“Outlander” author Diana Gabaldon gave the Starz TV show her blessing to make occasional changes from her books. There was, however, a proposed alteration she couldn’t tolerate: Black Jack Randall, one of the early seasons’ main villains, had to die.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, showrunner Matthew B. Roberts recalled how he really wanted to keep Tobias Menzies’ sadistic British Army captain around rather than kill him in the Season 3 premiere’s Battle of Culloden. It’s during this fight that Black Jack meets his end in the third book, “Voyager.”
Roberts explained how the show got Gabaldon’s approval before making any major changes to the story. When he called to ask about Black Jack, she replied “I really wish you wouldn’t do that.”
Sam Heughan, who plays Jaime Fraser, said the crew was so hopeful Gabaldon might allow them to give Black Jack a reprieve that they even filmed a scene where Menzies’ eyes open again on the battlefield after having been left for dead. In accordance with Gabaldon’s wishes, it never aired and Black Jack remained a casualty of the battle.
Outlander kept a different character alive with Diana Gabaldon’s blessing
Black Jack Randall dies, but another character who perishes in the book version of the Battle of Culloden survives in the show: Murtagh Fitzgibbons Fraser, played by Duncan Lacroix.
Killing off Jaime Fraser’s godfather “seemed like such a waste of a character,” as executive producer Maril Davis told Glamour. The show instead has him imprisoned and sent to the New World. He eventually finds himself living in North Carolina where Murtagh reunites with Jaime in Season 4. It’s complicated, since the two are on opposite sides of the budding Revolutionary War. Murtagh meets his demise, belatedly, the next season in one of the saddest “Outlander” deaths.
Even though Diana Gabaldon allowed the change and had a say in shaping Murtagh’s new storyline, the author admitted in an interview with Parade that she had “mixed feelings” about not having him die at Culloden.
