British Military officer and diplomat Lord John Gray (David Berry) sports activities a watch patch within the seventh installment of Outlander. It’s not a trend assertion. It’s the results of nearly dropping his eye after a brutal beating. How he will get that harm, who inflicts it and why are threads that run into the ultimate season. When Berry first heard in regards to the surprising occasion that sparks the assault on Lord John, he was excited. “That is the sort of problem that any actor would love,” he says. “It’s harmful, and also you need to do harmful stuff that pushes audiences and your self. I relished that chance to upset folks.”
It’s not the primary time the Australian- Canadian actor’s character has drawn ire. Berry joined the time-travel romance in 2017 for the third season.
(A teenage Lord John, performed by Oscar Kennedy, first met Caitríona Balfe and Sam Heughan’s Claire and Jamie in Season 2.) Lord John was warden of Ardsmuir Jail, the place incarcerated Jamie served because the de facto chief of the prisoners, fighters within the failed Jacobite Insurrection. The Highlander had common conferences with Lord John, who made a romantic advance towards him, which Jamie angrily spurned.
Since, they’ve shared a historical past of money owed paid and owed, favors achieved and sins forgiven. Their greatest bond was shaped when John agreed to boost Jamie’s illegitimate son William as his personal. Jamie supplied his physique in gratitude, however John turned him down.
They’ve crossed paths many occasions and in lots of locations. As a governor in Jamaica, John saved Jamie from arrest by the British. On Fraser’s Ridge, Claire saved John, nursing him by means of measles. John supplied to marry Brianna Fraser (Sophie Skelton) to save lots of her from a siege of suitors. And so forth.
Berry asserts that within the second half of Season 7, Lord John “has a really pragmatic agenda, which is to safeguard the Frasers.”
And his hopes of a romantic relationship with Jamie have lengthy handed. “I don’t assume he’s actually pondering at this level within the relationship that they’re ever going to be collectively,” Berry says. “He’s come to phrases with that. Jamie won’t ever be his.”
However the adoptive father’s relationship with son William (Charles Vandervaart), who doesn’t know (but!) that Jamie is his start father, is examined earlier than the tip of Season 7. A courageous transfer on the older man’s half restores the youth’s respect. “I believe that the connection once more is made very robust,” Berry says. “If something, [the second half of Season 7] will present us a brand new aspect of Lord John. He is not only Jamie’s lapdog. He has his personal ideas, opinions, and love. He’s his personal man.” By Season 8, Lord John will discover himself in a brand new metropolis, dwelling in luxurious. William will nonetheless be at this aspect.
However the collection finale of Outlander is probably not the final time we see the good-looking officer. There’s at all times the chance for a by-product. Writer Diana Gabaldon has written a collection of historic mysteries centered on Lord John that happen throughout the occasions of her Outlander novel Voyager. The tales start in 1756, when Lord John stumbles throughout the Hellfire Membership, an underground London society obsessive about the supernatural. Within the first few tales alone, he vows to avenge a homicide, investigates a witchy “night time hag” on the European battlefields, and discovers treason in His Majesty’s ranks. Seems like loads of materials!
“A Lord John collection has been thrown round for some time. If it got here and I may proceed the character, I’d for positive relish that chance,” Berry says. “There’s extra story to be instructed and there’s additional dimensions to the character. To see Lord John as his personal agent, his personal man [this season], perhaps that can enable audiences to see him in his personal spinoff.” Extra from the Outlander-verse? Lord, sure.
That is an excerpt from TV Information Journal’s Outlander: Claire & Jamie’s Love Story For The Ages challenge. For a deep-dive into the historic romance, scoop on the second half of Season 7, and particulars on the upcoming prequel, decide up a duplicate of the problem out there on newsstands and for order on-line at Outlander2024.com.
Outlander, Season 7, Half 2, Fridays, 8/7c, Starz (Midnight on the Starz App and On Demand)