To quote the infamous Billy Crystal, “How do you say goodbye to someone you could never say hello to?” (It’s from a hilarious movie called Parental Guidance. If you need a good laugh and change of mood after this finale, check it out.) And while this quote may come from a comedy, I find that sometimes comics can be the most profound people. And in many ways, I think this quote fits this finale very well. There are some people in our lives that we don’t have to say hello to. They just are. They seem to happen to you, much like Jane to William on the street or Master Raymond to Claire in the apothecary in Season 2. Rollo is won in a dice game. Lord John happens upon Claire and Jamie in the woods back in Season 2. Bree and Claire happen upon Roger in Season 2 for that matter. Claire happens upon Black Jack Randall, which Murtaugh happens upon them and saves Claire, which brings her to happening upon Jamie and helping him with his shoulder in Season 1. Buck and Roger have happened upon each other multiple times in this series. Bree, Roger, and Buck happen upon many people from their families’ past. How do you say hello to people from the past that you maybe shouldn’t interact with? We’ve wondered this with Buck wanting to meet his parents, Roger meeting his father, and Bree interacting with Brian and Jenny. Other times, life doesn’t give us the chance to say goodbye. Jamie only says goodbye to Jane without a hope of hello, while Fanny doesn’t quite get to say goodbye. However when time travel is involved, do you ever truly say hello or goodbye? Some people are so vibrant in our lives that it seems impossible to say goodbye. Like Ian with Rollo, sometimes we don’t always get a chance to say goodbye. Lord John gets a chance to say goodbye to Claire on his terms (sorta, which angry Jamie in the background), while William probably rather not say goodbye or hello to Jamie. It’s all these things, along with that time-traveling twist at the end that still had me marinating the next day. While I caramelized my onions for my quiche and sipped by coffee, I mentally digested the finale.

I’ve really loved Jane and Fanny this season. We know things don’t bode well for her when we open the episode with her and Fanny looking happy with a mystery woman. If we didn’t already know things were bad for Jane, this was a good hint that things were not going to go well. Another title for this episode could be “The Things You Do For Love.” Jane did what she had to do to protect Fanny. William is trying to do his best to save her. He’s asked at some point if he loves Jane. In some ways, they are trauma bonded due to William finding Jane in the aftermath of discovering his heritage and him rescuing her from Captain Harkness. I don’t think William loves Jane, but there is an undeniable connection that wasn’t given enough time to explore. He’s willing to go to Jamie for help when Lord John can’t come through. For love, Jamie is more than willing to help William. It’s also sweet to see Jamie taking care of Claire as she recovers. He’s protective and willing to do whatever it takes to help her get better. We may not have gotten the love scenes we hoped for this season, but we see a deeper level of intimacy with Jamie helping Claire use the chamber pot. It takes trust, vulnerability, and humility to help your spouse in those ways. John took Claire in for the love of Jamie earlier this season. Their exchange of tender gratitude for helping each other in a time of great darkness was quite touching. For love, Denny was willing to operate on Claire, although he probably hopes he’ll never have to do so again. For love, Rachel leaves her brother to follow Ian to North Carolina. Out of love for William, Jamie and Claire take in Fanny. For the love of William, Jamie willingly takes William’s ire and offers positive things about Geneva to protect William from the truth (that Geneva blackmailed Jamie into that one night).

Another title for this episode could be “Loss Revisited.” Brian seeing Brianna brings up vivid memories of this wife. While it’s not quite how it goes down in the books, it is nice to see them conversing. It’s totally a plug for the the Blood of My Blood spinoff. In that sense, the conversation was a little odd. But if I’m honest, while Sophie Skelton has really improved this season, her delivery of lines still seems awkward and stilted. It doesn’t help that so much of Roger and Bree’s storylines were greatly pared down. It’s great to see them reunited but so much of that story was lost. Another loss was Rollo, and since it’s been just a year since we lost our family dog of 11 years, I found myself blubbering the most at Rollo. And yet, the greatest twist was the loss revisited of Faith, Jamie and Claire’s first child, supposedly lost in miscarriage. Since so much of books 7 & 8 were pared down due to concerns season 7 would be the last, the greenlight for season 8 might have left them scrambling how to bring viewers into the last season. While this is a thread from book 9, and draws from Diana’s novella, A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows, I’m hoping that revealing this thought of Jane and Fanny somehow being related to Claire lines up with what Diana has set up for book 10.

Now if you aren’t down with this twist, go make yourself a Caramelized Onion Quiche, sip some coffee, and sing the Outlander version of Green Day’s When September Ends (Wake Me Up, When Droughtlander Ends…). Start your Outlander rewatch or check back here for other ways to survive the drought. But if you want to start theorizing what this twist might be all about, read on. Being a book reader helps because of #spoilers.

