From THR:

“This scene is crucial to the story, so I stand by what we showed,” Toni Graphia, the writer behind Saturday’s episode, tells THR.

[Warning: this story contains spoilers from Saturday’s episode of Outlander, “Faith.”]

Read more after the jump!

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It’s time for Outlander to return to its roots.

After an emotionally taxing and dangerous few months in France, Jamie (Sam Heughan) and Claire (Caitriona Balfe) decided to go home to Scotland after burying their dead baby. The trauma of witnessing Jamie and Black Jack Randall’s (Tobias Menzies) duel caused Claire to deliver her child too early, and after losing her baby, Claire almost died in the hospital. She was saved by her friend Master Raymond (Dominique Pinon) who healed her, and she returned the favor almost immediately.

When Claire decided to petition the King of France (Lionel Lingelser) for Jamie’s release from the Bastille, he asked for her “La Dame Blanche” abilities in return to help him uncover users of the dark arts. Claire then had to decide whether to doom Master Raymond or Le Comte St. Germain (Stanley Weber) to death. She tried to give them both an herb that would only make them sick and not kill them, but after sparing Master Raymond’s life, he used slight of hand to add real poison to the concoction, killing Claire’s rival (after he admitted to trying to poison her earlier). King Louis XV, satisfied with his show, banished Master Raymond from France. But he wasn’t done with Claire.

The King then raped Claire in his room in exchange for Jamie’s freedom. Claire suffered through it, knowing that Jamie only went to duel Black Jack because Jamie caught him raping young Fergus (Romann Berrux). She had noticed that Fergus was having nightmares, and he finally confessed to her what had happened in the brothel that lead to Jamie breaking his vow to Claire. Fergus tried to steal perfume for Claire, but unfortunately it was from Black Jack’s room, and he caught the young boy and began raping him. Jamie heard the screams and ran in to stop it, and that’s when he challenged Black Jack to a duel. After Claire’s actions with the King, Jamie was released from the Bastille, and the couple hashed out their issues and apologized for all that happened between them. They decided to try again to have another child, and to leave Paris and return to Scotland.

The Hollywood Reporter spoke with Outlander producer and the writer behind Saturday’s episode, Toni Graphia, about why it was “crucial” to show Fergus’ rape, and the “hopeful” new chapter for Jamie and Claire’s relationship going forward.

When you first found out that this was going to be your episode, what did you wanted to accomplish with writing the script?

I didn’t just hear it was going to be my episode, I was like, I will wrestle to the ground anyone who tries to take this episode. (Laughs.) When I read Dragonfly in Amber, this was the portion of the book that really drew me in. I titled the episode already in my mind, I knew I had to write this episode. I loved the star chamber, I love the baby and the emotions of the baby story. And [showrunner] Ron [D. Moore] is very generous. Most showrunners assign scripts in a hierarchy in who goes first and who gets what episode, but Ron trusts his writers and lets us tell him what spoke to us. I had said early on that this year, this is the one. It was a real honor to be trusted with this material and I wanted to do it justice. I know it’s a fan favorite in the book, and it’s so intense so it was really hard to write but I wasn’t going to get out of this season without having my name on it.

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