'Outlander' Season 8 Exclusive Clip and Interview: Kieran Bew on the Scene That Changes Everything

There is a particular kind of threat that comes not from malice, but from certainty. Captain Charles Cunningham — the formidable antagonist at the heart of Outlander's eighth and final season — belongs to that category. He is not a man who twirls a mustache. He is a man who has done the math, decided he is correct, and is prepared to act accordingly. And in Kieran Bew, the show has found an actor with the presence and precision to make that terrifying.

Bew arrives in the final chapter of Starz's beloved epic — which premiered March 6 and airs new episodes weekly through May 8 — as a retired British soldier, a grieving father, and a political operator skilled enough to make Jamie Fraser second guess punching him. That last detail, as Bew explains it, is something of the whole character in a sentence.

The scene below, from Episode 804 — "Muskets, Liberty, and Sauerkraut," finds the two men in a Freemason's lodge, ostensibly neutral ground. They are anything but.

The Declaration of Arbroath, 1320 — delivered with passion as an impatient frustration practically exploded with every word out of Jamie Fraser's mouth. It is a quintessentially Outlander moment: history as confrontation, loyalty as weapon.

It is also a scene that reveals everything about Cunningham. He invokes the lodge's code against political discussion, then immediately uses the room to raise the war. He isn't a hypocrite, exactly. He simply believes his cause is larger than the etiquette of the room. That self-assurance is the whole engine of the character.

Exclusive Interview with Kieran Bew

MJ: With fans being so deeply invested in these characters, how do you think they respond to someone like Cunningham?

KB: They've already responded quite well to me. Quite a few people have said they hate me and that they're terrified I'm going to kill Jamie — which is fantastic, because that tells me that's a job well done. That's really what I wanted out of the situation.

MJ: What might viewers misunderstand about Cunningham at first?

KB: He genuinely thinks that what he's doing is what's best for Fraser's Ridge, the people that live there. All of his Machiavellian things, his politicking — you could see it as being a bad guy, an evil guy. But I think it's genuine. He thinks he's being the grown-up. And even when he's rumbled by Jamie in episode three, he still manages to talk him around and say, look, this is the argument, and I think you genuinely need to think about it. So in episode five, when I say "this was never the plan, I never wanted it to be like this" — I think that's real. He likes Jamie. He thinks: this guy is great, he's an asset, it's just politics, I can change his mind. I think the fans are going to hate me for that.

In the lodge scene, Jamie has a weapon in his hand — and doesn't use it. He hesitates. Bew sees that hesitation as the key to understanding both men.

MJ: Why does Cunningham believe he can push Jamie that far?

KB: Jamie's stubbornness runs concurrently with his sense of honor. People are allowed to have opposing views. He reprimands people, but he's not physically accosting them — he doesn't want to go down that road. And that's what Cunningham sort of preys upon as well. Working with Sam with that dynamic is easy, because we've been doing it for so long — we've got opposing views and it's just really fun. It means you've got a lot of options.

That ease with Heughan is no accident. Bew and his co-star have known each other for over a decade — the entire span of Outlander's run — and finally getting to work together before the show ended felt, he says, like something he'd been waiting on.

MJ: Was it easy to step into a cast with such a long shared history?

KB: It felt like I've known Sam for well over ten years — and I have. We've talked about possibly working together. I'm just delighted I managed to do it before the show ended, because it was lovely. They're all so professional — going from eating ice lollies together to beating each other up and strangling each other in the lightning rig on a night shoot, drinking coffee. It was a total pleasure.

When it comes to bringing Cunningham out of the books and into the show, Bew explained that the books were a great foundation for him to build his character for the show, but he respected the differences in where the stories found the fork in the road.

MJ: How aware are you of the differences between the show and the books while building a character?

KB: I'm very aware of it. Whenever that happens, I always take it very seriously, because people have a sense of ownership — whether it's a Shakespeare play they studied at school or an adaptation from a book. They care about what the character is, what they believe the story should be. So if there are changes made, I work incredibly hard to make it worthwhile and to try to win those people over, because I understand that sense of ownership. It's great that people are that passionate. It means they're genuinely experiencing the art form and it's touching them. I think that's great.

As for how Outlander itself ends — Bew is as in the dark as the rest of us.

MJ: You probably want to know how the season ends too.

KB: I have no idea how it ends. I can't wait to watch. And I'm looking forward to my Captain Cunningham spinoff show.

Outlander Season 8 streams weekly on Fridays on the Starz app and all Starz streaming platforms. Episode 804, "Muskets, Liberty, and Sauerkraut," written by Evan McGahey and directed by Metin Hüseyin, will be available to stream at 12:00 am EST on April 3, 2026.