Outlander season 3 episode 13 (finale) review: A new world; a most-timely death

Outlander season 3 episode 13 signified the end of one story, and effectively kicked off an exciting new one.

Think about the true extent of this story — we began with Jamie and Claire living separate lives in different timelines and with different struggles. Claire was in Boston whereas Jamie was in prison following Culloden. Yet, they now find themselves on the shores of Georgia, lucky to be alive after torrential storms in the Caribbean. They managed to escape yet another life-or-death situation in one piece and have an opportunity to move forward into a new world together.

Before getting there though, “Eye of the Storm” put the two through hell in a couple of different ways. For one, there was the battle against Geillis Duncan, who has conjured up a plan to use Young Ian as a sacrifice so she could fulfill a prophecy and remove the 200-year old baby from the world — Brianna. There was a portal to the future on Jamaica and she had all of the plans in place in order to use it; were it not for Claire basically cutting her head off (easily one of the craziest moments of the episode) that would have been possible. As the flashbacks to earlier this season reminded you, Geillis’ body very much seems to be the one Joe Abernathy is examining via the bones in Boston.

The death of Geillis is important mostly in that she was one of the show’s most noteworthy villains, an intellectual adversary to Claire who shared a common kinship with her. The two women are the only people who really understood traveling through time and the capacity that they have to change history. The difference between the two is that Geillis looks at the act of changing history as some sort of sacred duty. Claire just wants to live her life with the people who love her.

After escaping that storm — and Jamie escaping Captain Leonard thanks to a wonderfully-shady Lord John Grey (how awesome was his scene with Leonard?) — we then moved on to the literal storm. Some of the rains and winds at sea were almost enough to kill Claire. Jamie saved her, and it was at that point the two washed ashore in Georgia to begin their new life. Before that, the plan did seem to be to return to Scotland and try to resume whatever life they could there. Fate has chosen a different path, and it’s now up to the Frasers to determine what they want to do with it.

Who else is alive?

We suppose that there is technically a cliffhanger out there in that we didn’t see the rest of the survivors of the nearby shipwreck, but we know in the books that many members of the Artemis crew are people you will see again. The journey for many of them is far from over — we don’t view this a cliffhanger so much in the “who will survive?” sense; instead, it’s more how they will survive and what is going to become of them in the future after the fact.

Our CarterMatt Verdict

The Outlander finale proved to be a worthy conclusion to an eventful, shocking, and at times intensely dramatic season. We thought going in that it may run slightly longer than it did, but keeping things shorter for “Eye of the Storm” allowed for events to move along at a breakneck pace. Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe were outstanding as always, and visually this may have been the show’s most outstanding episode yet. Jamie and Claire are yet again set to an embark on a new journey, and we’re ready to follow along every step of the way.

What did you think about Outlander season 3 episode 13 as a whole? Be sure to share now in the attached comments!

For more news on the Outlander finale and season 4…

Be sure to head over to the link here! We’ve got all sorts of good coverage coming your way tonight (including season 4 premiere date speculation) and we hope you stick around to check all of it out. Our 6th annual CarterMatt Awards have kicked off and Sam, Caitriona, Sophie and Outlander have been nominated by our staff in a number of categories. Check that out at the link here a cast your votes!

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