It’s been nearly 10 years — nine to be exact — since Outlander‘s gut-wrenching Season 2 episode “Faith” arrived on Starz, originally airing May 21, 2016, and it still drums up chills.

While Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and Jamie (Sam Heughan) have endured plenty of traumas over seven seasons, the loss of their first daughter Faith remains a particularly potent pain. Although the episode’s next milestone anniversary isn’t for another year, the impact of “Faith” resurfaced in the series’ most recent finale, “A Hundred Thousand Angels,” after it was implied that the stillborn the couple had left behind in France decades earlier may have, in fact, survived.

With this recent revisiting of “Faith,” TV Insider caught up with executive producers Matthew B. Roberts and Maril Davis to reflect on the making of the episode, which, Davis notes, “is incredibly emotional. Caitriona does an amazing job in that episode, and I think we wanted to pay homage to that in some ways and do some callbacks,” she adds of Season 7’s recent parallels to the 2016 installment.

For those who require a little refresher, “Faith” picks up moments after Claire went into early labor upon seeing Jamie illegally dueling his nemesis, Black Jack Randall (Tobias Menzies).

Brought to L’Hôpital des Anges, Claire is assisted by doctors and nurses, including Mother Hildegarde (Frances de La Tour), as they try to save her life and the life of her unborn child. Ultimately, efforts to save Faith aren’t possible as the child is stillborn, and Claire burns with fever after portions of the placenta remain inside her following the delivery.

It’s Master Raymond (Dominique Pinon) who uses his healing abilities to clear the infection from Claire’s system, allowing her to return home as Jamie remains imprisoned for dueling. Swimming in grief, Claire tries caring for her and Jamie’s then-ward, Fergus (Roman Berrux). When the boy begins to have nightmares, he confesses that Black Jack Randall had begun to abuse him during a scary moment at the local brothel. Jamie found the red coat hurting Fergus and dared the man to a duel.

Fergus’s story relays to Claire that Jamie hadn’t broken his promise to avoid dueling Black Jack Randall on a whim, that there were stakes involved in his choice. With this in mind, Claire goes to King Louis XV (Lionel Lingelser) to beg for Jamie’s release from prison. The King requests that she oversee the trials of Master Raymond and Comte St. Germaine (Stanley Weber), who are both accused of sorcery.

Starz

The trial leaves the Comte dead. Master Raymond is saved, but mostly due to his own intervention. Claire is also forced to sleep with the King before he grants Jamie’s freedom. When the couple is finally reunited, they struggle with the weight of their grief. Claire memorably tells Jamie, “I hated you,” upon confronting him about the duel.

Claire wonders aloud how they could ever be the same after what’s taken place, and Jamie’s quick to point out they never will be. The episode concludes with their burial of Faith in France before gearing up for a return to Scotland ahead of the Battle of Culloden. It’s a series standout story-wise as well as for Balfe, who, while always at the top of her game, is an utter tour de force here.

“It’s probably the episode [writer/executive producer] Toni Graphia is most known for, and I think it’s so emotional,” Davis tells TV Insider. The episode “Faith” was heavily sourced in putting together Season 7’s finale, which was filled with Easter eggs. “One of the favorite moments in that episode [is] actually when Claire comes home after being in the hospital, and all of the people who work where she lives line up and greet her,” Davis recalls. “It’s just so heartbreaking how they welcome her back and absorb, or try to absorb, some of her trauma and her pain.”

Almost 10 years later, Roberts doesn’t see the episode any differently than he did when it was made, but admits, “Every now and then you’re making an episode, and even when you’re standing there making it, you realize, ‘Wow, this one’s going to be impactful.’ And [‘Faith’] was one.”

Starz

“We also filmed that particular episode quite a bit on our sets, and then we went out and filmed that in Glasgow at the Glasgow Cathedral, which was pretty amazing that we got the film there. And then we also filmed in Prague,” Roberts adds of the expansive installment, which is supposed to be set in Paris. As fans may recall, much of Season 2’s Parisian exteriors were actually shot in and around Prague, which better resembled the 18th-century version of the city.

The aforementioned courtyard for Claire’s return home following the birth of Faith wasn’t among Prague’s dupe Paris exteriors though, as Davis reveals, “That courtyard was built on our stages. It was not an outside location. We actually built that, which I think is pretty phenomenal.”

