The Droughtlander between seasons of Outlander isn’t over yet, but Starz is helping fans celebrate the holiday season with a first teaser trailer of what’s on the way in the super-sized seventh season following the shortened sixth, plus when the show will be back! Season 6 ended with the future very uncertain for Claire after being carted off to Wilmington and imprisoned for the murder of Malva, far from any ally aside from Tom Christie… if he can be relied upon. The first footage reveals what’s ahead of Claire in Wilmington, as well as a lot more, and the reveal has raised some big questions for me.
Plus, Starz has also revealed that Outlander will return in Summer 2023, so happy holidays indeed to fans! Take a look at the teaser trailer above, and keep on reading for a breakdown of what we should be pondering over the next months.
What The First Footage From Season 7 Reveals About Claire
The teaser trailer is edited in a way that it’s hard to tell what exactly is dream, what is reality, and what could even be flashback, but the shot of Claire up on a gallows with a noose around her neck, the same short hair from the end of Season 6, and cuts on her face looks awfully real. While it’s just a couple seconds of footage, it reveals that Jamie, Young Ian, and the rest of her would-be rescuers aren’t going to arrive in time to stop her execution from being ordered.
Now, given that Outlander stars Caitriona Balfe and Season 6 ended with several ways for her to be saved, it was never very likely that Claire was going to be killed off after being wrongfully accused of murdering Malva Christie. The shot of her with the noose around her neck really reveals how dire her circumstances will be until she finds a way to be saved, whether it by be her own wits with or a rescue from her husband or the mysterious Wilmington whistler who seems to be a fan of the 1957 film The Bridge on the River Kwai.
Throw in all the footage set back on Fraser’s Ridge and elsewhere that also includes Claire, and the teaser that runs for less than a minute answers a lot of questions about her fate! I’m already wishing that either the shot of Claire about to be hanged that gives away how bad things will get in Wilmington had been left out of the footage, or the teaser had left out any shots of her set anywhere else to give away that she survives and gets back home.
That said, the teaser trailer also managed to raise a fair amount of questions in less than a minute!
What I’m Already Wondering About Season 7
My first big question about Outlander in its return for the seventh season is simple: how much of a time jump is in store? I’m basing this on two giveaways that I’m going to assume aren’t from Jamie’s dream sequence: several shots of Claire with longer hair than she has on the gallows and what appears to be Brianna in labor. Bree was still in the early enough stages of pregnancy at the end of the sixth season that she wasn’t showing yet, so there should be enough of a jump for several months to pass.
I’m also guessing that the shot of Jamie and Claire in bed with her long hair is part of the dream, but there are shots of Claire with hair that’s longer than on the gallows but still short enough to be believable for a time jump of months rather than years. There’s also a shot of Jamie and Bree seemingly sharing a nice moment together outdoors on a log, when she doesn’t look visibly pregnant, presumably meaning it's either early in the season before she’s showing a lot or after giving birth. Jamie also looks pretty calm, so it seems safe to say that this is after Claire is saved and/or escapes from Wilmington.
Sam Heughan did previously say that Season 7 will pick up shortly after the events of the Season 6 finale; if there is a time jump, it won’t be right away. He also mentioned the prophecy that Jamie and Claire are supposed to die in a fire, which was first mentioned in Season 4 with the foreshadowing picking up in Season 5. It looks like at least the big house on Fraser’s Ridge will burn in Season 7, unless the teaser trailer is entirely misdirecting.
Lastly – but certainly not least – Starz released key art featuring the question of “When Do You Belong?” (seen above). That’s something that Brianna and Roger were asking themselves earlier when they decided to try to return to their own time for Jemmy’s sake; will they be wondering that again in Season 7? Or is this a question for somebody else to face?
Find out when Outlander returns with the Season 7 premiere in Summer 2023. Starz hasn’t announced a precise date in the 2023 TV premiere schedule just yet, but if it’s earlier rather than later in the summer, the hiatus may have lasted for just a little over a year. While that’s still rough for those of us who have been dying to know what happens next, it’s significantly shorter than the nearly two years between the end of Season 5 and beginning of Season 6! For now, you can always revisit past seasons streaming with a Netflix subscription.
