‘Outlander’ Season 3 Spoilers: Claire, Frank Raise Her Daughter with Jamie as Their Own; Caitriona Balfe Talks Friendship with Co-Star Sam Heughan

‘Outlander’ season 3 is set to feature Claire and Frank as they raise Claire’s daughter with Jamie as their own. Meanwhile, Caitriona Balfe, who plays Claire in the series, talked about her friendship with co-star Sam Heughan, who plays Jamie.

The first photograph from season 3 of Starz’ historical time travel television series based on the novels of the same name authored by Diana Gabaldon has recently been released by Entertainment Weekly. It showed Claire introducing her daughter Brianna to her modern-day husband Frank (Tobias Menzies).

Balfe described the photograph saying, “This is right after Claire gives birth to Brianna… Those scenes are wonderful because it’s a new beginning, but it’s so fraught with so many other things.”

She continued, “Obviously, this is Jamie’s child, but Claire’s in a new time and believes that Jamie is dead. So she’s really trying to look forward and give her daughter a new life, a stable family. I think it’s difficult for both of them. Frank is coming to terms with his wife. He didn’t quite know what had happened. She disappeared and she’s back. They’re tentatively trying to see if they can patch things up and allow themselves to embrace a future together. They really do try, but it’s not quite that easy.”

Season 2 followed Claire as she was reunited with Frank in her original timeline but she was pregnant with her second child with Jamie’s (Sam Heughan), her other husband from 18th century Scotland. The two left England to begin a new life in Boston, Massachusetts.

It was revealed that season 3 will pick up after the events of its predecessor and will begin with the historical battle of Culloden. It will be a significant departure from Gabaldon’s third book ‘Voyager,’ where the episodes will be based. Jamie is set to fight his arch nemesis Jonathan Black Jack Randall, the man who raped him in prison in season 1.

Photographs posted on Moviepilot featured Jamie and Jonathan fighting it out on the battlefield. Producer Ronald D. Moore teased the looming Battle of Culloden saying, "It just felt like we have been promising it for a while. We should give the audience some sense of what happened on that moor.” The scene will feature heavily in the season 3 premiere compared to the season 2 finale.

According to Culturess, Balfe talked about her friendship with Heughan during a previous interview saying, “We get along incredibly well, we’re both quite childish, we have a ridiculous sense of humor.”

The 37-year old actress added, “I have so much respect for him, he is one of my closest friends as we’ve gone through this crazy experience together and we’re very similar people in many ways and for some reason it just works.”

‘Outlander’ season 3 is scheduled to air on Starz sometime in 2017. It was renewed last June 2016 along with season 4.