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First Look at Claire and Jamie in Season 2 of OUTLANDER

First Look at Claire and Jamie in Season 2 of OUTLANDER

The last time we saw Claire and Jamie (which really wasn’t that long ago), they were sailing off away from Scotland, and away from the physical and psychopathic torture of “Black Jack” Randall, to France and it’s silk fineries. Well, EW didn’t let us wait too long to see Claire and Jamie in Season 2 of Outlander, as they presented images of the two.

With it, a Q&A with executive producer Ronald D. Moore, on what’s to come for season 2.

Where do we pick up with Claire and Jamie in season 2? Are they fresh off the boat from Scotland?
Well, how the opening episode literally opens I won’t get into, obviously, because that’s just how we tell the story, but the story of Jamie and Claire in the 18th century pretty much starts with their arrival in France. The big story point picks up from where we left season 1, which is Claire and Jamie deciding to attempt to change history by stopping the Jacobite rebellion and changing history so as to prevent the slaughter on Culloden Moor and the destruction of the Highland culture after it. That’s the major plot going into the season.

And how much of Jamie’s assault at the hands of Black Jack in the season 1 finale will hang over into the upcoming season?
It definitely colors his character throughout. It’s not at the forefront of the story, but it’s a pretty big character story for him, so the after-effects of that and the reverberations through their relationship does carry forward well into the season.

 

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In these First Looks from the new season, Claire and Jamie have noticeably stepped up their fashion game. What sort of discussions did you and Terry [costume designer and Ron’s wife] have about the wardrobe and the look you’re after?
We talked about it very early, actually, midway through the first season because she had to get a jump on creating the costumes and buying fabrics to cut and all that, so those discussions go way back at this point. It’s just a completely different look. Everything about Paris is so completely different, especially the costumes because you’re dealing with a world—the aristocratic world is the circle Jamie and Claire basically operate in while they’re in that part of the story. It’s the most stylish city in the world during this time. A lot more money. A lot of finery. Scotland is featuring a lot of heavy wools and more organic colors. In Paris everyone wants to be a peacock. You’ve got a much wider palette of textiles and colors and styles than you did in Scotland. It’s a completely different world.

And that kind of goes across the board for all the departments, frankly. The art department faces a similar challenge. There were really no sets or pieces of sets that we could use for Paris that we’d used for Scotland. We had to build an entire apartment for Jamie and Claire to live in. There are carriages, there are servants with livery, there are props and furniture. It’s completely different. It’s a whole new show. It will look completely different than season 1.

Important question: Does this mean Jamie won’t be wearing a kilt?
He’ll do both. He will wear his kilt on occasion, and on others he won’t.

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For fans who’ve read the series’ second book, Dragonfly in Amber, how closely would you say this season hews?
I think there’s more adaptation. I think there are changes. For fans who know the book, they know the book is a more complicated structure in terms of how Diana wrote it. The point of view changed a couple of times in the book. She played with more stuff with time going on in the second book. The interior storyline of the politics of the Jacobite rebellion and Paris is more complex. So it was not as easy an adaptation as the first season was. The first season was more of straightforward, “Okay, we have to sort of make changes that clean up this narrative line, that make it a through line for television and carve it into episodes.” But it was always kind of clear what the basic structure was: Claire’s trying to get home, then she meets this guy, now she’s falling in love, now she has a conflict, will she go home. You lay it out in a very linear fashion. Book 2 is just a more complex book. It’s laid out very differently, as a result it took more wrangling to try to figure out how to translate this particular story into our season. There were more complications, there were more characters, there were more shifting points of view. It was a bigger task. The thing that gives me the most comfort is that Diana likes it a lot. She had said, “Oh, I really liked the way you did it. it was a difficult plot, I know, but I think you really found the essence of it. You really found the through line that really defines what this part of the journey is.” So I feel good about it. It’s not going to be a literal adaptation because I don’t think that’s possible with the second book…. But I think it’s very much the same story, the major characters are all represented, the major scenes are all represented, and it still gets you to all the same places you want to go.

You can read the full article at EW.com