‘Outlander: Blood of My Blood’: Stars on Julia’s Actions to Save Her Baby & MacKenzie Family Drama

[Warning: The below and video above contain MAJOR spoilers for Outlander: Blood of My Blood, Season 1 Episode 3, “School of the Moon.”]

Outlander: Blood of My Blood upped the Clan MacKenzie stakes in Episode 3, “School of the Moon,” as brothers Colum (Séamus McLean Ross) and Dougal (Sam Retford) continued to clash over who would take over as laird, in order to win the clan over. Meanwhile, Julia (Hermione Corfield) was faced with a harsh reality when Davina (Sara Vickers) began to question whether she was pregnant or not, as she’d not bled once since arriving at Castle Leathers.

And these are the topics being discussed in the latest edition of our Outlander: Blood of My Blood Aftershow. As viewers see in this episode, Ellen (Harriet Slater) has discovered that Colum made a deal to have her betrothed to Malcolm Grant (Jhon Lumsden), but Dougal wasn’t exactly pleased with the deal, and tried cutting his own deal with Marcus MacRannoch (Dominic Fraser). It turned out that Colum and Dougal’s grab for power without being a united front stemmed from their youth, particularly when Colum was injured and was permanently changed because of it.

Thrown from his horse, a flashback revealed the moments Colum was carried into Castle Leoch by Dougal after a mission their father sent them on went sideways. Red Jacob (Peter Mullan) was displeased, but he seemed even angrier that his sons couldn’t get along long enough to work together.

Ellen, eager to have herself removed from a tug-of-war between clans that were after her hand, swayed Ned Gowan (Conor MacNeill) to convince her brothers to split their duties, with Colum stepping in as laird and Dougal serving as war chieftain. The men agreed to the deal, unaware their sister had a hand in pushing them toward agreement.

This meant that Ellen was no longer promised to the MacRannochs, leaving only Malcolm Grant to be dealt with as she continued to pine after love Brian Fraser (Jamie Roy), who appeared to her in a rather steamy dream at the top of the episode. Brian, likewise, startled to learn about Ellen’s betrothal after a saddened Murtagh (Rory Alexander) informs him of the predicament, and brings it up to his father, Lord Lovat (Tony Curran), as he suggested it could be bad for Clan Fraser if the MacKenzies were to align with the Grants, who are an ally of theirs.

But Lord Lovat’s idea of breaking the betrothal involved the idea of tarnishing Ellen’s reputation, which Brian didn’t care for. Meanwhile, in the servants’ quarters at Castle Leathers, Julia was urged by Davina to drink a concoction that could rid her of the baby she carried, as she advised the sassenach that the dangers of carrying another man’s baby in the presence of Lord Lovat would be dangerous. Julia stood by the fact that she wasn’t pregnant, lying to Davina.

By the episode’s end, Julia had resolved to protect her baby’s future by making a really bold choice to sleep with Lord Lovat in order to cover up her pregnancy and try to pass the baby off as his own. In the lead-up to that scene, though, Julia’s strength begins to take some hits, and we see her break down over the predicament she’s found herself in. According to Corfield, that sequence of events wasn’t filmed until a little later.

“We kind of had shot it before where she’s just still… she’s almost just accepted her fate. But I think the story-wise… it felt like it happened too quickly. So we then shot more of her making the decision and breaking down a bit before going to do it,” Corfield reveals in the Aftershow, above. “I think she gets to a point of desperation where she realizes that it’s going to be the baby dying or being taken away, or doing that act. And I think she puts the baby first, and it’s not to do with her own survival, it’s 100 percent to do with the baby’s survival.”

Meanwhile, Julia’s husband Henry (Jeremy Irvine) hasn’t given up on his search for her, asking around, and even getting Ned’s help to task a Madame with trying to uncover Julia’s whereabouts. Will he succeed? Only time will tell. Check out what else Corfield, Curran, Retford, MacNeill, Ross, and Alexander have to share about Episode 3 in the full aftershow above, and stay tuned for more as Outlander: Blood of My Blood continues to unfold.

Outlander: Blood of My Blood, Season 1, Fridays, 8/7c, Starz