Outlander's Caitriona Balfe on Claire's Tragedy: 'It's Ruptured Her to the Core' 

Warning: This post contains spoilers from this week’s

. If you’re behind, dinna fash — you can read last week’s

The Frasers’ Parisian tour of pain continued in the latest

, when Claire delivered a stillborn daughter, nearly died of childbed fever, accidentally sent one of her enemies to his death and then had to have sex with a monarch in order to free her estranged husband from jail. (And you thought

The death of Claire and Jamie’s child Faith, as well as the physical and emotional distance between Lady Broch Turach and her husband, made for an “intense” episode experience, star Caitriona Balfe tells TVLine.

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“I think by the end of the week, my eyes were so swollen, I went away and had ice packs on them,” she says, chuckling.

Below, Balfe discusses how she approached some of Claire’s lowest moments in the series so far, finds a bit of levity in a pivotal prop and previews what the Frasers’ return to Scotland will mean for our favorite time-traveler and her man.

TVLINE | “Faith” is one of those episodes that those who know Diana Gabaldon’s books kind of dreaded, just because it’s so heartbreaking. You’re familiar with the source material; how long before you shot the episode had you been thinking about it?

From the very get-go of the season. It was very important for us that this pregnancy didn’t get pushed completely to the sidelines, because I think when you know that this is going to happen, it’s important that you make the readers first of all be on board and see the hopefulness and see the importance of the pregnancy, for then the loss of it to have an impact. It was a struggle this year to balance the personal journey with the whole political storyline, and we tried to, as much as we could, to bring in that pregnancy and to make the child very much part of the Jamie/Claire relationship and their safe space. So yeah, you constantly know where that journey is going to lead you to.

We didn’t discuss the miscarriage much because, for the characters, they went through this sort of very separately. And that was also quite important to have each of our own journeys with that. But in terms of the pregnancy and what that meant to them and all of that, we talked about that stuff quite a lot.

But yeah, once it came to the work to be done on Episode 7 and most of that, it was quite separate because they are basically estranged from each other during this. It was important as well for Claire. while she’s experiencing all of this anger and grief, that was her private journey to work out within herself.

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TVLINE | The scenes where you’re holding the baby are so raw. Tell me about shooting them.

We filmed about six days in total. The place where we filmed, that was the Glasgow Cathedral, which was actually a really special place to film it. It’s been there since the 1100s in some form… It’s a really beautiful, special place — and I’m not particularly religious.

It did have many little chapels within this massive cathedral. We were filming downstairs, and between takes I would just go up and I would sit at this little altar and I would play my music. There was a couple of songs that I would play on repeat. I just sat there and I became very aware on the first day that this is a place that I would imagine thousands of women have gone to seeking solace or seeking comfort for very similar things. In a weird way, to be able to feel that history of grief or history of need was very helpful. It was definitely one of the most intense acting experiences of my career to date, but it felt very important to try and be very respectful and hold this space for Claire’s grief, if I could.

There were a few. One was a song from Judee Sills, who’s an old like ’70s folk singer, and another one was [by] This Mortal Coil. The singer [Elizabeth Fraser], she was originally from the Cocteau Twins. It’s this haunting song that Jeff Buckley’s dad Tim Buckley originally recorded.

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TVLINE | The prop baby was very real-looking. Did that freak you out at all?

Oh, it’s incredibly lifelike. And it was quite strange, because it also had the weight of a baby. It was so real looking, and it is quite strange when you have that. One thing it did have was this quite fuzzy tuft of red hair that was the most

-lifelike thing, and I think the makeup department was constantly trying to smooth it down with oil and make it slightly less fuzzy. But yeah, that’s very helpful, to have something that is so lifelike so that you’re not taken out of the moment, you know, looking at this baby doll.

TVLINE | I can imagine. Later in the episode, Claire goes to see the king, knowing that he’ll expect sex. What mindset did you have for Claire, going into that meeting?

