I’m not quite the super-fan that I’ve seen online, but I have loved the Outlander books, written by Diana Gabaldon, for years. The television series has been airing on Starz since 2014 and is presently in its final season, with a new episode appearing on Fridays for viewing. This isn’t about this week’s episodes, so no spoiler needed. This does discuss last week’s episode titled, Evidence of Things Not Seen as well as events of this season and earlier.

You have been warned.

Diana Gabaldon has released 9 of the 10 books she intended for the series to span. For the most part, I’ve commended the showrunners to this point because they have been very faithful to the books. Where they have made changes, it largely worked in the long run, until this season.

Actually, that’s not true. The problems started at the end of last season.

The final book in the series is in the process of being written. I follow Gabaldon on social media, and she’s released a few excerpts from it. She has also stated she told the showrunners how she intended it to end. With the eighth season being the final one and there being ten books, they are packing a lot into this final season. There are also two parts of the story that have drastically changed from the books, and fans aren’t happy.

The biggest change involved the stillborn baby Claire gave birth to back in Season Two. Gabaldon has stated that “Faith,” as the baby was named, definitely died and is buried in the books. For whatever reason, the showrunners decided to change that. There is a storyline involving William, the illegitimate son of Jamie Fraser, meeting a young prostitute and her younger sister. The showrunners decided that those two girls should be the daughters of Faith.

This is problematic in so many ways. Caitriona Balfe (Claire) did some of the best acting of the series in the episode where she held that dead baby and crooned to her for hours. Having Faith live nullified all of that. She held that baby for *hours*. I know there’s a part of the story where Claire is some kind of mystical healer, and Master Raymond, whom she met in Paris, is also a time-traveler with healing powers. The idea that he somehow stole Faith’s body and resurrected her is hard to swallow, even on a series that’s about time-traveling back to the 18th century. Mother Hildegard specifically states she baptized the baby so she could be buried in consecrated ground. Did he go to a graveyard in the middle of Paris and dig up the baby’s body without anyone noticing?

I have not read one missive about this season that defends the Faith storyline. There was no reason for it. Someone said they are probably planning a Faith spin-off, which is why they did it. I certainly won’t be watching it. This also means that William slept with his niece in a brothel. There’s no point in doing this except to anger the fanbase, which they’ve done a good job of.

Last week, they put another nail in the coffin of the show.

Since the second season, we’ve followed the story of Fergus, an orphan and pickpocket on the streets of Paris, whom Claire and Jamie befriend. He went back to Scotland with them and, for all intents and purposes, became Jamie’s son. I say Jamie and not Claire because for a good part of the time he grew up in Scotland, Claire was back in her own time in the 20th century. Fergus married Jamie’s step-daughter Marsali. They were young and had something of a turbulent relationship, but there was real love there. One of their children, Henri-Christian, was born with dwarfism. Back in the day, the superstitions were such that people thought he was a devil or demon. They moved to the city where he didn’t stand out as much. In the book, there’s a fire at the printing shop they own, and Henri-Christian dies in the fire. Last week, the fire happened, and instead of Henri-Christian dying, Fergus died.

This storyline change might not seem like a big deal to some, but it is. There were repercussions from the death, where the older son, Germain, struggles with guilt about the fire and his brother’s death. It sends him to live with Jamie and Claire for a time to be away from the reminder of the disaster. Both Marsali and Fergus struggle with this grief as well.

In the final book, Faith will still be dead, and Fergus will still be alive.

Gabaldon said she didn’t think the showrunners would have the guts to kill off Henri-Christian. Seeing a child die before one’s eyes by falling from the top of a building while trying to escape a fire would be difficult. Of course, even Fergus’ death wasn’t graphic. He just plunges from view as the fire consumes the floor beneath him.

The Faith storyline started giving me vibes about the last season of Game of Thrones. In my opinion, it went a bit off the rails by changing the characters from what we knew about them over the past few seasons without giving a reason for it. The ending was quite lackluster after all that had been built up. Right now, I think Outlander is going to suffer the same fate. Unlike Game of Thrones, the showrunners had a better idea of where the books were going to go, but decided on their own to change it. I think it’s a big mistake. Gabaldon doesn’t like the changes, particularly the Faith storyline, which is the biggest problem people are struggling with this season.

I don’t know how they are going to come back from these two huge problems in the three episodes they have left. Unfortunately, I think most fans are going to be disappointed.