You’d be forgiven for tuning into the Season 8 premiere of Outlander and thinking you’d suddenly taken a trip through the Stones back to 2016 when Season 2 aired on Starz. That’s because the first hour of the final season revives the specters of two characters who haven’t been major parts of the centuries-spanning romantic drama across the ensuing 10 years and six seasons. And we do mean “specters” in the ghostly sense as both of these individuals are currently dead… for now.

“In the Outlander world, ‘dead’ is…,” executive producer and showrunner Matthew B. Roberts begins, straining for the right word to communicate that mutable concept. When no word comes, he merely gestures to signal the elasticity of death in a world where people regularly move back and forth in time. “To the characters, they are dead absolutely,” he adds. “But whether anybody would see anything in the future — who knows?”

The spectral characters in question are close, very close, to our eras-crossed lovers, Claire (Caitríona Balfe) and Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan). One is Claire’s long-dead 20th century husband Frank Randall (Tobias Menzies), whose equally long-dead 18th century ancestor — the sadistic British soldier “Black Jack” Randall — bedeviled Jamie in Scotland. The other is the couple’s first daughter, Faith, who was stillborn in one of Outlander‘s most memorable (and heartbreaking) episodes.

At the end of Season 7, though, Claire and Jamie were shocked to discover that Faith potentially survived that tragic fate and lived to adulthood. She may even have given birth to her own children, Jane and Fanny Pocock, who crossed paths with the Frasers in the season’s final batch of episodes. Following her elder sister’s death, Fanny came to live with Jamie and Claire at their North Carolina homestead, Fraser’s Ridge. In the final moments of the Season 7 finale, the young girl is overheard singing a 20th century song that Claire crooned to Faith before her burial — a possible clue about her mother’s identity.

The first moments of the Season 8 premiere waste little time picking up that dangling thread from the previous season’s finale. Going undercover to confront the smuggler who claims to have transported mother and daughters from Europe to the New World, Jamie and Claire learn more details about Faith’s life — and second death.

Per the miscreant’s account, he and his men boarded a ship commanded by a Captain Pocock, who was traveling with Jane, Fanny and the woman who may have been Faith. Killing the captain, the raiders proceeded to assault Jane, which spurred her mother to attack them like a “rabid dog.” She was summarily tossed overboard — buried at sea as an adult instead of in the ground as an infant.

That solves the mystery… or does it? “You’ve gotten one answer,” emphasizes Roberts, confirming that Jamie and Claire now believe their daughter is dead (again). “But it makes you ask a bunch of other questions, which unfold as the season goes along. To me, that’s how you tell a story.”

But it’s also a story that’s seemingly on a different track that its source material, the Outlander book series penned by Diana Gabaldon. While Jane and Fanny are characters on the page, there has never been any indication that they’re Claire and Jamie’s granddaughters. Asked whether the show is departing from book canon — or if the writers know something that we don’t — executive producer Maril Davis neatly squares the circle.

“We don’t know where the books are going to go, but they certainly seem to be leading us in that direction,” she says carefully. “This season was all about wrapping up threads for us. Who knows what Diana is going to do in the 10th book, but for us we needed to accelerate some of our stories to wrap up the series.” (Gabaldon has already said that the mainline Outlander series will end with the next installment, A Blessing for a Warrior Going Out, which doesn’t have a firm release date.)

Meanwhile, Frank’s return comes courtesy of a book that the couple’s surviving child, Brianna (Sophie Skelton), gifts them upon her own return from the future to the past. Prior to his death, the historian had published a tome called Soul of a Rebel, which explored the role that Scottish immigrants played in the American Revolution — immigrants like Jamie. The Scottish Highlander correctly suspects that Frank wrote the book as a way to stalk him across the centuries. Sure enough, as he cracks the book open in the premiere’s closing moments he (and we) hear Frank’s voice echoing in his mind. Or, more specifically, it’s Black Jack’s voice now that he realizes how closely the two Randalls resemble each other.

Roberts confirms that’s Menzies-spoken dialogue plucked from previous seasons — look for more to come in future episodes — which was a last resort after scheduling conflicts prevented the actor from returning in person. “To have Tobias be a part of the final season was amazing, because he’s been part of the show from day one,” the showrunner notes. “His availability was very tough, and the schedules couldn’t work out. But he was gracious enough to say, ‘You can use my voice.'”

“And to tell you the truth, it works really well,” Roberts continues. “Sam really dug into it; he’s obviously heard Tobias talk over the years and could play that.”

But the Season 8 premiere isn’t all ghosts all the time. The long-awaited reunion of Claire, Jamie and Briana — who shows up at Fraser’s Ridge with her husband, Roger (Richard Rankin) and their two kids. in tow — provides a happy moment amidst the drama. Davis says that the writers specifically decided to skip over the long road that the young family traveled to arrive at that destination. That was just fine with Skelton.

“Richard and I have done that journey so many times, so we know how grueling it is,” the actress says. “One thing we did talk about on the day is that we looked quite fresh showing up at the Ridge, and it would not have been a fresh journey! We naturally mapped out what that journey had looked like, but we didn’t talk about it too much. It’s too triggering.”

Not for nothing, but Briana has brought other books back for her Da than Soul of a Rebel — including Lord of the Rings and Goodnight Moon, the latter of which he happily reads to his grandchildren. (Outlander fans know that book selection is a callback to a Season 3 episode.) “Jamie getting his reading glasses out is enough to make us giggle,” says Skelton.

“If I remember correctly, he was hamming it up when the coverage was on everyone else,” Rankin adds with a laugh. “I’m pretty sure he was changing the words of the book quite a lot when he wasn’t on camera.” How do you say Goodnight Moon is Scottish Gaelic anyway?