The hit Outlander series goes back (and forth) in time once again with prequel series Outlander: Blood of my Blood. David Michael Brown engages with this sweeping time-travelling romance.
Outlander: Blood of my Blood - Season 1
Like any good prequel, the joy of Outlander: Blood of my Blood has been discovering where much-loved characters inherited their traits, habits and looks from. And in the case of this precursor to the hugely successful soon to be 8 season adaptation of Diana Gabaldon’s sweeping time-travelling romance, we find out why Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan) and Claire Randall (Caitríona Balfe) became so “fated to be together”.
And like the original series, it’s a huge step back in time that continues to make Blood of my Blood such an engaging and emotive experience. As passions rage, clans clash, bagpipes skirl and the 18th century and WWI timelines collide, this handsomely mounted historical fantasy delivers not only on the promise of a true origin story as we literally meet the parents of the lead characters of Outlander but as a down and dirty rip-roaring actioner as long-standing feuds that were previously history are brought to vivid life.
In a forbidden tryst that would make Shakespeare proud, the torrid clandestine romance between Jamie Fraser’s headstrong parents, Ellen MacKenzie (Harriet Slater) and Brian Fraser (Jamie Roy), defies the wishes of their feuding families. Despite a surprisingly tender flashback with her late father, the ruthless chieftain and laird of Clan MacKenzie Red Jacob (the brilliant Peter Mullan), who promises Ellen that she will always be a MacKenzie and will never have to marry against her will, Ellen is unexpectedly betrothed as her brothers clash over the lairdship.
The pair first catch a glimpse of each other through the slats of a makeshift wooden wall of an animal shelter while both are hiding out at a gathering of Scottish clans. She’s trying to avoid the sleazy advances of unwanted suitors while he is avoiding the violent retribution of rival clansmen. It’s love at first sight. But at what cost? “They’re both taking massive risks in even meeting,” Slater told Marie Claire. “Because if anyone were to discover them, both her reputation and their lives would be at risk.”
Then there’s Claire’s mum and dad, grief-stricken World War I survivors, Henry (Jeremy Irvine) and Julia (Hermione Corfield), who fall in love without laying eyes on each other. While in London, censoring letters from the front during the First World War, Julia intercepts a struggling Henry’s desperate missives describing his profound disillusionment with the war from the virulent battlefields of Passchendaele and they begin a heartfelt correspondence.
This would be enough for most shows, two parallel love stories telling us of the lives that would eventually create Jamie and Claire. Being Outlander, however, the two intertwining narratives converge when a pregnant Julia and Henry time-travel to Scotland in 1714, after narrowly missing a stag in the road, crashing their car and stumbling across the stone circle where their story intersects with the Frasers and MacKenzies, creating an origin story for Jamie and Claire’s destined connection.
Corfield told Cosmopolitan, “You’re discovering a completely untold story,” Hermione says. “How did they fall in love? How long were they in Scotland? What happened to them when they were there? Did they ever make it back to a future time? It’s all on the table,” she continued. “If Claire’s parents had stayed during World War I and it had just been that romance, there wouldn’t have been a huge journey for them across the series,” Hermione says. “Because of the time-travel, you see a similar thing that we saw with Claire, where she had to learn to survive in a world she didn’t understand. That adds a whole element for the characters.”
Their arrival intersects with the early courtship of Brian and Ellen, tying their fates together and creating a pivotal moment that influences the future connection between Jamie and Claire. “I think she recognises elements of herself in Ellen,” Corfield explained when discussing Julia’s thoughts on meeting Ellen during the TV Insider Outlander: Blood of my Blood aftershow. “I think they’re both women that sort of refused to be put in a box or tied down or told no. And I think she sees that. I also think… she respects Brian and has affection for him, and I think seeing this woman that clearly he’s so in love with touches her as well because she relates to that.”
Slater reveals the feelings from Ellen toward Julia were mutual, despite Ellen’s initial hesitancy and uncertainty around interacting with the ally. “Ellen doesn’t get a lot of time to chat to other women. So, it was a really nice moment of connection. I think she really found a confidant in Julia,” Slater expands.
And now Claire’s parents are directly involved in the romance between Jamie’s parents. Ellen’s brother Henry is currently proving to be something of an obstacle, given his role in brokering Ellen’s marriage to Malcolm Grant (Jhon Lumsden), the young chieftain of Clan Grant. And Julia has become an essential element of their forbidden romance. As a servant in the home of Lord Lovat (Tony Curran), particularly because she has become quite close to Brian, particularly after he took the blame for her escape attempt.
The big question is what will happen next and who will appear. Will we meet any other characters from Outlander in Blood of my Blood. With time-travelling as a norm, the possibilities are endless as the writer’s room service not only the characters and the plot but the fans. Anyone from Outlander could appear in the prequel. As long as they head to the stone circle where Julia and Henry found themselves in the year 1714 in Scotland near Craigh na Dun.
There is much speculation about Julia’s baby, on screen and off. Claire has already been born, but who will her sibling grow up to be? As Julia, in a desperate bid for survival in this brutal land she finds herself in, uses her unborn child as a political pawn. Unbeknownst to the facts, and following Julia’s announcement that the father of her child is Lord Lovat’s, there is intense online postulation that the unborn child will bring forth the prophecy that a Scottish king would sit on the throne following the death of a 200-year-old baby. But that’s all conjecture for the moment.
What we do know, however, is that the casting is exquisite, the emotions are palpable and that Outlander: Blood of my Blood is the perfect beginning to an epic series.