Well, what I loved was that fantastic line between Claire and Mother Hildegarde when she says, “If it comes to my virtue, I’ll add it to the number of things I’ve already lost in Paris,” and I felt that was the whole key to that scene. Because for her, the worst has already happened. Claire has been such a resilient character, and she has this un-extinguishable hope at her core, but I think that losing her child has in a way extinguished that. It’s ruptured her to the core, and I don’t think she will ever be the same again. She blamed herself so much for what happened that, in a way, it was a punishment to herself — if that’s not too twisted.

She knew exactly what was going to be asked of her, and it wasn’t too much of a price for her, because at this point, even though on the surface she’s still angry at Jamie, I think that’s mostly a projection. Who she’s really angry at is herself… Whether or not she’s ready to admit it to herself or not, she knows that if she’s to have any hope of survival in a spiritual way, or in an emotional way, that she needs Jamie back in her life. And she’s prepared to do anything for that.

TVLINE | Claire claiming her witch-hood, during the scene with St. Germain and Master Raymond, seems like a very dicey move. It could have gone so badly for her, given what we saw at Cranesmuir last season.

At this point, she doesn’t really have anything to lose, but also this is… what I love about her in terms of her ability to survive and adapt very quickly. She very quickly starts playing this role and is able to figure out exactly how to maneuver within this really dangerous situation. She knows enough information about both Master Raymond and St. Germain, what the king is in fear of — the fact that it’s the dark arts and black magic, but obviously she knows he must believe in it enough to care.

So her ability to use that information against him and use it to her own benefit was so great, it just shows how intelligent she is. That scene is so wonderful. It’s got so much tension underneath, and she doesn’t

to have St Germain killed. She does what she can to protect him in a way, but unfortunately Master Raymond takes care of that for her. [

TVLINE | Talk to me about the scene in which Fergus, played by Romann Berrux, tells Claire what really happened at the brothel.

He’s just this fantastic young actor and one of the sweetest young kids to have around, as well… I loved the simplicity with which he played it. I mean, in the hands of someone less skilled, they might have tried to really over-emote or something, and it would have taken away the power of it… It’s just so heartbreaking when you realize that this poor little kid has been sitting on this information and has gone through this horrific ordeal and blames himself and has never said a word. It’s heartbreaking stuff.

For Claire, it’s a real awakening that her pain and her grief may be all-consuming, but actually she has to realize that there are other people in her life and that she needs to take care of. And that’s the catalyst, really, for her to go and get Jamie back.

TVLINE | At the end of the episode Jamie and Claire are reunited and talking about returning to Scotland. Give us a sense of what’s ahead for them.

Scotland’s a very healing place for them. That is their home, and that’s why we’ve been fighting so hard in these first seven episodes to change the political landscape of Scotland so that they

go home. Unfortunately, France has proved to be a very disastrous place for them… Jamie says is that the weight of this pain is too much to bear for either of them alone, so they need to be together. We’ll see, going forward, how they heal and how this bond gets stronger. We know from Act 1 [of the season] that maybe things don’t work out completely, but I think you will see the old Claire and Jamie that we’ve come to know from before.

Wow!! What a fantastic performance by Caitriona Balfe!! Actually every performance in this episode was amazing! Loving season 2 of Outlander!

It was really good. Anytime you can make me weep, you’ve done your job.

This episode was a complete emotional roller coaster. Right from the start when Claire was asking for her baby, I started to tear up. Caitriona Balfe needs to be nominated for an Emmy and get next week’s Performer of the Week for sure.

I actually really like the name Faith, but the nerve of that woman to name the child herself. Who does she think she is?

