Outlander producer breaks down Claire's insidious coping mechanism

Warning: This article contains spoilers about Sunday's season 6 premiere of Outlander.

All is not well on Fraser's Ridge.

On Sunday, season 6 of Outlander premiered on Starz, bringing with it a host of new dramas and conflicts for the residents of Jamie Fraser's settlement. Picking up not long after the conclusion of season 5, the Starz series finds the Frasers struggling to reach a semblance of normalcy as Claire (Caitriona Balfe) experiments with making ether, Jamie (Sam Heughan) tries to put off a request from the Crown to become an Indian agent, and trouble comes to the Ridge in forms both new (the Christie family and their fellow settlers) and old (the Browns and the Committee for Safety).

But weighing over all of this is Claire's persisting trauma and PTSD after being kidnapped, assaulted, and raped by a pack of vicious men in the season 5 finale. Claire insists to everyone — Jamie, Bree (Sophie Skelton), Marsali (Lauren Lyle), etc. — that she's fine. But she's keeping an insidious secret. Beset by nightmares and the overwhelming horror of what she experienced, she's self-medicating, knocking herself out with the ether she's been producing to assist with difficult surgeries.

Claire has been known to seek an emotional distraction in her work as a doctor, but this time she's taking it too literally — and too far. The reveal is new to the series, not having been a plot line in Diana Gabaldon's Outlander novels on which the show is based.

"We were all searching for something, a throughline for Claire," executive producer Maril Davis tells EW. "We did not feel we just wanted to drop it. Season 6 picked up nearly immediately after season 5, and it's still so fresh and raw in all of our minds. It felt like ... we'd be doing Claire a great disservice if we did not address it in some fashion."

"When that came up to use the ether," Davis continues. "What we loved about it was it's not addictive, but there is an addictive quality to numbing the pain. For Claire, who wears her heart on her sleeve, that's a pretty big statement for her to want to numb the feelings she's dealing with."

And if you think it's something Claire will deal with quietly until she's ready to move forward — well, think again. "We will see this escalate as the season progresses," teases Davis. "And see Claire struggling more and more to quell the PTSD that's rising in her and the demons she's battling."

What of the other potential demons for the Frasers to battle? The new and mysterious Christie clan. We learned in the episode's opening that Jamie and Tom Christie (Mark Lewis Jones) have a thorny past, having opposed each other while both imprisoned in Ardsmuir after Culloden. Fans of Gabaldon's novels will note that these scenes originally took place in the Ardsmuir sequences in book 3, Voyager.

"There's so many things in the books that we want to do, but we run out of space," says Davis. "In the books, there's so many events that happen you don't have to worry about locations, actor availability, and then you sit down you start to craft the TV series and you realize you only have 12 episodes and you can't fit everything in."

"When we did Ardsmuir back in the third season, there was only so much story we could fit in there because we were also paralleling it with Claire's story back in her time, but it's something we all loved," Davis adds. "We wanted to be able to show it, because it's so important to see the complicated relationship between Jamie and Tom and why they're at odds. Jamie is such a natural leader. When he first comes to Ardsmuir, he just wants to be left alone. But Ardsmuir just won't let him rest. Tom is not a natural born leader and has taken over, and it caused a lot of conflict. As we then come to the present on Fraser's Ridge and he shows up, we're going to see their past really come to haunt Jamie."

Tom has a religious zealotry and a cruel streak that rankles Jamie, but he feels obligated to allow the man and his family safe harbor on the Ridge since he did issue an invitation to all of his fellow prisoners to stake a claim on a plot of land there.

"Tom comes in and the same conflict arises," says Davis. "Tom wants to erect a church. Jamie doesn't. Jamie is this very progressive man in a very non-progressive time. Tom's going to be a thorn in his side throughout the entire season."

But should we fear Tom Christie as more than merely a hard-headed religious rabble-rouser? "Anyone who has such a zealous [viewpoint] and hews to something like Tom has to religion, that's always very worrying," reflects Davis. "He's very rigid. He's not like Jamie and Claire. I think that's something that Tom secretly resents about Jamie and Claire, that there's an ease to them in this world. Tom has never really fit in. He's never had a great love, like Jamie has for Claire. There's so many things he's resentful about."

"Resentment, rigidity. These traits are always something to fear," she concludes. "Because it's bringing bad feeling into the Ridge. So that's going to definitely seep over."

Outlander airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on Starz.

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