Here is a NEW Interview with Toni Graphia from Entertainment Weekly
From EW:
The season 4 finale of Outlander on Sunday featured a delightful Hollywood ending — Brianna running across the plantation to embrace her beloved husband Richard after a long and very painful separation.
More after the jump!
It almost didn’t turn out that way.
In this exclusive interview, executive producer Toni Graphia admits that she and her fellow producers considered an alternative cliffhanger for the episode called “Man of Worth” that probably would have driven you bonkers.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: The ending is quite upbeat, apart from Jamie receiving that letter about mustering up a militia of troops to fight the regulators. Did you always plan to have that scene with Brianna running to Richard as the final scene of the season?
TONI GRAPHIA: That’s an interesting question because actually, no. We didn’t always plan that. It was a middle compromise. [She laughs]. In the first outline that I wrote, I tried to get in everything from “Drums of Autumn.” I even went into the gathering the way the book ends. It’s like, the gathering happens, Roger’s back, and they’re [he and Brianna] are struggling to connect after he’s been gone. I put everything from the end of the book and realized very quickly that it was way too much material. It just wouldn’t fit in the finale. We do that. We collect our favorite parts of the book and at the end, we’re always like, “Uh, there’s so much left to tell. How are we gonna tell it all?” I’m always saying, can the finale be an hour and a half? I know one year we had the hour-and-a-half finale. Sometimes we get to do that. But I realized I wasn’t going to be able to tell it all. So we let the pendulum swing the other way. We went, how about if Jamie and Claire come back, and we end it with Bree on the steps? She says, “Where’s Roger?” And then we just cut to black.
Thank you Toni for putting it all so beautifully. I was hoping the Gathering would be in episode 13 – but after Toni explained why it wasn’t in, I understood. Yes, people would have been very unhappy if the Finale had the Roger/Brianna issue had been blacked out and everyone left wondering “Where is Roger”. I loved Season 4, every minute of it – it was brilliant.
Great season!!! Good choice to have Brianna & Roger reconnect. So many good things. Jaimie’s struggles with being a ‘proper’ Father. Clair providing wisdom & grace. Indian sequences absolutely brilliant. Love the surprising ‘off book’ connection between Murtagh & Aunt J. 😉 Wonder where that will lead. 😳 Thanks again to entire Outlander team. 💞 Know will re-watch entire Season.