We’re back! Outlander Season 7 Episode 16 ‘A Hundred Thousand Angels’ offers us the best season finale to date. It’s full of family reunions, and emotional and exciting moments in which Jamie and Claire’s love is stronger than ever alongside the great family they created. Plus, it has an ending that has left us with our jaws on the ground. Ready?
Here we go!
Love is a Force of Nature in Outlander Season 7 Episode 16 ‘A Hundred Thousand Angels’
Outlander Season 7 Episode 16 ‘A Hundred Thousand Angels’ begins with the consequences of the end of the previous episode. Claire is still unconscious but alive and Jamie doesn’t leave her side for a second. She is the only thing that matters, the army will have to accept his resignation, and he has already finished with them. Being with Claire and enjoying his home with her is the only thing Jamie has in mind. Seeing her like this, almost dead in his arms… he can hardly breathe remembering it. She is blood of his blood, if she were to die, he would have died with her, and he would have followed her beyond death. That is the way he loves her.
Finally, Claire recovers and doesn’t hesitate to share with Jamie the way she was close this time, but she decides to live, she decides to fight, and she decides it the moment she thought he had died and she was about to end it all. It is not her time to die yet…but she was so close…Claire doesn’t want Jamie to be separated from her for a moment, she doesn’t want to see him leave even for the simplest things. She needs him there, by her side, holding her, just to feel him, just to wrap herself in those arms that embrace her with so much love, that make her feel so safe and so alive at the same time. And Jamie is delighted to do just that.
However, the peace of both is soon disturbed in Outlander Season 7 Episode 16 ‘A Hundred Thousand Angels’ when Lord John goes to see Claire. Sparks fly between them as Jamie feels compelled to thank him for rescuing William. He was heartened when Ian told him they arrived in time to save William and, as much as he hates to admit it, Jamie knows that Lord John was an important part of that rescue and he can’t not thank him, but John doesn’t need that, William is his son, he would have rescued him from hell.
Once the thanks are said, the tension rises when Jamie witnesses the affection and closeness with which John and Claire treat each other. Seeing them like this, with such complicity…he can’t help but imagine them together and his jealousy chokes him. And it doesn’t help that Lord John calls Claire ‘Mrs. Fraser’ like that, almost as a mockery, as a provocation towards him. A part of him still wants to kill him with his own hands and finish what they started in Philadelphia. And John is not far behind, he still wants to challenge him and confront him…while Claire is fed up with so much testosterone. Only men don’t know when to end a pissing contest.
Claire is very fond of Lord John and makes it clear in front of Jamie when she thanks him in Outlander Season 7 Episode 16 ‘A Hundred Thousand Angels’ for doing everything he did for her, for saving her life, she owes him so much…but Jamie is the other half of her soul. No matter what happened with Lord John, Jamie has no reason to feel that jealousy, and even though he knows it, he can’t help but feel it. The rational part of Jamie understands that Lord John helped Claire but another part of him wants to rip his head off for having done it. And we love that tension, that fire that passes between Jamie and Lord John and we need a fic in which they end up together, please and thank you.
MORE: Take a look at our interview with Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe about Jamie & Claire in Outlander Season 7 Part 2!
Opportunities Not To Be Missed In Outlander Season 7 Episode 16 ‘A Hundred Thousand Angels’
After William asks Lord John for help to try to save Jane in Outlander Season 7 Episode 16 ‘A Hundred Thousand Angels,’ when he discovers the situation she is in, William is desperate to help her but knows that John can do nothing more. So desperate times call for desperate measures. William goes to Jamie for help. He immediately regrets it, he doesn’t know what he is doing there, he doesn’t know what he was thinking, he doesn’t want anything to do with Jamie…but he is there, willing to listen to him and Jane is running out of time, William has no other options.
Jamie can hardly believe that William is there, at his door, that he has come to him. It is the first time his son has asked him for something…and Jamie finds himself torn. On the one hand, he doesn’t want to be separated from Claire and promised her that he would be by her side every second, but on the other hand, his son has come to him of his own free will, it’s like a miracle, and he can’t let him down. Claire understands. She knows that Jamie has to go with William. William is giving him a chance to be there for him despite everything that has happened, Jamie can’t waste it.
Together, father and son come up with a plan and go in together to save Jane in OutlanderSeason 7 Episode 16 ‘A Hundred Thousand Angels’ but they arrive too late. She, knowing the fate that awaited her, prefers to take her own life rather than live a miserable life in a seedy prison. Jane made peace with death and she knows that her sister will be safe, and William will take care of her. When William sees her… we swear that our hearts broke. He feels that he failed her, and that is a weight that he will carry for life.
It hurts Jamie to see his son like this. He wants more than anything to hold him and comfort him, but he knows he can’t. Jamie knows his comfort won’t be welcome, so he holds back and avoids touching him, doing the only thing he can do for his son: making sure Jane has a place to rest and Fanny has not only a place to go to be with her but something to remember her by.
MORE: Check out our interview with Maril Davis & Matthew B. Roberts
“I Will Never Call You Father”
This escapade changes the relationship between Jamie and William a bit in Outlander Season 7 Episode 16 ‘A Hundred Thousand Angels.’ Despite his mixed feelings about Jamie, William trusts him — and Claire — enough to leave Fanny in their care. He knows that with them the little girl will be safe and can have a good future, a good life, and she will be protected. And William is not wrong. However, his feelings are still very mixed. He wants to hear the story about his conception but, in reality, he is not interested in the truth. He wants a story that casts Jamie as a villain and justifies all the bad things he thinks.
