Full spoilers for Outlander: Blood of My Blood Season 1 and the Outlander television series follow. No future book spoilers.

Yes. Murtagh Fitzgibbons Fraser was in love with Ellen MacKenzie. Outlander: Blood of My Blood makes that old piece of Murtagh’s history explicit by showing us the younger Murtagh before Ellen chooses Brian Fraser, before Jamie is born, and long before Murtagh becomes the hardened protector we meet in Outlander.

But the important part is not simply that Murtagh loses the girl.

The important part is what he eventually chooses to do with the love that remains.

How Blood Of My Blood Reveals Murtagh’s Love For Ellen

When we first meet young Murtagh, he is not the grumbling, world-weary man Outlander viewers remember. He is funny, hopeful, reckless, flirtatious, and already completely taken with Ellen MacKenzie.

At first, it feels almost like a young man’s impossible crush. Ellen is Red Jacob MacKenzie’s daughter, important within one of the most powerful families in the Highlands, and someone Murtagh has spent more time admiring from a distance than actually knowing.

Rory Alexander, who plays young Murtagh, has described Ellen as having a kind of mystique for him. She is beautiful, important, and perhaps most importantly, difficult for someone in Murtagh’s position to imagine actually having. That distance allows Ellen to become partly a person and partly an ideal in his mind.

And then Blood of My Blood makes the situation considerably crueler.

Because Murtagh’s cousin and best friend Brian Fraser meets Ellen too.

And Ellen chooses Brian.

Why Brian And Ellen Hurt Murtagh So Much

The obvious version of this story would make Murtagh jealous because the woman he loves chooses someone else.

Blood of My Blood makes it worse.

Brian is not some rival Murtagh can simply hate. He is his cousin, closest friend, and essentially his brother. Murtagh spends the early part of the season confiding in Brian about Ellen without realizing that Brian and Ellen have already begun falling in love themselves.

That means the eventual revelation lands as two losses at once.

Murtagh has to accept that Ellen does not love him the way he loves her, but he also has to confront the fact that Brian has been hiding something enormous from him.

That distinction matters. Murtagh is not merely heartbroken. He feels betrayed.

Needfire Is The Moment Murtagh’s Fantasy Breaks

Episode 5, “Needfire,” is where the emotional triangle finally stops being theoretical.

Murtagh discovers Brian and Ellen together during Beltane and realizes that the relationship he has imagined with Ellen is never going to happen. Brian has not simply developed feelings for the same woman. Brian and Ellen have already chosen each other.

Murtagh responds badly because of course he does.

He drinks. He fights. He spirals. And when Jocasta offers him another possible connection, even that becomes contaminated by his feelings for Ellen. Their encounter collapses when Murtagh invokes Ellen instead.

It is messy, embarrassing, and exactly what this storyline needs.

The series does not make young Murtagh noble simply because we know he will become noble later. It lets him experience the selfish, wounded part of loving someone who does not love him back before asking him to become something better.

Read our Blood Of My Blood Episode 5 “Needfire” review →

Brian Did Not Steal Ellen From Murtagh

This is also where the story needs one important distinction.

Brian does not steal Ellen from Murtagh.

Ellen was never Murtagh’s to lose.

That is the emotional problem Murtagh eventually has to solve. His love can be real without giving him ownership over Ellen, and his heartbreak can be legitimate without making Brian and Ellen wrong for choosing each other.

That is much more interesting than a conventional love triangle because the actual dramatic question is not Which man will Ellen choose? Outlander fans already know the answer.

The question is:

What kind of man will Murtagh become after she does?

The Boar-Tusk Bracelets Explain Everything

If you watched the original Outlander, the boar hunt in Blood of My Blood should immediately set off an alarm.

Young Murtagh kills a wild boar and keeps its tusks. Those tusks eventually become the famous bracelets associated with Ellen MacKenzie—the same bracelets that later make their way to Claire.

The original series had already told us the story behind them. Murtagh killed the boar, used the tusks to create the bracelets for Ellen, and loved Jamie’s mother long before Claire ever met him.

Blood of My Blood finally lets us watch that history happen instead of hearing about it decades later.

By the Season 1 finale, Murtagh gives Ellen the bracelets as a wedding gift after she has chosen Brian. And that is where the object becomes much more interesting than a clever Outlander Easter egg.

The bracelets are the physical evidence of a love Murtagh has decided not to turn into resentment.

Blood Of My Blood Changes The Way We See Murtagh And Jamie

This is where the prequel actually earns its existence.

We already knew Murtagh loved Ellen. We already knew he became Jamie’s godfather. We already knew he would spend enormous portions of his life protecting Jamie.

Those were facts.

Blood of My Blood turns them into cause and effect.

