Outlander: Blood of My Blood, Starz’s upcoming prequel series to their beloved fantasy-historical drama Outlander, follows the lives of the parents of Outlander’s madly-in-love protagonists, Claire and Jamie Fraser.
Jamie’s parents Brian Fraser and Ellen MacKenzie carry on a forbidden romance as their rival Highland clans jockey for political power on the eve of the Jacobite rebellion of 1715. Meanwhile, in the early 20th century, Henry Beauchamp and Julia Moriston fall in love during World War One. Henry returns to England deeply traumatized by his experience as a soldier in the British army.
They marry, have their daughter Claire, and are expecting another child when, while on a trip alone to the Scottish Highlands, they are in a car accident. Julia and then Henry each happen upon Craigh na Dun, the ancient stone circle that essentially serves as the time machine of the Outlander saga.
Julia and Henry are separately sent back in time to 1714 where they each become caught up in the political machinations and violent rivalries of the Highland clans as an uprising looms. The respective paths of the Beauchamps will cross with those of Brian Fraser and Ellen MacKenzie as all four protagonists eventually play their fateful parts to affect the course of Scottish history.
If that sounds like one helluva coincidence considering what happened to Claire, who grew up believing her parents died in that car accident, it’s not. ”In our world, coincidences are known as fate and destiny,” showrunner/executive producer Matthew B. Roberts recently told IGN.
Please find our interview with Roberts and executive producer Maril Davis about Season One of Outlander: Blood of My Blood below. (It has been edited for clarity.)
IGN: I know some of the Outlander backstory is out there, some of it isn’t. How much leeway did you have to play around in that world without stomping on anything?
Matthew B. Roberts: I think we were very careful not to unwind anything. Just to add to. So we know Brian and Ellen meet in the books. We know that it’s almost instantaneous, this love. So I think we play that pretty much exactly the way that’s written. We just accordion out on that story. So instead of having it all take place rapid fire, we just play with it and stretch it out. And Henry and Julia, obviously that’s free game. Diana said multiple times she’s not interested in telling that story, but when we pitched it to her, she was like, go for it, that sounds like a cool idea. … That’s, to use a pun, an open book that’s free to do what we want. And we also want them to cross paths with Brian and Ellen. So that opens up a new adventure for us as well.
Maril Davis: I’m not a writer, but I think I was like, “Ugh, we’re leaving the books behind.” I thought it was a little stressful because I think I’m so used to relying on the books as a roadmap, but I have to say I was so pleasantly surprised that Matt and the writers have crafted this story that to me has just opened up this world. We always talk about Jamie and Claire being the central focus of Outlander and everything has to spoke off them, but in Blood of My Blood, you not only have two couples instead of one, but you just have so much more freedom to explore the ancillary characters in a way that we didn’t get to do on Outlander. And to me it’s been incredibly exciting and freeing in some ways, but still keeping in the Outlander world.
IGN: I would imagine one of the biggest challenges was working in the time travel element. It’s kind of the Die Hard problem. How many times can the same guy get caught in this situation? Was there ever any version of the story where those respective love stories ran parallel but left out time travel?
Roberts: Not really, because I don’t think that would’ve been Outlander. That would’ve just been two parallel love stories being told at the same time. Outlander has time travel. That’s what makes Outlander magic. And that’s the magic in the show. But also I think, and I’ll use your example, is that John McClane just happens to be just the unluckiest guy of all time. So that feels coincidental. Whereas in our world, coincidences are known as fate and destiny. So that’s been crafted into the books and we took it into the TV show. So when all these fateful meetings happen, that’s what they are. They’re designed by fate or destiny or whatever you want to call it.
IGN: Ellen Fraser was already deceased by the time the original Outlander begins. Are you challenged by the fact that there is kind of a period at that end of the sentence but that we don’t know when exactly? Is that an element of suspense you can play with? On the other hand, I don’t think we really knew anything about Claire’s parents.
