Outlander hit another milestone moment. It was time for the final table read, and that brought some photos and videos from the cast. One of those videos made it clear that Diana Gabaldon has written an episode, but it probably isn’t the series finale. We’re sure that Matt B. Roberts has written that episode.
Diana Gabaldon has likely written the penultimate episode of the series. Roberts will have penned the series finale, which is the usual way of doing TV shows. Even Ronald D. Moore suggested that Roberts would write that episode.
Crafting an ending for the Outlander TV series
While the series is based on a book series, the show has become its own entity. Fans continually say not to compare books to the show. The cast and crew has routinely said that things in the books won’t necessarily play out in the series. There are many reasons for changes to happen—some of them creative and some of them practical.
By Outlander Season 8, the show will have ran out of source material. That was not supposed to be the way it would play out. Gabaldon had previously said that wouldn’t happen, but here we are. The show is ending with the eighth season, and a lot of the eighth book has already been used in Outlander Season 7. That means the eighth season will include storylines from Book 9, but that book didn’t end in a complete way. There’s another story to tell.
Roberts and the writers needed to craft an ending that would work for the TV series. So, the best way to do that is for the showrunner to write the last episode of the series.
Avoiding spoilers for the Outlander book story
On top of that, the writers wouldn’t want to spoil things from the book. While there is sure to be one storyline that is used for the show that was going to be told in the book—Jamie’s ghost—there are a lot of other storylines that can be tweaked.
It makes sense to avoid having Gabaldon writing that last episode. She could accidentally add something from her books that fans haven’t seen yet and spoil things for the readers without meaning to. With Roberts writing the last episode, he can only work with what Gabaldon has told him. Everything else is left to his imagination, crafting an ending for the series that doesn’t spoil it for the book readers.