Outlander's Sam Heughan Warns That Relationships Will Be 'Put To Rest' In New Episodes, And There's One I Need To Survive

Sam Heughan on Outlander
(Image credit: Starz)

The long-awaited return of Outlander Season 7 is nearly at an end... relatively speaking, anyway, after more than a year passed since the first half of Season 7 aired! The arrival of Season 7B in the 2024 TV premiere schedule won't come any sooner than November short of fans learning the tricks of Outlander time travel, but Sam Heughan dropped some comments about relationships that are worth mulling over as the end of hiatus approaches. All in all, there's one relationship that I need to not be "broken," in Heughan's words.

Sam Heughan spoke with EW about what comes next for the Frasers after their arrival back in Scotland at the end of the Season 7 midseason finale, and some of his teases sound great for fans who have been missing the locale of the earlier seasons... but foreboding in another way. At least, foreboding if you're anything like me and quite attached to the friendship between Jamie and Lord John Grey. Heughan said:

Jamie is here to put things to rest and to deal with past relationships. Scotland is his ancestral home. It’s where his heart is. History pulls them back. We know that they can never avoid history, and they're about to get more entwined in the American Revolution. They don't get to rest long as old relationships and friendships are revisited or put to rest, and new ones are tested and broken as well.

Sign me up to support Jamie and Lord John as a friendship that is revisited and entwined rather than put to rest! I'm not familiar with author Diana Gabaldon's source material to this point in the story, so I can't say with certainty, although David Berry does appear in a Season 7B first-look photo with Caitriona Balfe. So, we know that he's coming back and he'll be sharing a scene with at least Claire.

Admittedly, Lord John hasn't been too significant a character in Season 7 to this point, as he only appeared in Episode 2 and ended on a high-stakes but tense note with Jamie. Still, with confirmation that David Berry is in the second half of Season 7 and Sam Heughan's tease of the Frasers going back to the American Revolution, it's very possible that the old friends will once again have to face being on opposite sides of a war that one of them knows is doomed for the other. Is "star-crossed friendship" a thing, after all the complications that they've endured?

This also strikes me as one of the relationships worth worrying about, as it feels quite safe to say that Jamie and Claire are rock solid in their romance in the second half of Season 7. Young Ian and Rachel seem on a pretty straight path to love as long as Arch Bug doesn't get his revenge, Roger and Brianna were happy with their little family until Jemmy was kidnapped, and I'm optimistic about Fergus and Marsali ahead of their returns in Season 8. It's just hard to be confident that John and Jamie will be on the same page again.

For now, we can only wait and see. At least the wait now has an end in sight! Outlander returns to Starz on Friday, November 22 at 8 p.m. ET. A prequel is on the way as well, so be sure to check out our breakdown of what we know about Outlander: Blood of My Blood's premiere date and more.

Laura Hurley
Senior Content Producer

Laura turned a lifelong love of television into a valid reason to write and think about TV on a daily basis. She's not a doctor, lawyer, or detective, but watches a lot of them in primetime. CinemaBlend's resident expert and interviewer for One Chicago, the galaxy far, far away, and a variety of other primetime television. Will not time travel and can cite multiple TV shows to explain why. She does, however, want to believe that she can sneak references to The X-Files into daily conversation (and author bios).