Spoilers for the Season 2 premiere of Outlander: Blood of My Blood are ahead! You can stream the great series on Starz and catch new episodes every Friday.
Throughout almost the entire first season of Outlander: Blood of My Blood, I was yearning for Julia and Henry to reunite. When they did, it was magical. However, that reunion was quickly squashed at the end of Season 1 and right at the start of Season 2, as we learned that Henry traveled back to the time they came from and accidentally left Julia and their son behind. I was admittedly peeved about this separation, because it’s something that happens often on Outlander shows. So, I asked the showrunner and executive producer why it keeps happening.
Considering Julia and Henry get separated before Blood of My Blood can really get its second season started on the 2026 TV schedule, I asked showrunner and executive producer Matthew B. Roberts why they keep doing this. It happened a lot on Outlander, and it happens a lot in the spinoff too. It’s for a good reason, though, as the showrunner told me:
Well, I think in the tradition of Outlander, that's, you know, Jamie and Claire spend a lot of time apart, believe it or not. And you know, when you're showing love stories, you want to show how much that love means to them, and a lot of times that's getting back to be with that person and fighting.
I know he’s right; the yearning and the longing make all these stories so epic. And to get that, you often have to either separate the characters or put a conflict in their way that highlights their love for each other. In the Outlander prequel, they often opt to split the characters up (geographically, not romantically), which means we actually don’t see Julia and Henry or Ellen and Brian together as much as we might expect (or at least as much as I expect).
Thankfully, Roberts told me that everyone should be back together a bit sooner than we might expect, as he explained:
You know, sometimes they fight together, and sometimes they have to fight separately. You know, I don't think you have to wait too long before you see some reunions, and we tried to put some stakes in there as well.
Well, with that in mind, and knowing that Henry used Outlander’s time travel again, I’m curious to see how he gets back to Julia and how returning to their time impacts their relationship.
However, until then, we have to learn to love the anticipation of their reunion, because that’s what will make it so great. To that point, Roberts said:
And you know what's going to happen. You know that's what you want. You want the anticipation. You don't want to just, you know, people getting right together. I mean, think about a rom-com; the whole movie is about them getting together. As soon as they get together, the movie's over, you see the credits roll.
Again, I know he’s right. In most romance stories, it’s about the chase and the act of getting together. Once they’re together, the story ends. In Outlander and its spinoff, the story continues after that initial meet-cute, and for Henry and Julia specifically, they were together and had Claire long before they traveled back in time and Blood of My Blood began. So, for their story to continue to be compelling, there needs to be stakes and drama, and that means separating them.
It makes sense. I get it, and I do understand that this dreadful feeling I’m having about Henry and Julia being apart again is part of the fun. Overall, it’ll make their eventual reunion even better. So, to see if that happens, you can catch new episodes of Outlander: Blood of My Blood on Fridays over on Starz.
