‘Outlander’ star Caitriona Balfe dissects the show’s second season premiere

TORONTO – The romantic time-travelling series “Outlander” returned Sunday with its headstrong heroine bent on changing Scottish history.

But before that, there was some pressing business to attend to elsewhere, or should we say — spoiler alert — in another era.

Read no further if you have yet to watch last night’s second season premiere on Showcase.

It was an emotion-laden affair as time-jumper and former Second World War combat nurse Claire Randall Fraser suddenly found herself in 1948 after two years spent in the 18th century.

The show’s star Caitriona Balfe broke down some of the key moments from the episode, which she notes set up a complicated tangle for Claire, her modern-day husband Frank, and her young Scottish husband, Jamie.

THE BOOKS AND SERIES DIVERGE

Those familiar with Diana Gabaldon’s book series know that Claire leaps ahead two centuries in the second instalment. But she leaps ahead to the 1960s — not 1948, where things pick up in the TV series.

“We play around with the timeline a little in the beginning,” Balfe allows.

“We put what happens in the very end of book two at the very beginning of our season, which I thought was a really bold storytelling move by (executive producer) Ron (Moore). But I loved it and when we got the script for the first episode I just couldn’t believe that we were going to get to play this stuff.

“It was beautiful and he’s fleshed out a lot of the relationship between Claire and Frank but I think that that’s really important as we go on in the season…. We need to understand that before Claire went back in time this was a good relationship, that Frank is a good man. He was her first love and that means that Claire will always have a special place in her heart for him.

“It’s not a love in comparison to Jamie — that’s a completely different thing, Jamie’s her soulmate. But Frank, he still holds a place in Claire’s heart.”

CLAIRE’S RELATIONSHIP WITH FRANK IS FOREVER CHANGED

“She’s a woman in the depths of grief and she feels like she’s lost everything. And when she sees Frank again for the first time it’s so heart-breaking because here’s a man, he’s full of hope, he is so open and emotional and he feels like he’s got his wife back and it’s just such tragic circumstances because neither are wrong.

“It’s circumstances that have done this to them. Claire will never be able to love him the way she loved Jamie, she’ll never be able to love him the way she used to love him. So as an actor, to be dealing with all of that it was just such rich material. I felt like Claire could not even give Frank an inch because if she did she would give him false hope and hurt him even more. So in a way because she has so much respect and love for him, she has to be cruel. It’s beautiful material and (actor) Tobias Menzies is so amazing, especially in this episode and we had such a fantastic time filming those scenes.”

ARE FRANK AND BLACK JACK MORE SIMILAR THAN IT APPEARS?

Frank’s explosion of rage upon learning Claire is pregnant with another man’s child is hard to ignore, especially in light of the fact he’s believed to be a direct descendant of Claire and Jamie’s arch nemesis, the violent Black Jack Randall.

“Tobias and Ron were always interested in lineage and what makes these two people — what are the similarities between them rather than them being drastically different people,” says Balfe.

“But anyone who’s pushed has a shadow side, or a dark side, and I think that both are men that — because of their surroundings and because of their experiences — were pushed in different directions. Frank is a gentle soul but there’s only so much a man can take sometimes and I think people will have a better understanding of his reasons when we go further down the books. Or if we get further seasons, people will maybe have more empathy for his journey.”

THE SHADOW OF BLACK JACK LOOMS LARGE

“The genius of Black Jack was that he really discovered what it was that was the central safe haven for Jamie and that was his love and intimacy for Claire and he was able to poison that. So when we meet them again in season 2, there’s a distance between them, Jamie’s almost experiencing PTSD, he’s still reliving that trauma and Black Jack is still very much alive in their relationship in a way.

“And so Claire … she’s pregnant, she’s going through this very personal journey of her own, but she also has to try and help Jamie and she’s not sure how to and so she gives him this mission to try and keep his mind occupied, to try and give him a purpose. But that, again, further distances him from her because he’s constantly away and he’s constantly doing all these things that she’s been asking him to but I think she feels a little abandoned as well.