Outlander: All the Season 3 Details You Could Ever Want (Including the Premiere Date!)

Let's review: in the season two finale, Claire (Caitriona Balfe), pregnant and distraught, reluctantly returns through the stones at Craigh na Dun to reunite with her first husband, Frank (Tobias Menzies), in the '40s, leaving behind the love of her life, Jamie (Sam Heughan), who must go fight (and die) in a bloody battle against the British. Flash forward 20 years: Frank is dead, Claire is in her 60s, and she's brought her and Jamie's now-adult daughter, Brianna, to Scotland where it all began. With the help of a grown-up Roger Wakefield, Claire discovers that Jamie didn't perish in the Battle of Culloden after all and there's still a chance that they can be together, despite the fact both of them are now middle-aged. So what does that mean for season three?

The next season will revolve around the plot featured in Outlander author Diana Gabaldon's third book, Voyager. After seeing how both Claire and Jamie deal without each other in their respective timelines, Claire will use the stones to travel back to the 1700s and eventually make her way to Jamie in Edinburgh. From there, they'll board a ship and go on a lengthy journey across the ocean to Jamaica. Brianna ends up braving the stones as well, and joins her parents with Roger's help. Let's hope season three tackles placing its characters in a location other than Scotland as deftly as season two.

During a recent interview with Heughan, he told POPSUGAR that although the show always tries "to stick as close as we can to the books," there's going to be a few changes that might take diehard fans by surprise. "Certainly the beginning of season three is a slight deviation from the book. We're going to be showing a bit of Culloden, and what happened to Jamie," he said. "There's one moment in particular that I didn't even know we were going to shoot, and I know the crew didn't, and everyone was like, "What the hell is this?!" There are some big surprises, but there are also some great moments from the book that we try to stick to as much as possible."

Although it was frustrating to see the season two finale cut out the Battle of Culloden (it's not like we'd been waiting a season and a half to see that actually happen or anything . . . OH, WAIT), there might be a pretty good, and sad, explanation for that. As any book readers know, when Murtagh (Duncan Lacroix) tells Jamie "I'll be dying with you," he means it. The curmudgeonly fan favorite doesn't make it out of the Battle of Culloden alive, and Jamie relives his death through flashbacks in Voyager. The writers likely wanted to spend some time unpacking the effects of Murtagh's death on Jamie, which he'll no doubt feel guilty for. Then again, the show hasn't always followed Gabaldon's novels to the letter, so it stands to reason that he might make it out alive.

In an interview with Variety, Heughan opened up about how he sees Jamie handling being back with Claire after so long. "There's a lot of challenges to season three — there's a period of time where Jamie and Claire are apart; he thinks that he's lost her, or at least that she's alive and well but in the future, so what is he living for?" he said. "What sort of man is he now? She will eventually return, but they're both older, so what is Jamie, who is the man he's become?" Balfe also touched on the issue of the characters finding each other again, and how it will be hard work for both of them:

At the end of season two, we got our first taste of the jarring time jump that will take up most of the story in season three. Since both characters need to appear that they've aged two decades (making them in their late 40s and early 50s), many fans are eager to see how their physicality will change. You see the differences in Claire in the last few episodes of season two (she has streaks of gray in her hair, and seems much more world-weary), but the reveal of Jamie's appearance has yet to happen. "He has to learn to fight again, and find purpose in his life," Heughan told us about how he went about aging his character. "Aging became not about giving him a walking stick and gray hair. It became more about the experiences that he's lived, and how that changes him. I think he is, at times, unrecognizable."

Just like Murtagh, Black Jack Randall (Tobias Menzies) is supposed to die on Culloden Moor. Will we ever get a satisfying conclusion to his and Jamie's violent relationship? "If you've read the books, you will know that Randall will appear again," Heughan told Variety. "I know that Diana has written the scene of how they ended up [back together], so hopefully — and who knows, I haven't read the script yet — but hopefully, we'll get to see Jamie and Randall in the Battle of Culloden." We also haven't seen the last of Black Jack's modern day ancestor, Frank. Even though Claire mentions that he's dead in the season two finale, Balfe revealed that she's "really looking forward to" exploring the "rich and complex" relationship between Claire and Frank in season three. In other words: prepare yourself for a whole ton of flashbacks.

Outlander has cast the Dunsany sisters! Geneva and Isobel will be played by Hollywood newcomers Hannah James and Tanya Reynolds, respectively. Starz describes elder sister Geneva as, "beautiful as she is headstrong," making a sharp contrast for the “warm, friendly, and genuine” Isobel, who is "inherently more likable" than Geneva. Additionally, the show has found its Ian Murray and Joe Abernathy. Waking the Dead actor Wil Johnson will fill the role of Abernathy, who is a doctor-in-training Claire grows close to while attending medical school in 20th century Boston. He's smart, charming, and funny, and he quickly becomes one of Claire's closest confidantes. John Bell, who you might know as Bain in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, has been cast as Young Ian, the gangly, stubborn Scottish nephew of Jamie, who can't seem to keep out of trouble.

Finally, French actor Cesar Domboy, who appeared in Robert Zemeckis's The Walk, is taking over as the grown-up version of Fergus due to season three's time jump. Although we're sad to know we'll no longer be seeing the adorable Romann Berrux on screen, at least he has a pretty hunky successor (and hopefully he'll be just as mischievous as ever).

The first trailer is short and sweet, including brief glimpses of Claire celebrating Brianna's graduation with Frank in the 20th century, shots of Jamie gasping for breath and looking ridiculously hot while riding a horse, and later delivering one hell of a monologue. "I have lied, killed, and broken trust, but when I stand before God I'll have one thing to say to weigh against all the rest," he says. "Lord, you gave me a rare woman, and God I loved her well."

To celebrate filming the final shot of season three in June, Starz shared a behind-the-scenes photo of Balfe and Heughan in-character on a ship of some kind.

Starz shared the official poster on Twitter to announce the premiere date (Sept. 10!), and it's making us way more emotional than we thought it would.

You can expect to see Claire and Jamie back on your TV on Sunday, Sept. 10!