“It wasn’t just filmed in a linear fashion where every day you’re doing it,” Roberts explains. ” You had to break it up, but in the moments you’re doing it, you go, ‘This one’s going to leave a mark.’ And it did, and it clearly has, the fact that we’re talking about it now, years later. So when we were developing Season 7 and Season 8, we knew that there were these touchstone moments in [Jamie and Claire’s] lives that we had to call back on, and this was one of those.”

Despite the episode’s spread-out filming schedule between the various locations, Roberts notes that actors are given plenty of prep time for those emotional moments caught onscreen, allowing for the tone of a single episode shot over several days to remain consistent. “When we know that there’s going to be an immensely emotional scene for the actor, we try to schedule that out differently than we do a scene that might not have as much emotion,” he explains. “And we did that certainly for this episode.”

Starz

When it came to approaching Claire’s intense birth scene, which plays out in slow motion with toned-down sounds, Roberts credits the creative collaboration process. “First you imagine the stuff that’s in the book, and then Toni wrote ‘Faith,’ so she put it on the page, and then you imagine it that way, and then Caitriona and Sam and the cast come in and they perform, and it’s not quite what you’ve imagined two other times,” shares Roberts. “I think the goal is always to ask yourself, what’s the emotion that we’re trying to convey? And how do we want the audience to connect with that?”

Davis adds that Claire’s experience during birth was meant to feel lonely without Jamie by her side. “We talked so much about Claire being so alone in that moment and the fact that there’s so much resentment afterwards about Jamie [not being] there.” While Davis acknowledges that it wasn’t his fault and ultimately that anger is resolved, one of the main emotions viewers are supposed to feel is Claire’s loneliness. “Claire was on her own, and no one she had comfort with was there.”

But as Roberts puts it, there’s also “something mysteriously magical and mystical about that moment that you don’t understand… keeping that concept in there was important as well.” Along with Claire’s birth experience, Master Raymond’s healing hands hint at magic, which is something that Roberts believes any viewer of Outlander has to believe in. “She touches a stone, travels through time, and falls in love with a Highlander 200 years in the past, so there’s magic,” he points out.

“I think a lot of these things that happen in Outlander are constructed by destiny… So if there’s magic in ‘Faith’ and there’s magic in that story, then we’ll see what happens.” Roberts adds, teasing about the potential implications of said magic.

Starz

One recurring element introduced in “Faith” that Davis points out is the “color blue,” which she says is used “quite a lot in the show, based on the book, and Master Raymond’s ‘blue’s the color of healing,’ and certainly you see it in that scene. There’s imagery that we use associated with that healing since that season, and it’s not always noticeable on the first time [watching], but maybe if you go back, you might notice things we’ve dropped in here or there,” Davis teases, hinting a new perspective can always be found.

While Jamie and Claire have remembered Faith several times onscreen since Season 2 aired, they were never really the same after her loss. What the implication of her unknown fate could mean for Season 8 is for fans to learn in time. But the pain of the couple’s grief and anger in this episode’s final moments isn’t something Davis and Roberts enjoy putting onscreen.

“We don’t even attempt to do it. The thing is, that’s what’s not believable,” Roberts explains. “We don’t break them up, because that’s the unbelievable part. They have an unbreakable bond. They can get in fights, they can have arguments. She can think she hates him in that moment, but when she found out about Fergus, that Jamie had a reason for what he did, being a solid guy, protecting this child, all of that went away.”

Davis echoes Roberts’ sentiments, adding, “I think one of the amazing things about them and kind of the couple goals part of Jamie and Claire is they can go to such dark places. They have stripped themselves bare. They’re so vulnerable with each other, and they can reveal some ugly truths or some ugly kind of admissions about what they’re feeling and still come out the other side stronger.”

It’s certainly one of the reasons we continue to come back for repeat viewings of this heartbreaking episode. Stay tuned to see how “Faith” may impact the final season of Outlander when it arrives on Starz, and stay tuned for the series’ upcoming prequel, Outlander: Blood of My Blood.

Outlander, Season 8 Premiere, TBA, Starz

Outlander: Blood of My Blood, Series Premiere, Friday, August 8, Starz