‘Outlander’ Season 3: When Will Droughtlander End? Everything We Know So Far
Filming for Season 3 of Outlander is currently underway!
While it’s exciting to see Jamie (Sam Heughan) and Claire (Caitriona Balfe) back in action, we’re still months away from the season premiere. When will Droughtlander end and everybody’s favorite time travelling couple return to Starz?
According to Hollywood Reporter, producers have not released an official premiere date for Season 3 of Outlander. They have, however, hinted that the season might premiere earlier in 2017 than in times past.
While fans wait eagerly for a release date, Movie Pilot is reporting that Season 3 will start with the bloody Battle of Culloden.
The Season 2 finale featured Claire traveling through the stones to her own time in 1948, leaving Jamie behind to fight in the historic battle.
Photos from the set of the battle have been released and include several shots of Jamie in the thick of the fight.
Several images also reveal that Jamie will duel it out with his Season 1 nemesis, Jonathan “Black Jack” Randall (Tobias Menzies) during the struggle.
Hall of Fame Magazine reports that Heughan shared a short behind-the-scenes video (below) of the battle while author Diana Gabaldon admitted the actor looked extremely scary at one point in the fight.
Starting with the battle is a huge departure from Gabaldon’s book, Voyager, which began with Jamie having no recollection of the fight.
“It just felt like we have been promising it for a while. We should give the audience some sense of what happened on that moor,” executive producer Ronald D. Moore explained.
In addition to the battle, it isn’t know how much the show will digress from the books next season.
Of course, fans can expect some changes to occur as the show can’t include every storyline from the books.
After the epic battle, which Moore admitted was the largest set Outlander has ever witnessed, fans will watch Jamie and Claire go on with their lives for twenty years before reuniting.
Not only does this mean fans will see much older versions of Jamie and Claire, but a few new characters will also surface in the separate timelines.
Following the Battle of Culloden, Jamie will re-connect with one of the most important characters in the books, Lord John Grey.
David Berry has been cast to play Lord John, whom fans met last season as a young man.
In the books, Lord John develops a strong friendship with Jamie and even has a few spin-off novels of his own.
When asked about the possibility of Starz doing a spin-off series with Lord John, Gabaldon seemed open to the idea.
“I think that would be a fabulous basis for a series, even more so because Lord John’s adventures are more episodic than the Outlander ones,” she explained. “I began writing those stories when someone had asked me to write a short story for an anthology, which I had never done before. It could lend itself to filming in any number of ways. It could be shot in shorter pieces, much like Sherlock. I think it could turn out well if Starz wanted to do that.”
Apart from Lord John, fans will also be introduced to a grown-up Fergus, played by Cesar Domboy, and Laoghaire’s (Nell Hudson) daughter, Marsali, played by Lauren Lyle.
Fergus has grown up to be a handsome man who is extremely loyal to the Fraser clan.
Marsali, meanwhile, is a rebellious 18-year-old whose mother had a crush on Jamie back in Season 1.
As far as Claire is concerned, fans will watch her develop as a mother to Brianna (Sophie Skelton) and deal with the challenges of adjusting to her new life in 1948 and then after a 20-year time jump, 1968.
Once Claire realizes that Jamie survived the Battle of Culloden, she is faced with the difficult decision of leaving her family behind to reunite with her lost love.
Claire and Jamie will eventually reunite in Season 3 and embark on a series of journeys that take them far from their native land of Scotland.
Season 3 of Outlander is expected to premiere in early 2017.
[Featured Image by Aimee Spinks/Starz]