Roberts: No. They’re mentioned in the book as they got in a car accident and died and that’s as much as we hear with Ellen. And we know Ellen and Brian and Dougal and Colum and Murtagh, we’ve seen all their deaths on camera. So we know when they die. But I don’t think that hampers us at all because the way we tell stories both on Outlander and Blood of My Blood is the how story, not the if story. So when Jamie and Claire are up on the ramparts at Fort William and they jump off and they’re escaping the Redcoats, we know they live, there’s four other books, five other books at that point. So we know they live, it’s how do they get out of that? How do they get to survive that? That’s day one of Outlander. So the same thing applies on Blood of My Blood is we know when all these characters die, how do they live? How do they get to these places? How do they become the characters they become on Outlander?
IGN: There’s a through line of good dad, bad dad in the show. Red Jacob MacKenzie is not without his questionable methods but compared to Lord Lovat, they’re kind of polar opposites. With Brian Fraser particularly, how did his father’s [Lovat] treatment of him shape his character? And with Colum and Dougal MacKenzie, Red Jacob opens his heart to his daughter Ellen in a way he’s not willing to do with his sons.
Roberts: I think the time dictates that quite a bit, is that the idea of what a man is in that time is very different. I don’t know if it’s very different. It’s just very regimented and what’s expected, what’s not expected, you have to carry on the line. You have to carry on the name. And with Ellen, she didn’t have that burden. And even though Red Jacob probably would’ve loved that, he might’ve treated her slightly different if she was a man. And he opens his heart to her and he knows he can because she’s a woman and that she won’t ever have the burden of being the Laird. So he frees himself there and she gets everything those boys didn’t, but they get to witness that. They witness that, and that builds resentment and he tries to shape them into Lairds and they just don’t have what she has, and I think that is that family dynamic.
I think Lovat is a little different in that he has a big heart and he truly loves deeply for himself. I think that’s the kicker for Lovat is he only has enough love to give to himself and that’s it and everything else is a prop in his life, even Brian. And he can call Brian a disappointment, but Davina is who shapes Brian. Davina is the son and the moon in his life. I don’t know if he fights against Lovat. I’d never saw (Brian) as wanting his father’s approval. He probably wants some respect from his father, but I don’t know if it’s approval. I think that’ll play out over the course of the show.
Davis: I think also Brian’s been forged by fire. I think we’ll see over the season and the second season that Brian is shaped by his treatment from Lovat for better or for worse. And you’re right, his mother has guided him to be the person he is, and he’s gotten out of that situation far better than one could hope. But also, in terms of Red Jacob, I think Ellen does not pose a competition for him. Do you know what I mean? He can be more loving to her because she’s not after his Lairdship. So he can let down in a way and be more vulnerable with her. And sadly, he isn’t that way with his sons.
IGN: I know you’re in production on Season Two and I believe [Outlander creator-novelist] Diana Gabaldon is trying to do three prequel books. Is the idea for Blood of My Blood to just be a three season show?
Roberts: No, I think it goes as long as we have really good stories to tell. And if that’s three seasons – I hope it’s not, I hope it’s more than that – but I think we have a lot of story there. We have more characters that we can jump into and see. We can go backwards and forwards a little bit. So that also gives us a lot of runway. And I know she’s still writing book 10 and she’ll start on the prequels, so we may be down the road a little bit.
IGN: The original Outlander show went to America, to the Caribbean. Is the plan for Blood of My Blood to stay strictly in Scotland or will you travel elsewhere?
Roberts: No, we know their lives are in Scotland. It doesn’t mean that a character can’t go somewhere, but the majority of these characters live and die in Scotland. So with Jamie in the story took one pilgrimage already. I don’t know if at some point we flash to that and show what that journey was like and what he went through on that journey. Not Jamie, I’m sorry. Brian. Jamie is the actor, so it’s only super confusing. But yeah, so he took a pilgrimage and there might be some traveling, but we’re not going to uproot the production and go, we’re all moving to America, or we’re moving to the Caribbean, or we’re moving to France.
Outlander: Blood of My Blood premieres Friday, August 8 on STARZ.
