‘Outlander: Blood of My Blood’ Team Explains Those Familiar Faces & More in Season 2 Premiere

Passion, a brewing rebellion, and a time travel adventure gone horribly wrong. The premiere of the second season of Outlander: Blood of My Blood had everything that makes our hearts beat faster and our loyalty to this spinoff of the beloved Outlander series grow stronger. The next chapter of the intertwined stories of Claire and Jamie Fraser’s parents continues. Watch the video above for our interview with the cast and creators about the episode. Warning: Spoilers for the Outlander Blood of My Blood Season 2 premiere ahead!

The biggest question going into this epic time travel romance’s opener was where Claire’s dad Henry (Jeremy Irvine) went in the first season finale when he traveled through the standing stones and was again ripped away from his wife Julia (Hermione Corfield), who remained in 1715. The answer was not good. The WWI vet woke up in 1924 — closer in time to his and Julia’s darling then-toddler Claire — but in a straitjacket in what was in that era termed a “lunatic asylum.” He’d been found wandering and telling tales that no one found believable and was being given an early and crude version of electric shock therapy as a cure to bring him back to reality.

Irvine shares what research he did to prepare for the intense scenes of the treatments, which created nightmarish hallucinations for Henry: “I managed to find a couple of videos of bits of old film of it being done and found a couple in particular that I thought were very useful. And so, I sent those to the director [Azhur Saleem] and said, ‘That’s how I want to do it.’ And he agreed.”

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Hope arrived for Henry in the form of two familiar faces from the Outlander universe who have not previously been seen on Blood of My Blood: Reverend Wakefield (Tom Ashely), known from the mothership series as a good friend of Claire’s husband Frank Randall. He and his housekeeper Mrs. Graham (Emma Hartley-Miller) were surrogate parents to Claire’s eventual son-in-law Roger after his father died in WWII (fans know that “death” was also a case of time travel).

A stranger to Henry, Wakefield came to offer him council at the hospital. The vicar felt pity for the patient but when he later related the story to Mrs. Graham, it was clear she knew Henry was telling the truth, and she went on a mission to help him.

Series creator and executive producer Matthew B. Roberts explains why he wanted to revisit the characters. “They’re alive and they live in Inverness, so it was pretty organic that they could show up,” Roberts says. “And when we’re breaking story, when you bring characters in, you want them to be able to affect the core characters. And this was just so perfectly organic that it felt so natural to do.”

Executive producer Maril Davis points out that Mrs. Graham was also there for Claire in the original series. “She reads Claire’s palm, so she’s always been [helpful],” Davis says. “Cute little Mrs. Graham. It was fun to see them back and have an argument over the best way to put cream and jam on a scone.”

As for Julia, she returned to Castle Leoch with baby William where she once again had to find clever ways to escape sleeping with the repulsive Lord Lovat (Tony Curran) while coping with the horror that she might never see Henry and Claire again. Julia, too, found an ally who believed her time travel story: housekeeper Davina Porter (Sara Vickers).

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'Outlander: Blood of My Blood': Inside Season 2 With the Cast on Set

Davis says: “Davina and Mrs. Graham and Murdina [a.k.a. Mrs. Bug] are all believers in fairy folk. They believe that these are portals and that this has been happening for eons. Julia understands that because of all the things that Davina has said in the first season. If [Julia] said it to somebody else, they might think she’s insane, but that’s why it was so natural to tell her.”

The other main couple in the series, Ellen (Harriet Slater) and Brian (Jamie Roy), the parents of Jamie Fraser, also parted but only after sharing a lovemaking scene that mixed passion and tenderness in a way that the Outlander universe is known for. But can they survive being separated during the Jacobite Rebellion?

“Are they ready for it? No, but it’s war and war is inevitable, so there’s no stopping that,” Roy says. “Brian is honestly ready to go in the run. But Ellen talks sense this time. What I love of that [farewell] scene is the fact that Brian totally trusts Ellen to let her go. He knows that she is strong and independent and very, very capable.”

Slater adds, “If he doesn’t answer this call to arms, then it’s the death penalty. So, they will spend the rest of their lives in hiding and that’s what neither of them wants.”

Watch the video for more from the cast and creators — and find out which one of them hates scones.

Outlander: Blood of My Blood, Fridays, Starz