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War takes many forms and the residents of Fraser’s Ridge have just been made soldiers in a few of them.
In the long-awaited season six premiere of Starz’s “Outlander,” the looming threat of the Revolutionary War took a backseat to more personal battles brewing on the homefront as Claire (Caitríona Balfe) fought to quiet her trauma, Marsali (Lauren Lyle) and Fergus (César Domboy) faced troubles in their marriage, and Jamie (Sam Heughan) asserted his dominance as a potential new enemy moved in next door.
“There is never a moment of peace for Claire and Jamie and their family, and I think they thought up at the Ridge they might be shielded from some of these things but they are slowly realizing that war touches everyone,” said series executive producer Marli Davis. “You can’t outrun it.”
Fans have waited nearly two years for new episodes of the epic show based on author Diana Gabaldon’s book series and season six wasted no time thrusting its characters into a new storm of conflicts from internal and external forces.
In the final moments of Sunday’s premiere, Claire violated one of the core tenets of medicine – don’t sample your own stash – when she took a hit off her home-brewed ether. Few could blame the time-traveling healer for wanting to silence her mind as she wrestles with the wounds from her devastating assault by Lionel Brown and his gang in the affecting season five finale. But Davis warned this won’t be a one-time occurrence.
The producers wanted to do right by what Claire endured and how she deals with it is only going to get worse before it gets better – if it ever can.
“There’s not quite as much in the book to play with, so that is why we decided to use the ether as a method of her trying to cope,” Davis said. “For Claire, the ether is not addictive in itself, but the feeling it gives you is. The idea of putting yourself to sleep and not having to deal with any of these feelings she’s having inside, that is something Claire will become addicted to.”
As the seismic revolution that only she, Brianna (Sophie Skelton) and Roger (Richard Rankin) know is coming pushes closer to a reality, Claire will start to unravel in upcoming episodes, testing her limits and the dependence she forms on her new habit.
“It is quite a traumatic season for her,” Davis said.
Elsewhere on the Ridge, Fergus drowned his sorrows with the Frasers’ whiskey supply to deal with the guilt over not protecting his wife and Claire during Lionel’s attack on the Ridge. His drunkenness and feelings of inadequacies will drive a wedge between the usually harmonious couple, right as Marsali is days away from giving birth to their fourth child – a moment fans should also brace for in episode two.
“She and Fergus have always had a fiery, tempestuous, loving relationship and one of equals, and this will be one of the first times we see them at odds,” Davis said, calling their marital strife just one of this season’s “heartbreaking” stories.
If there wasn’t enough going on, the premiere also introduced Tom Christie (Mark Lewis Jones), Jamie’s devout Protestant adversary from Ardsmuir Prison, and his family as the Ridge’s newest residents.
Davis said while the revolution is picking up steam elsewhere, season six is about the war at home, and a possible clash with the Christies poses the greatest immediate threat to Jamie’s leadership of the Ridge.
“We will slowly find as the season progresses that their home is turning against them,” she said. “The people they have invited on their land are going to turn on them.”
As was previously announced, season six was scaled back from 12 episodes to eight as the creative team adjusted their scope due to constraints imposed by COVID-19.
Davis confirmed this means the show won’t quite make it to the action of the Revolutionary War, which are part of Gabaldon’s sixth book, “A Breath of Snow and Ashes.” Fewer background extras and more outside shoots meant the season will stick pretty close to Fraser’s Ridge, leaving the show’s inevitable battle set pieces to simmer until season seven.
“Interesting enough, I think book 6 is now the only book that spans three seasons,” Davis said, acknowledging the irony that it is also the longest of Gabaldon’s books at 1,157 pages. “It’s been a little bit of season 5, a little bit of season 6 and it will be a little bit of season 7.”
Fans who have braved the long “Drought-lander” – the term they’ve affectionately given the hiatus between seasons – will be rewarded in the coming seasons because Davis confirmed season six is only building to something big.
“It’s the same ticking time clock we had with Culloden, when you know something is on the horizon and you’re speeding toward it,” she said. “I imagine it’s how the ‘Game of Thrones’ guys felt with ‘Winter is coming.’ Although war really is coming here.”
Judging by the hallmark events fans will see peppered throughout season six, that war is right over the ridge.
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