I Figured Outlander’s Final Read-Through Was Emotional, But Sophie Skelton Shared What Really Made It The ‘Perfect Way To Say Goodbye’

DGIX

March 1, 2025

The seventh season of Outlander came to an end early in the 2025 TV schedule, and filming had already finished on the eighth and final season. Season 8 is expected to premiere before the end of 2025, so the last Droughtlander hiatus at least won’t be the longest in the history of the series. Details are fairly few and far between… unless you’ve read Diana Gabaldon’s source material books and can make some educated guesses, anyway! What I felt confident about guessing was that the final script read-through was emotional for the cast, but it wasn’t until speaking with Sophie Skelton that I fully understood.

I was fortunate enough to chat with Skelton, who plays Brianna MacKenzie on the long-running Starz series, during SCAD TVfest in Atlanta, where the actress received the Lumiere Award. After Skelton shared thoughts on why Outlander is always getting robbed on the awards circuit, I asked what the final read-through was like at the time. While she of course didn’t drop details for what happened in that particular script, her description of the actual meeting was so lovely that I hope there are photos that the cast can share someday. She shared:

It was beautiful. They had a choir in and we saw some old faces in terms of writers who hadn’t been able to make it over for a bit. It was really emotional. We were in a place where we could see the ocean when we were doing the read-through, and it was quite a small group, and it just felt really, really beautiful. The perfect way to say goodbye.

And here I was imagining a plain old room, with only the script making the moments emotional! I would not have guessed that the Outlander team not only brought in a choir and some familiar faces, but based it in a location with an ocean view. No wonder Sophie Skelton described it as “the perfect way to say goodbye” on the TVfest red carpet!

She didn’t reveal who all was present during the final read-through, although the photos of the cast as they wrapped filming on Season 8 suggests some who may have been there. At the very least, I’d say that we can count on Caitriona Balfe, Sam Heughan, and Richard Rankin along with Skelton. Oddly enough, the cast was commemorating the end of filming Season 8 back in late September 2024, nearly two full months before Outlander returned for the second half of Season 7.

Skelton did press ahead of Season 7B and then spoke with journalists again following the finale at SCAD TVfest, all while knowing how the story ultimately ends for Brianna. So, I asked: does she have to refresh her memory on what she filmed at which point, so that she doesn’t accidentally drop spoilers? She responded:

Yeah! Because we shot that a couple of years ago, and obviously your mind is so in where I’ve left Brianna. Especially because we’re finishing forever, you actually feel like you’ve tied up the story quite beautifully. You really are sat in your current character’s head, and… it’s like, ‘Where was Brianna when her child was taken and she was a total mess?’ [laughs]

Bree certainly went through it in the back half of Season 7, when Sophie Skelton’s scene partners were primarily children and she was isolated from her usual co-stars. With Claire and Jamie still in the American Revolution era and Roger accidentally going ever further back in time than intended, Brianna was stuck without anybody to confide in back in the ’80s. Fortunately, Season 7 ended with the MacKenzie family reunited, and whatever happens for them in Season 8, Skelton at least believes that the story is tied up “quite beautifully.”

And for now, it’s just a matter of waiting until Season 8 premieres. Outlander is expected to return in 2025, which hopefully means closer to the middle of the year than December 31 since Outlander time travel doesn’t quite work in real life. The spinoff, called Outlander: Blood of My Blood, will premiere this summer, so my best guess – or perhaps hope – is that Starz is planning on debuting Season 8 shortly after the end of Blood of My Blood‘s ten-episode run.

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