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Outlander Season 7 ends with an absolute curveball of a cliffhanger. Throughout Outlander Season 7 Episode 16 “A Hundred Thousand Angels,” the characters meditate on those they’ve loved, those they’ve lost, and those they’ve gotten the rare chance to connect with thanks to time travel. As Claire (Caitriona Balfe) battles her way back to health in the Starz show’s seventh season finale, she’s seemingly visited by the ghost of a character we’ve not seen since Outlander Season 2. This specter from the past not only begs forgiveness, but also teases a shocking twist related to new series characters Jane (Silvia Presente) and Fanny (Florrie Mae Wilkinson).
Could it be that one of the deepest tragedies Claire’s endured wasn’t all that it seemed? The Outlander Season 7 finale poses the question: what really happened to Jamie (Sam Heughan) and Claire’s firstborn daughter, Faith?
**Spoilers for Outlander Season 7 Episode 16 “A Hundred Thousand Angels,” now streaming on Starz**
Outlander Season 7 Episode 16 “A Hundred Thousand Angels” ends with Claire tearfully telling Jamie she doesn’t believe that their daughter Faith actually died in stillborn. It’s a shocking suggestion considering that we — and Claire — saw the small, dead infant all the way back in Outlander Season 2 Episode 7 “Faith.” Even more wild is the implication that Faith went on to become Jane and Fanny’s mother, which would mean that William (Charles Vandervaart) fell in love with his older half sister’s eldest daughter!?!
Photo: StarzAre you reeling? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Sam Heughan told Decider earlier this week that Jamie’s also confounded by this latest Outlander twist.
“I think Jamie is in exactly the same place as the audience: complete shock,” Heughan said. “And I think the repercussions are going to be felt for a long time. It asks and poses many questions, I think, for Jamie and Claire, but also for the fans.”
“And I think it’s such a great ending. The way that [Fanny’s] singing that song and the way that Claire finds out?”
Heughan then teased that the show’s big Faith cliffhanger will guide us right into the eighth and final season. “It’s the beginning probably of how it’s going to continue into Season 8. So big, big reveal for the fans to look forward to.”
Still confused by what went down in the Outlander Season 7 finale? Can’t remember what (Claire believed) happened to baby Faith all the way back in Season 2? Trying to figure out how Faith could possibly be Jane and Fannie’s mom? Here’s everything we know right now about the Outlander Season 7 finale and what happened to Faith…
Photos: StarzOutlander Season 7 Ending Explained: Did Jamie and Claire’s Daughter Faith Really Die? Are Jane and Fanny Secretly Faith’s Daughters?
Outlander Season 7 Episode 16 “A Hundred Thousand Angels” details Claire’s road to recovery after nearly dying at the Battle of Monmouth and the tragic end of Jane Pocock.
Claire is saved from dying of a bullet wound to the stomach thanks to Dr. Denzel Hunter (Joey Phillips), but spends most of the Outlander Season 7 finale convalescing. At one point, she has a vivid dream where time traveling apothecary Master Raymond (Dominique Pinon) visits her, letting her know it’s not her time to die. He then begs her forgiveness. “For what?” she asks. He explains she’ll soon know.
We last saw Master Raymond in Outlander Season 2 Episode 7 “Faith.” In that episode, Claire wakes after fainting during a duel to discover she’s in a convent and her unborn baby died in childbirth. Claire almost perishes of puerperal fever, a postpartum condition where part of the placenta stays stuck in the womb, creating an infection that kills the mother. While treatable in the 20th century, it was a death sentence in the 18th. Master Raymond sneaks to her bed and uses mysterious means to relax Claire’s body to heal her.
Later in that same episode, Claire tells Jamie how she briefly held their dead daughter Faith. She recalls how small she was and we see her singing, “I Do Like To be Beside the Seaside” to the seemingly dead baby.
Photo: StarzOutlander Season 7 Episode 16 throws all of this into total doubt! The episode opens with a vision of a younger Jane and Fanny skipping through fields, running towards their mother. Dragonflies are there. You know, like Claire’s fave insect?
Later in the episode, Jamie helps William in his attempt to free Jane from imprisonment before she is to be hung for the (righteous) murder of Captain Harkness (Adam Jackson-Smith). William pointedly makes the connection that Brianna is his sister in this sequence and then is devastated to discover that Jane has died by suicide before they could save her. Jamie helps William ease Jane’s body onto a bed in repose and even sagely clips a curl of the young woman’s hair to give to Fanny.
“I think Jamie is in exactly the same place as the audience: complete shock. And I think the repercussions are going to be felt for a long time. It asks and poses many questions, I think, for Jamie and Claire, but also for the fans.”
Sam Heughan on the Outlander Season 7 CliffhangerJamie is able to ensure Jane is buried, albeit in an anonymous grave in a potter’s field. He and Claire offer to take Fanny with them to Fraser’s Ridge, taking the orphan girl in their charge. When Claire gives Fanny a collection of Jane’s possessions that Jamie was able to procure, she’s floored by the revelation that the girls grew up loving both dragonflies and their mother, whose name was Faith.
At this point, it just seems that Claire is making an emotional connection between her deceased daughter and this orphaned girl. However, in the last moments of Outlander Season 7, Claire hears an eerie voice singing the 1909 song, “I Do Like To be Beside the Seaside.” She enters the meeting hall and discovers Fannie is singing the anachronistic song. Claire asks Fannie how she knows the 20th century song and Fannie matter-of-factly says her mother, Faith, sang it to her.
Outlander Season 7 ends with Claire telling Jamie she thinks their daughter Faith survived.
Photo: StarzWhat? How? Huh? Is this even in the books!?! Sort of. Diana Gabaldon has Claire think of Master Raymond and muse on the coincidence that her daughter and Fannie’s mother were both named Faith in Go Tell the Bees that I Am Gone, but so far, there’s been no resolution or stark declaration as in the Starz show.
How could Faith, a clearly stillborn premature baby have survived? The implication from the scene between Claire and Master Raymond is the magically-powered time traveler might have saved the infant using future or occult knowledge he possesses. Then, the child must have been given to another family to raise. To what end? We don’t know!
There’s also two additional hiccups. One, Faith might have survived infancy, but she’s likely dead in the current Outlander timeline. Hence why Jane had to resort to prostitution in the first place. Second, if Faith lived and gave birth to Jane and Fanny, then William slept with his niece! I get that Outlander has dabbled in incestuous romance before, but Roger (Richard Rankin) and Brianna (Sophie Skelton) are like second cousins many, many times removed. Not uncle and niece.
Sadly, we’re going to have to wait for Outlander Season 8 for more explanation and clarity on what this all means…
When Will Outlander Season 8 Be on Starz?
Sorry to say, but we are officially in another Droughtlander.
Outlander Season 8 wrapped filming last year, but that only means that it will likely not be on Starz for a while. Sam Heughan vaguely told Today that Outlander would return, “sometime soon in the future.” However he also noted that a prequel series, Outlander: Blood of My Blood, has priority in the programming queue, and we now know it’s debuting Summer 2025
Because Outlander: Blood of My Blood will premiere later in 2025, we can likely expect Outlander Season 8 to debut in 2026.
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