Young Murtagh loves Ellen. Ellen chooses Brian. Murtagh survives the heartbreak, remains connected to both of them, and eventually becomes one of the most important people in their son’s life.

Suddenly Murtagh’s devotion to Jamie carries another layer.

Jamie is not simply Brian’s son or Murtagh’s godson. He is also Ellen’s child.

Protecting Jamie therefore becomes one of the ways Murtagh’s love for Ellen continues after the shape of that love has changed.

The Search Already Told Us This Story

The original Outlander gave us one of the most important pieces of Murtagh’s history in Season 1 during “The Search.”

Claire is consumed by losing Jamie and lashes out at Murtagh as though he cannot understand what she is feeling. Murtagh answers by finally revealing his own history with Ellen and the boar-tusk bracelets.

The scene works in the original series because it unexpectedly reveals that this rough, quiet man has carried an enormous private loss for years.

Blood of My Blood now changes the scene again.

We are no longer imagining the young Murtagh who loved Ellen.

We have met him.

We have watched him hope.

We have watched Brian accidentally become his rival.

We have watched him discover the truth.

And we have watched him begin the painful work of remaining in their lives anyway.

That is exactly the kind of thing a prequel should do. It does not change what happened in Outlander. It changes how much an old scene weighs.

Revisit our Outlander coverage of “The Search” →

What About Murtagh And Jocasta?

Blood of My Blood also deliberately complicates Murtagh’s story by putting young Jocasta MacKenzie around him.

Jocasta notices Murtagh almost immediately. Murtagh notices that she notices him. There is attraction there, but Ellen remains the person occupying most of his emotional attention.

That is significant because viewers of the original television series know that Murtagh and Jocasta eventually develop a romantic relationship much later in their lives.

The prequel therefore creates an interesting triangle across decades rather than merely across one season. Young Jocasta can see Murtagh while Murtagh is still looking past her toward Ellen.

That makes their later connection feel less random, but it also emphasizes just how long Ellen remains part of Murtagh’s emotional history.

Did Ellen Ever Love Murtagh?

Not romantically, at least based on what Season 1 shows us.

Ellen cares about Murtagh, trusts him, and understands that his feelings are real. But the series never presents her as secretly torn between Brian and Murtagh.

Her romantic choice is Brian.

That is important because giving Ellen a hidden romantic attraction to Murtagh would weaken the story. Murtagh’s arc only really works if he eventually accepts a truth he cannot negotiate his way around: Ellen loves someone else.

Why Murtagh’s Unrequited Love Matters

The weakest version of this story would exist only to make Outlander fans point at the screen and say, “Oh! That explains the bracelets.”

The stronger version explains the man.

Murtagh begins Blood of My Blood believing love might mean getting Ellen.

By the end of Season 1, the story has begun teaching him something much harder: sometimes love means remaining loyal when you are not the person who was chosen.

That is the Murtagh we eventually know.

His defining trait in Outlander is not romance. It is devotion.

And Blood of My Blood is showing us where that devotion came from.

Murtagh does not get Ellen. He becomes the man who protects what Ellen loved.

That is a much better origin story.

Murtagh And Ellen FAQ

Was Murtagh in love with Ellen MacKenzie?

Yes. Murtagh Fitzgibbons Fraser is explicitly in love with Ellen MacKenzie in Outlander: Blood of My Blood. His love is unrequited because Ellen falls in love with Brian Fraser.

Did Ellen love Murtagh?

Ellen cares about Murtagh, but Season 1 does not portray her as romantically in love with him. Her romantic relationship is with Brian Fraser.

Did Murtagh know Brian loved Ellen?

Not initially. Brian and Ellen keep their relationship secret, leaving Murtagh to talk openly with Brian about his own feelings for Ellen before eventually discovering that Brian and Ellen are together.

Why was Murtagh angry with Brian in Blood Of My Blood?

Murtagh feels betrayed because Brian is both his cousin and closest friend. Discovering that Brian secretly entered a relationship with the woman Murtagh loves makes the revelation about friendship as much as romantic jealousy.

What are the boar-tusk bracelets?

Murtagh creates bracelets from the tusks of a boar he kills and eventually gives them to Ellen. The bracelets later appear in Outlander, where Claire possesses them and Murtagh reveals the story behind them.

Why does Murtagh protect Jamie?

Murtagh is Jamie Fraser’s godfather and a member of his extended family, but his history with Jamie’s parents adds another emotional layer. Blood of My Blood shows how deeply Murtagh loved Ellen and cared for Brian long before Jamie was born.

Do Murtagh and Jocasta get together?

In the Outlander television adaptation, the adult Murtagh and Jocasta eventually develop a romantic relationship. Blood of My Blood foreshadows that future by establishing an attraction between the younger characters even while Murtagh remains focused on Ellen.