Outlander Season 8 Episode 9 Review: Pharos

Outlander Season 8 Episode 9, “Pharos,” bids farewell to a love story that has festered at the heart of this series since its beginning.

With a harrowing rescue mission and a rogue time traveler distracting the Frasers from impending doom, their side quest to save Lord John from ruin turns into an emotional goodbye for two friends who always loved each other despite their differences.

Eight seasons ago, a British loyalist fell in love with a rogue Scottish highlander. On the series penultimate episode, Outlander gives John and Jamie’s tumultuous relationship its deserved closure.

Outlander put the work in with this goodbye. It has prauded Jamie throughout the season to rethink his disdain for Lord John. Meanwhile, William has come to learn that love is a complicated matter, and while his fathers don’t love each other in the romantic way, they do share a bond so strong it led to the existence of a son who embodies the best of both of them.

The series acknowledging that William is essentially the son of John and Jamie, regardless of biological heresy, is as hilarious as the shot of William and Jamie slinking out of the pond headfirst to slit some throats.

On a serious note, it demonstrates the soulmate connection Jamie and John will always have, even if it isn’t reciprocated romantically.

It is more than proof that male characters can have complex and profound love-forward storylines together when we stop fearing the line between masculinity and romance.

David Berry and Sam Heughan put on an absolute acting clinic in what we can assume is their final scene together.

The two men laid all their complicated, overgrown feelings for each other on the floor, bare for the other to see in all its ugliness. They yell, and they bicker as the two cling to each other emotionally in a messy scene of desires and betrayals.

When the final blow is struck, John and Jamie are able to acknowledge their history and their future together as the fathers of William, which is far more important than their disdain for each other’s actions in the past.

Not only is it wonderful to see Outlander wrap up one of the series most profound relationships with an inmate scene, but John and Jamie do not flinch away from the violent and vulnerable sides of their uneven friendship when it counts.

It’s the first of many chapters that needed to be written, and although Lord John is left alone at the end of his arc, there’s an air of hope that he will stick close to his found family, who accept and support him more than his compatriots ever will.

Berry and Heughan aren’t the only ones who get to put on a master class in acting. The penultimate lets Caitríona Balfe devour another monologue — and when Claire gets to monologue, we all win.

We will never grow tired of Claire meeting other time-travelers in the wild. It’s a fascinating layer of storytelling that subtly touches on the fantastical time-traveling elements of the show while grounding their meeting in truly human and natural dialogue.

Claire’s pain as she opens up to Richardson about trying to stop the Battle of Culloden and save thousands of men from marching to their death, only to see defeat take everything from Scotland. It’s an old wound we never got to see from this angle, and Balfe doesn’t ease up on the physical grief wracking Claire’s desperate, agonizing expressions.

You can’t take your eyes off her as Claire spars verbally with Richardson while battling internally with her agreement towards his crusade to end slavery.

The entire meeting is fascinating from a historical standpoint as two modern-day people grieve the losses yet to come for America, knowing the win this series is building to is no victory for their independence.

The revelation for Claire that history cannot be changed feels a little too convenient for Outlander’s desired endgame.

It has to convince us without a doubt that Jamie will die in the final battle for Fraser Ridge’s freedom. Even as Jamie and Brianna have a heartbreaking confrontation that confirms Jamie’s character would never back down from a fight, the logistics don’t entirely have us believing he’s walking to his death.

There are too many unknown variables with Frank’s book and the time travelers of it all to feel definitive fear for Jamie’s demise.

The opening scene of this series still needs to be addressed with the reveal of who was watching Claire the night before she disappeared through the stones.

Nonetheless, we have no proof that suggests the time travelers cannot affect history. If anything, we have an abundance of proof that they can.

Sure, one person can’t mobilize a whole army to stop a war, but Claire herself has proven time and time again that her involvement can save individual lives. Roger even had a revealing storyline earlier in the season with his father that explored the idea that something of a higher god-like nature put them at certain times of history to save themselves in the future.

So this idea that Jamie’s death is inevitable and an unmoving point in history doesn’t align with any of what the series has suggested so far. It just aligns with the need to create stakes and inevitability.

We can only hope that if it is a time traveler who takes the deadly blow for Jamie or Claire uses those blue light powers to heal him, it’s done tastefully.

Regardless, the series finale is a huge question mark as of right now. Here’s hoping Outlander can honor the magic of Jamie and Claire’s love story with an ending worthy of where we begin: with a woman disappearing into Scotland’s past and changing the course of her family’s future.

Beir buaidh, and best of luck, Outlander!

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Outlander airs Fridays at 8/7c on STARZ.

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