I think I’ve sort of become a little desensitized to violence and sexual violence on television these days. I mean after last season with Jamie’s rape, and the many examples of rape on Game of Thrones and other shows, I can usually sit through it. If it’s organic and is part of the storytelling and not just for the shock value, I can deal with it. Tonight’s plot point regarding Randall raping Fergus served the story to push Jamie to breaking his promise to Claire and dueling Randall. However, even though I knew it was coming, I just kept mouthing “Please don’t show it. Please don’t show it. I don’t need to see this awful thing happen to this kid” and then they did. I just thought that part was really unnecessary.

That point aside, it was a great episode. Is the season going to be split up or will it be 16 episodes airing straight through?

Oh and on a completely shallow note, I know he’s a bad guy, but I’m really bummed the Comte St. Germain died so soon. I’m really gonna miss his sexy French speaking.

That whole scene with Claire playing La Dame Blanche made me so anxious.

Abz- It was a spectacular death, though! A semi-spoiler for you. Author Diana Gabaldon recently wrote a novella “The Space Between”. It explains what happens to a certain character.

Oh, definitely. Stanley Weber did a great job. You could see the horror and sadness when Claire’s stone darkened and he realized he was going to die. But of course anyone who tries to poison a pregnant woman definitely had it coming, handsome Comte or not.

It made me weep!! Great job by everyone, especially Cait!! What a wonderful episode; it broke my heart 💔

Always pictured Burn Gorman as Lord John,lol.

Fred Armisen is just awful. His sketches are horrifically unfunny. And you can tell he thinks he is the greatest comedy legend of all time. I know this isn’t the post with the SNL write-up, but I can’t wait.

think the best part was the short and how that woman left him hanging in the intro.

For me, the scene with her returning home and walking from the carriage to the house……thanking Magnus…..that was harder for me than her waking to find her daughter was stillborn. I cried so much during that small, but powerful scene. Sadly, I had a small disappointment in the scene between Claire and Jamie after he returned home. I wanted to see tears in Jamie’s eyes when Claire is describing Faith to him, and I was expecting the reveal where he thought she had died at the duel. Caitriona was right about Romann Berrux. He was just wonderful in that nightmare scene. I thought the King’s antechamber where she was to judge the Comte and Raymond was visually stunning. And Stanley Webber was just fantastic as the Comte. The emotions that ran over his face throughout that scene……so subtle yet so telling. He kept the Comte’s arrogance while still showing his fear.

When her stone blackened and then that dum-dum-dum beat of music, the emotions he went through knowing he was for sure going to die… thank you for giving me the actor’s name.

So if that’s the end of the Paris storyline, does that mean we never find out who raped Mary? I thought they focused on the mark on that one rapist’s hand so that we would be able to spot him later.

If they keep the same story as the books (which they have so far) you’ll find out. It’s definitely coming!

Oh I was on my seat edge and in a puddle of tears the entire episode. Cait is truly a gifted actress, my god. Claire’s bow to the headbutler, even. I’m a complete mess. And I know people always say this actor or that actor deserves an award, but she absolutely destroyed me with her work this episode. Diana and the show writers gave her almost impossibly wrenching material, and she MET IT. I don’t know how she isn’t still sleeping off the sheer energy loss she must have gone through for all that grief. Good lord.

I will miss St. Germain sexiness as well. I’ll miss a lot of these France characters.

And also, just the whole trial in the king’s chamber thing was just a brilliantly crafted scene. It really did feel like a dramatic high stakes game of strategy or something. I screamed in fear for her when she called herself a witch, and then I was just scared to death for Master Raymond. I don’t think I took a breath until the Comte started admitting all his crimes and mase sure you knew he was just a plain nasty human being. He was sexy, but he deserved it!

I don’t think I’ve ever cried so hard while watching a tv show! When she gets out of the carriage and slowly walks up and Suzette is crying and then the entire Magnus scene..my heart can’t handle it!!

Ditto. Cait is amazing. Both her & Sam deserve some recognition for their great work.

Oliver jackson-choen. Good looks, boyish face, elegant, aristocratic. He is exactly how I pictured Lord john. He will look great in white wig and red uniform!

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