But that’s not the truth — in fact, for us, it’s just the opposite. Jamie slept with Geneive under pressure from her blackmail, not out of his own free will — whether William likes it or not. And Jamie isn’t going to tell him a lie just to make him feel better, that wouldn’t be fair. William respects that. But he wants to know about his mother. He barely knows anything more than the few things he’s been told, but no one has spoken openly about her to him. Jamie is the first one to tell him about her personality, and her strength. He’s the first one to be honest about how and why she acted and what her struggles were.
Listening to the story in Outlander Season 7 Episode 16 ‘A Hundred Thousand Angels,’ William can’t help but ask if Jamie regrets what happened. After all, it wasn’t the best of circumstances…and Jamie is honest. Geneive’s death will come with a heavy burden on his shoulders. Jamie blames himself — exactly the same as William feels now about Jane’s death. But no, he will never regret having him, Jamie will never regret him.
And here Jamie dares to touch him for the first time in years, to caress his face…and William remembers. He remembers that stable boy he was so fond of, that man who hugged him and treated him with so much love. And now he understands. Now he understands everything.
And that is a shock for him, remembering the past brings back even more confusing and contradictory feelings. It also reminds him again that his whole life was a lie. So that pain makes him tell Jamie that he will never call him father. It is both a way of punishing Jamie with his words and a way of convincing himself of his decision not to want to have anything to do with Jamie Fraser. Because he also feels that, if he somehow accepts him in his life in that way, he would be betraying Lord John.
These words hurt Jamie in the soul in Outlander Season 7 Episode 16 ‘A Hundred Thousand Angels.’ Just when he thought he had managed to get a little closer to his son…he faces his rejection again. But we are sure that this will not stay like this. William should never say never. Because everything can change in a second, and we are sure that we will see how William calls Jamie ‘father’. And that day we will not be able to hold back the tears.
MORE: What did Charles Vandervaart say about William’s discovery in Outlander Season 7?
Faith
And now we are going to talk about the elephant in the room. Or, the end of Outlander Season 7 Episode 16 ‘A Hundred Thousand Angels.’ Faith is alive! And she is Jane and Fanny’s mother. WTF?! This left us flabbergasted and with our mouths on the floor. But the clues are right there, in the episode. In the beginning, we see Jane and Fanny run towards their mother and a dragonfly appears in the background. The same dragonfly that Fanny later talks about when she tells Claire about her mother. And let’s remember that the story of Faith’s loss appears in the second season of the show. You know, the one based on the second book in the series titled “Dragonfly in Amber.”
Also, Master Raymond’s appearance is no coincidence. In Season 2, Episode 7, the episode in which Faith dies, he tells Claire that they will meet again. Now, he has appeared before Claire to ask for forgiveness for something “that she will discover very soon.” And then there is the song, that song from the future. There is no way Fanny would have known that song if Faith wasn’t the one who sang it to her. Just as Claire sang it to Faith when she lay dead in her arms.
Did Master Raymond somehow save Faith and hide her all these years? That seems the safest, although the show owes us an explanation as to why. However, Outlander Season 7 Episode 16 ‘A Hundred Thousand Angels’ raises the question of whether Faith, despite surviving her childhood, is still alive today. While Claire’s final words to close this episode are that Faith is still alive, it could very well be the result of her realizing that her daughter didn’t die when she thought she did, because otherwise, how did Jane and Fanny end up in the brothel? It doesn’t seem likely that they would have ended up there if Faith was still alive.
On the other hand, it seems even less likely that they would have mentioned that Faith lives simply to then tell us that she’s actually dead, she just didn’t die when we thought. There was no need to dredge up the painful memory of losing Faith and then not do anything meaningful with it. Neither option seems to quite fit. So that’s where this episode has us. With the wig on Mars and a bunch of theories in our heads.
One last thing we wanted to comment on is that, from the looks of it, Outlander Season 7 Episode 16 ‘A Hundred Thousand Angels’ completely deviated from the books. But we don’t think that’s actually the case. While the show has never been shy about changing things from the books, this is too big of a change to just do for the series.
In the last book, upon finding out that Jane and Fanny’s mother was named Faith, Claire and Jamie remember their lost daughter. But they dismiss it as a coincidence. However, who’s to say that in the next book we won’t find out it was completely intentional? Also, Diana Gabaldon, the author of the books the series is based on, has some ideas for a book about Master Raymond in which she reveals that he is a time traveler, which would fit with what we saw in Outlander Season 7 Episode 16 ‘A Hundred Thousand Angels.’ So, who knows? Maybe the show is just jumping the gun….
MORE: We also talked to John Bell & Izzy Meikle-Small about Ian and Rachel’s Journey in Outlander Season 7
Other Stuff in Outlander Season 7 Episode 16 ‘A Hundred Thousand Angels’
- ROLLO! NOOOO!!!
- Rachel is pregnant and Ian’s excitement… gave us chills in the best way possible.
- The moment when William realizes that Brianna is his sister. Chef’s kiss.
- We loved the scene where Brianna, Roger, and the kids meet. And that final hug with Buck. Roger’s excitement went through the screen.
- The Mackenzie family decided to stay in the past!
- But what about Buck?
- This whole plot has been too slow and wasted, but it was all worth it to see that meeting between Brianna and her grandfather. What a special and sweet moment! The way Brian saw Ellen in Brianna. And how she could see the great love that her grandparents had for each other, a reflection of the love of her parents.
- So if Faith is Jane and Fanny’s mother, William fell in love and slept with his half-niece? Uggh.
- And Claire and Jamie are Fanny’s grandparents!
We end our reviews of Outlander Season 7 Part 2 here. Thank you so much for joining us every week! We will see you in Season 8 for one last big dance!
Outlander Season 7B aired on Fridays at 8:00 PM ET/PT on STARZ.
Agree? Disagree? Feel free to share with us your thoughts in the comments below!
Our Outlander Season 7, Part 2 Reviews:
