Outlander musical episode set to premiere on April 1, 2018

For all Outlander fans, the drought between seasons remains long. There’s no changing that, but Starz confirmed some news today that is almost literally music to our ears — following the recent musical episode for The Flash, they’ve decided to do the same! An Outlander musical episode was specifically ordered to the celebration of million of fans all over the globe.

As if this wasn’t enough, Starz was kind enough to also release the episode’s official logline:

“After spending several weeks isolated in an ocean voyage, Jamie and Claire Fraser start to become a little bored and desperate to find a way to pass the time. As a result of this, Claire decides to take prime advantage of her musical knowledge to express her feelings towards her husband in the form of song. It’s a history lesson, a vocal extravaganza, and, above all else, a chance to see Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe perform the majority of the 1960’s catalog of the Rolling Stones.”

To go along with this, we’ve uncovered a number of the Rolling Stones tracks that will be featured in the episode. While in Boston, Claire became a devoted fan of the Stones, and started to find that many of the songs related to her own experience away from Jamie. “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” is almost a perfect testament to her time without Jamie. “As Tears Go By” is representative of the story from the episode “Faith,” and also the notion of growing older for many years without the man that she loves. Eventually, she even teaches Jamie the lyrics of “It’s All Over Now” so that he can sing about Annalise de Marillac and every other woman outside of her that he’s ever loved. In the most romantic of moments, Jamie and Claire will perform “Let’s Spend the Night Together” before … well, this is premium cable. You can figure the rest out.

Of course, how could you have this episode without Tobias Menzies? Jonathan Randall will hop aboard a ship and collide with Jamie and Claire long enough at sea to lead a rendition of the domineering track “Under My Thumb” … which there’s no way that he should know, but it’s a musical so who cares? There are also discussions underway to play slightly with the historical timeline just so that Claire can magically learn the lyrics to “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” — the 1969 hit that would be perfect for a group performance. If Claire can somehow escape the clutches of Black Jack Randall, surely she can escape from a music studio with the unreleased lyrics to this song?

Glee co-creator Ryan Murphy is being brought in to co-write the episode and assist with the staging and directing of the musical numbers. With that, he’s sure to bring in some of his own familiar faces from some of his own shows. Adam Levine of Maroon 5, previously a part of the American Horror Story franchise, is set to be a singing deckhand who shows Jamie how to do some of the moves like Jagger. Meanwhile, Rolling Stones member Keith Richards is in heavy discussions to reprise his role as Captain Teague from Pirates of the Caribbean, just for a scene where pirates interrupt Jamie and Claire’s journey before singing “Playing with Fire” while firing off cannons.

At the tail end of the episode, the entire cast will come together for another group performance of “Time is on My Side.” It’s a way to celebrate their unique experience, and the fact that Claire may try to start up a Stones tribute band when she finally makes it to Jamaica.

We reached out to Starz about potential concerns that this special would mess with the chronology of the series, and we were sent back the following response:

The only real concern here is that thanks to the licensing rights, this is going to cost Starz $40 million to make just this episode with 80% of the budget going to The Rolling Stones. As of right now, the Outlander musical is set to premiere on Sunday, April 1, 2018. Hopefully, this works out better than NBC’s plans to rebrand their entire network as Nothing But Chicago, which we exclusively wrote about last year.

Have any song suggestions for Jamie and Claire? Share now in the comments! (Photo: Starz.)