Claire about a time he killed a wounded boar with only a dagger in order to impress Ellen and fashioned the tusks into bracelets that he ended up giving her as a wedding present.
Murtagh's love for Ellen will undoubtedly be showcased in Blood of my Blood, and it would not be surprising to see it be a source of conflict between him and Brian. Even if we ultimately know that he'll step aside and watch Ellen marry Jamie's dad, it will be interesting to meet a younger, perhaps even softer Murtagh. Who knows, we might also eventually get to see the early signs of the future romance between him and Ellen’s sister, Jocasta.
All in all, Blood of my Blood promises to be full of easter eggs for Outlander fans. From the most obvious aspects of its storytelling to the simple use of special objects here and there, fans of the main show will delight in seeing things from the very first season make their way into the spin-off.
However, Blood of my Blood will not only be about the Scottish characters related to Jamie Fraser. The creators have confirmed it will also feature the love story between Claire's parents, Julia and Henry Beauchamp, in 20th-century England. Rewatching the first season of Outlander, I noticed mentions of those two were sparse and did not give us much to go on. How their story will be woven around the one of Ellen and Brian therefore remains to be seen.
You too can rewatch all of Outlander season 1, either on Starz in the US or MGM+ in the UK.
