Caitríona Balfe teases an emotional and “satisfying” ending for Outlander as the series wraps with Season 8 in 2026.
Caitríona Balfe says fans will get the closure they’ve been waiting for when Outlander ends with its eighth season.
While promoting her new film The Amateur, Balfe spoke with CBR about the future of the long-running Starz drama. Balfe, who has played Claire Fraser since the show’s 2014 debut, teased a season packed with emotional goodbyes and long-awaited answers.
“I think that we see more of the relationships, maybe,” Balfe said. “There’s a lot of loose ends that get sort of tied up, and I hope that those are kind of satisfying conclusions for people.”
Outlander, based on Diana Gabaldon’s bestselling novels, follows Claire, a 20th-century nurse who time-travels to 18th-century Scotland and falls in love with Jamie Fraser, played by Sam Heughan. Over the past decade, the story has crossed continents, from Scotland to France to colonial America.
Balfe, currently touring for The Amateur, a techno-thriller directed by James Hawes and starring Rami Malek, joked about her real-world tech skills during the interview. “I’m so bad,” she laughed. “I’m useless at it.”
But talk quickly turned back to Outlander, where Balfe kept plot details tightly under wraps. “I don’t know what I can say, or somebody swoops in and kills me,” she joked when asked if more of Claire’s magical abilities would appear in the final season.
What she could reveal is how much the final episodes meant to the cast and crew.
“It was such an emotional season to film,” Balfe said. “There were so many goodbyes to places and people that we loved and that we’ve loved for so long. I just really hope that it’s a satisfying tribute to our fans, because we would never have been on air for that long without them.”
“They’ve been so incredible and stuck with us for so long. So, my hope is that they’re happy at the end.”
Season 7 left fans stunned with a major twist: Claire and Jamie’s firstborn, Hope, once thought to have died at birth, may still be alive. Originally believed to have died in France during Season 2, Hope’s story resurfaced when Jamie’s son, William, rescued two sisters from a brothel. One of the girls, Franny, sang a song Claire had once sung to Hope, raising new questions.
Asked when viewers might get answers, showrunner Matthew B. Roberts simply said, “You’ll have to wait for season 8.”
The final season of Outlander is set to premiere in 2026. Meanwhile, fans can look forward to the prequel series Outlander: Blood of My Blood, debuting in the summer of 2025.
All seven seasons of Outlander are currently streaming on Starz.