Outlander: Blood of My Blood has always had an unusual challenge as a prequel. The audience already knows where many of these characters will eventually end up. We know the people Brian, Ellen, Dougal, Colum and Murtagh will become because we’ve already met their older selves in Outlander. We even know some of the history surrounding the 20th-century characters entering their stories.
And yet, somehow, Blood of My Blood continues to find ways to surprise us, drawing us in like the buzz of the standing stones at Craigh na Dun.
That is particularly true in season 2, which has spent much of its time recontextualizing pieces of Outlander history. Familiar faces including Mrs. Graham, Reverend Wakefield, John Grey’s father, Rupert, and Angus have all appeared, but their presence has generally carried more weight than a simple Easter egg.
I recently spoke with Outlander: Blood of My Blood showrunner and executive producer Matthew B. Roberts about the decisions behind those connections, the fan theories surrounding the series and why he isn’t interested in telling viewers exactly what everything means.
Matthew Roberts on ‘Outlander: Blood of My Blood’
Men’s Journal: When Outlander ended, you talked about not wanting to definitively tell fans how they should interpret the ending. Are you approaching Blood of My Blood with that same philosophy? Can fans expect some of the connections and mysteries we’ve been speculating about to eventually have more concrete explanations?
Matthew B. Roberts: Whether the story goes where they think it’s going to go or it goes in a different direction, all good for me. I’m never going to interpret a story. You can take what you want from every episode. It’s going to mean something different to everybody.
How these relationships play out, people’s own personal lives are interjected into these stories. I’ve watched episodes of television when I was younger and they mean one thing to me. They mean something different now when I watch them.
I think that’s kind of the legacy of all these shows. When you watch something in different periods of your life, they mean or read something different. So I don’t like to just say definitively, “This is what it means.”
But I will say that speculation is great. I love the fan theories. I love that they dig into it. I love that they’re engaged.
I will say that I have a plan, and it may not be the plan. And it may look like it’s going down the road that you’re going. Like, you think, “Oh, hey, see, I told you so.” But I almost guarantee that when we get to the end, it’ll be like, “I didn’t see that coming.”
Men’s Journal: One theory I’ve seen pop up is that baby William could eventually become the brother Jamie refers to as Willie in Outlander. It’s obviously the kind of theory fans love to run with. How much do you enjoy letting fans speculate versus wanting to tell the story and have it land in a specific way?
Roberts: I love when fans speculate. I really do. I love that they’re engaged. And I think if they’re talking about it, then we’re doing something right.
Men’s Journal: Something I’ve noticed particularly this season is how much Blood of My Blood is recontextualizing things we already know from Outlander. It’s not just the bigger connections. Seeing characters like Mrs. Graham and Reverend Wakefield again, or even Rupert and Angus, carries real emotional weight because of the history we already have with them.
When you’re deciding which pieces of Outlander history to bring into this story, what makes a character or connection feel like it can actually deepen Blood of My Blood rather than just being an Easter egg for longtime fans?
Roberts: Well, you answered your own question. It has to deepen the emotional arc. If it’s just somebody walking into a cameo and that doesn’t do anything, they have to somehow bring something to the story arc.
For me, it’s always something emotional. It’s not transactional. It’s not an action. With Mrs. Graham, without her, Henry doesn’t go. He can’t go.
Men’s Journal: And it’s kind of Claire that way as well, and Roger. I never realized the gravity that she had until Blood of My Blood. I was like, man, she is important to this story.
Roberts: If you take some of these characters out, some of the story doesn’t happen. And I think it’s even more important than simply helping Henry escape. It’s when Mrs. Graham tells him, “I believe you.” Before he gets there, everyone thinks he’s insane. That moment keeps him on track.
And that keeps him, you know, sane, so to speak. Without that, you don’t know where he would go. You don’t know if he would give up. But he didn’t give up because of that.
Men’s Journal: I think that was one of the bigger surprises of the season. As a viewer, Henry’s return to the 18th century caught me off guard when it happened. What did bringing him back into that world allow you to explore about his relationship with Julia and the person he’s becoming that you couldn’t have explored if you’d taken the story in another direction?
Roberts: You mean if I would have kept him in the 20th century?
Men’s Journal: Right. We could have had another 20-year separation like we had in Outlander, and I think people were expecting that.
Roberts: Yeah, and I wanted him to. That was the dream scenario where you go, “Oh, he’s going to be the Claire of the story and stay away for 20 years. Julia is going to live in the back.
Men’s Journal: And we’ve got this profound buildup.
Roberts: Yeah! No, in my mind, he was always going back. They were always going to find each other. They were always going to fight through this together and then ultimately try to figure out the why of it all.
The other thing is, we’re a show where most of the characters in the show, you know what happens to them. You know their outcome. You’ve literally either seen them die or you know you’ve heard their deaths talked about.
What I love in exploring this is I don’t think inherently we’re different human beings. I think our characters stay the same. It’s how you deal with things that sometimes change.
So Dougal and Colum at 19 and 20 years old are totally different guys than you see in Outlander. How did they become those guys?
How did Murtagh become this curmudgeonly, kind of guarded guy? When you see Murtagh as a heart-on-his-sleeve, open, kind of carefree guy, you go, “Oh, how did that happen?”
And I think with Brian and Ellen and Henry and Julia, you want to see little tidbits of how Claire’s DNA was made and who she is, but not from nurture, more from nature. Whereas Jamie is more nurture and nature. So you can see what he got from Brian and Ellen.
And I like that it’s not necessarily what you would expect. Some of the things Ellen gives him make him more fiery and temperamental. Especially for the time period, you wouldn’t necessarily make that connection.
New episodes of Outlander: Blood of My Blood premiere on Fridays at midnight on Starz.
