"Outlander: Blood of My Blood" stars discuss finally appointing Clan MacKenzie's new laird: 'The stakes are all there' Maureen Lee LenkerAugust 16, 2025 at 3:00 AM Sam Retford and Seamus McLean Ross This article contains spoilers about Outlander: Blood of My Blood season 1, episode 3, "School of the...
- - "Outlander: Blood of My Blood" stars discuss finally appointing Clan MacKenzie's new laird: 'The stakes are all there'
Maureen Lee LenkerAugust 16, 2025 at 3:00 AM
Sam Retford and Seamus McLean Ross
This article contains spoilers about Outlander: Blood of My Blood season 1, episode 3, "School of the Moon."
Key Points -
Dougal and Colum MacKenzie both want to be laird of their clan, but they will have to choose one of them if they want to sway enough supporters to their side.
The answer lies in compromise — Colum will be named Laird, but Dougal will be war chieftain and laird in times of battle.
Actors Sam Retford, Seamus McLean Ross, and Connor MacNeill tell us about filming that epic throne room scene.
At last, Clan MacKenzie has a new laird.
And it's technically both Colum (Seamus McLean Ross) and Dougal (Sam Retford)?
In episode 3 of Outlander: Blood of My Blood, the question of who will step in to lead Clan MacKenzie after the death of Red Jacob (Peter Mullan) reaches a boiling point. While Dougal and Colum continue to bicker over which of them it should be, trying to convince a majority of clansmen to take their side, Ned Gowan (Conor MacNeill) realizes that the boys are in danger of letting outsider James MacKinney (Ryan Fletcher) swoop in and steal the lairdship from them.
Ned persuades the brothers to pursue a path of co-leadership, where Colum will effectively be laird but Dougal will be his right hand and serve as a war-time chieftain when necessary. "My body is broken but my spirit never will be," Colum tells the crowd. "I am brave but I canna be a warrior. I canna lead the clan alone, so will defer to my brother Dougal as war chieftain."
Victoria Will/Starz
Seamus McLean Ross and Sam Retford in 'Outlander: Blood of my Blood'
Dougal, in turn, declares his fealty to Colum and this arrangement. "I vow before all MacKenzie men to be my brother's leg and arm in the field," he says.
For MacNeill, whose character's successful scheming leads to this arrangement, there's no other way forward to protect their status. "Both those positions are to both their strengths," MacNeill tells Entertainment Weekly. "They can see the family crumbling in that first episode. The risk is getting greater and greater, especially with MacKinney's character coming in. Reality comes about them and they realize, 'Well, look, these are both our strong suits.'"
As for Ross and Retford, they respond much as their characters would, with Ross noting that Colum's level-headed diplomacy helps him see there's no other choice. "The MacKinney threat is real and the financial situation is real," Ross says. "The stakes are all there and they need to come to resolution."
Victoria Will/Starz
Sam Retford as Dougal MacKenzie in 'Outlander: Blood of my Blood'
However, Retford notes that if push comes to shove, Dougal is the one with fighting power behind him, which is what he wants anyway. "There's a real threat and motivation that Dougal knows, even if things were to turn, at least he has all of the men," says Retford with a smile. "Ideally he'd want to be laird and not have to bring anything into a global agreement. But now, he has X amount of sword-wielding highlanders behind him to support his cause."
The two actors put in a hard day's work filming this crucial scene, in which they kneel and swear fealty to each other before the other members of the clan do the same to them. "We both had to do these big monologues in front of like 150 actors," remembers Ross. "That was a big day and a really powerful day. My favorite moment of that scene is when Dougal helps me bend my knee to him."
"There's a line in episode 1 that says, 'If you can do it, bend your knee to me,'" Ross continues. "I say, 'Help me, brother.' And Sam's character helps me down. In the shot, they're both at the same level, and it's the first time we've got that reward of seeing them talk to each other as human beings, never mind as brothers."
The episode also gives audiences a glimpse into the ways Red Jacob deliberately pitted the brothers against each other in the past. Most importantly, it shows the failed hunting expedition that led to Colum's significant leg injury, which was only worsened when he fell down the stairs during recovery, breaking the bone.
"I had to do a flight to London to get a cast made of my leg," Ross says of preparing for that scene. "I went to this mad place, and they put this mold over your legs. It was quite surreal seeing it; it's like the exact form of your leg.
Victoria Will/Starz
Seamus McLean Ross as Colum MacKenzie in 'Outlander: Blood of my Blood'
"But to actually shoot it," he continues, "there was a stunt guy. I would only go like three steps, and then, he would come in, hop along, and fall down."
These sequences in the past also showcase how difficult it was for Dougal to win his father's respect. The entire reason the mission went sideways is because Dougal decided to pursue the MacDonalds. Red Jacob whipped Dougal for his recklessness, telling him, "I couldna beat any sense into if I tried."
For Retford, that is a bitter pill for Dougal to swallow, one that makes him lean even harder into his brutishness and physical strength.
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"As an actor, when you come to a character, you have to have complete and total empathy and belief in everything that they do," Retford explains. "Otherwise, it becomes a caricature. So, in my head, Dougal's very intelligent and informed in all of his decisions. It's just that they don't necessarily align with all of these characters that are following a trajectory."
Still, his father's censure is far more wounding than Dougal lets on. "It's very hard for him to hear that," Retford adds. "At the end of the day, all of his actions come back to wanting to fulfill his father's legacy and be that person for him."
Outlander: Blood of my Blood airs Friday nights at 8 p.m. on Starz and streams the same day on the Starz app.
on Entertainment Weekly
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