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Credit: STARZ Media
Spoilers ahead for Episode 4 of Outlander: Blood of My Blood, called “A Soldier’s Heart” and available streaming now on the Starz app and with a Hulu subscription including the Starz add-on.
Outlander: Blood of My Blood leaned back more into the complicated time travel in the latest episode of the 2025 TV schedule, with Henry flashing back to his life with Julia in 20th century London when she was pregnant with Claire. Not all was well with them, however, as Henry was struggling with post-traumatic stress from his time in World War I. All in all, “A Soldier’s Heart” felt more like an early episode of Outlander than any other Blood of My Blood episode to date, but the dedication card at the very end is a sign that changes are on the way.
Actor Brian McCardie passed away while filming Season 1, and the showrunner has since shared how the series is handling his passing.
The Tribute To Brian McCardie
Brian McCardie had been cast in Outlander: Blood of My Blood as Laird Isaac Grant, the leader who recruited Henry to be his bladier but had a ruthless streak that meant the time traveler was never going to be safe in the household. The actor passed away at the age of 59 due to an aortic dissection in 2024, which his sister disclosed on X meant that he endured “short pain and a sudden death.”
I’d expected Blood of My Blood to honor him in some way when the show premiered, but I now understand why Episode 4 was the right time. Here’s the card that aired right before the credits began to roll:
Credit: Starz
This followed the more immediate tribute shared by executive producer Maril Davis in the wake of his death on Instagram, which she fittingly posted on behalf of both Outlander and Blood of My Blood, as he’d appeared in the original show as well. She wrote:
On behalf of the Blood of My Blood and Outlander family, we are devastated by the news of Brian McCardie’s sudden passing. Brian was beloved on our set for his warmth, kindness and wonderful sense of humor. He will be missed and our hearts go out to his family and everyone who knew him.
Clearly, the ruthlessness and arrogance that viewers have seen in his performance as Laird Isaac Grant weren’t true to life, as Brian McCardie was “beloved” by the Blood of My Blood family for “warmth,” “kindness,” and “humor.” I don’t think I’m the only Blood of My Blood fan to say that the apparently lovely actor did a fantastic job playing somebody so unlikable within the Outlander world.
What Does The Future Hold For Isaac Grant?
The Blood of My Blood producers obviously didn’t recast Laird Isaac Grant and reshoot in the wake of the actor’s death, and I suspect that “A Soldier’s Heart” was the last episode that we’ll see Brian McCardie in due to the timing of the tribute. That wasn’t guaranteed in the months leading up to the premiere, however, until showrunner Matthew B. Roberts clarified their approach to the character following McCardie’s passing. He told EW:
We lost Brian McCardie. He’s Isaac Grant and no one could ever be Isaac Grant other than him. We had planned story for him going forward. If there is going to be season 2, we would’ve planned story for him because he’s just such a powerful character.
The new drama hadn’t yet been renewed for Season 2 when Roberts addressed McCardie’s passing, although Starz would confirm the renewal months before the premiere. Roberts went on to say that the actor “just brought the level up” in every scene that he was in, leaving anybody watching on set wanting to “see more of him.” The showrunner and producers then made the decision about how to handle the character after the death of the actor, with Roberts saying:
It was a tragedy. But the one thing we wanted to do after we took a beat to grieve was decide that we want to preserve his work. We don’t want to recast and reshoot. We want to preserve that.
Not recasting Brian McCardie honors the actor, but also created some challenges for the writers. As of the end of Episode 4, it still seemed that Isaac Grant had a large role in Henry’s story. It’s entirely possible that I’m wrong and this wasn’t the final episode he completed prior to his death, but the story had to change. Roberts explained:
We had to figure out a way to go down the road that we wanted to go down, but it was going to be a parallel road. It wasn’t going to be the same road. So, we created a whole new character to take on some of that storyline. But it won’t be the same storyline that we were planning.
Viewers will just have to keep tuning in to new episodes of Outlander: Blood of My Blood on Fridays at 8 p.m. ET on Starz to see how this storyline will unfold, or stream episodes via the Starz app. Diana Gabaldon, the author of the Outlander saga, is reportedly “on board 100%” with the spinoff, but Isaac Grant wasn’t a key character in her books like Colum, Dougal, Murtagh, and others whose younger versions are appearing in Blood of My Blood.
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