Now it could just be coincidence that Fanny and Jane’s mother’s name was Faith. From Fanny singing the song, we know someone in their past was a time traveler who knew that song. It is possible their Faith is/was a time traveler. This could play out on many fronts. The easiest conclusion to jump to is that Faith didn’t die. For some weird reason Master Raymond took her, raised her, and then something happened to them where they weren’t around to help raise Jane and Fanny. Somehow Fanny and Jane crossed the ocean to the USA, and Jane got pulled into working at a brothel. But why would Master Raymond do this? In The Space Between, we discover that the Comte de Germaine is still alive and comes across Master Raymond. Master Raymond is looking for a daughter. He also admits to the Comte that the Comte is one of Master Raymond’s. We discover Geillis is one of the Comte’s descendants, which means Roger is too. In the books, it’s talked about Master Raymond having a blue light and Claire eventually having that too. We see this discussed with a traveling doctor that Buck and Roger come across. Claire is one of Master Raymond’s descendants. So why take her Faith? Well, maybe Master Raymond had a daughter and lost her in time and doesn’t know where she is. But instead of finding her, he keeps finding her descendants. Maybe he gave up and saw taking Faith as a way to start over. It’s a little messed up but we’ve seen where people who time travel on purpose or to change things get a little obsessed and lose priorities. Maybe it’s the cautionary tale of time travel. It’s easy to get wrapped up in another time and in the process lose your own time. As exciting as time travel would be in the beginning, it would be easy to get disillusioned with it after seeing people make the same mistakes, but in different eras and start to wonder what all of this is for. Maybe that’s what’s been key to Claire’s survival in all of this. It was all by accident and only returned to the past for love. Maybe time travelers start to lose their grip on reality. We’ve seen this with Geillis and the Comte. Maybe Master Raymond taking Faith was was this brush with time travel insanity.

Or maybe Faith isn’t Claire’s Faith. It feels kinda icky to know that William possibly slept with his step-niece. While this wouldn’t be far-fetched in a time that saw first cousins marrying, and wouldn’t be impossible in our own time where anonymous sperm donors could possibly create similar situations, it still feels weird. So if Faith isn’t Claire’s Faith, who is she?

While Diana isn’t interested in writing about Claire’s parents, the show clearly is by doing the Blood of My Blood spinoff. From leaked photos, we saw Claire’s mom riding with a younger Brian Fraser in a horse and cart. And this opens quite a few possibilities. First of all, we know that Claire’s parents died in a car accident. Maybe they didn’t. Maybe they traveled back in time and got stuck and couldn’t return. Perhaps Faith is Claire’s younger sister, making Jane and Fanny her great-nieces. Is Claire’s mother Master Raymond’s missing daughter? What happened to Faith to leave her daughters all alone? Or maybe only Claire’s mother traveled back in time. Perhaps she somehow got pregnant in the past, didn’t know it when she returned to the future, had the baby and Master Raymond showed up and took Faith or adopted her so Claire’s father never knew. There’s a couple different ways Faith could be related to Claire and not be her daughter.

However, Faith not being around to raise Jane and Fanny is interesting. We do know from Book 9 that Fanny has a memory of a couple taking care of her on the boat when they traveled to America. Was this Faith and her husband? Did they get sick and die on the boat? Did Faith leave the girls with a friend or family member and go searching for Claire in the future and got stuck and never made it back to her daughters or is like Roger and trying to find her kids? We know Master Raymond helped the Mantauk 5 in the 1960s. Did Faith travel with him to the 1960s but died by the hands of the group Captain Richardson/Callahan was involved with? Did Frank somehow know about Faith’s death from his M5 connections, which tipped him off that someone was after Bree and Claire? We see he had his suspicion in the “Dear Deadeye” letter (which hopefully we will get in season 8. I’m hoping it’s tucked inside of Frank’s books.) There’s suspicions around Frank’s death that it wasn’t actually a car accident. Which makes us wonder if Claire’s parents’ accident was truly an accident? What if Frank met Faith when she was looking for Claire? What if Faith planted the forget-me-nots at the stones, which is what started all of this. Claire went back to see if the flower was indeed a forget-me-not. What if Faith was the catalyst all along? Again, this is my hope for this twist is that it leads us back to seeing Jamie’s ghost in the first episode of season 1.

Quick side note about the Blue Light Special (aka the blue light that Claire and Master Raymond have)…could that possibly be what Faith’s quote about angels was really about? Was it not about the northern lights but about the blue light that can be seen between time travelers? We’ll have to wait and see.

While all of this guestimating is quite fun, it’s easy to get wrapped up in that and forget all the beautiful moments in the finale. It’s those beautiful moments that makes it hard to wait to see where everyone lands in season 8.

Since this is a blog, I don’t know if we can say hello or goodbye. Or maybe we don’t have to. Til next time, Slainte!

Comfort Food: Caramelized Onion Quiche

Dram: Angel’s Envy. It’s not my favorite bourbon but it tasted pretty good in my afternoon coffee while I was contemplating all of this.

Song: When September Ends by Green Day