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‘Outlander’ Season 3: Caitriona Balfe On Claire’s ‘All-Consuming’ Love For Jamie

By Amie LaFleur
Published on: 06:42 PST, Feb 12, 2017

Warning: This article may contain Outlander Season 3 spoilers.

Outlander Season 3 is still months away from airing on Starz, but production of the much-anticipated new season is moving along at a brisk pace. According to the Scottish Daily Record, shooting wrapped in Scotland last week, and the show’s cast and crew are now headed for South Africa to begin the final block of filming.

Apparently, Outlander Season 3 production crews will be utilizing the enormous sets built for the TV show Black Sails in Cape Town, and the area will be standing in for Jamaica. Fans of author Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series know that Jamaica plays a major role in Voyager, the book upon which Season 3 is based. It is from the island that a reunited Jamie (Sam Heughan) and Claire (Caitriona Balfe) attempt a daring escape from a customs agent — an event that sets up the fourth book in the series.

But before the couple is reunited, much of Outlander Season 3 will deal with Jamie and Claire’s attempts to live without each other — Jamie back in 1746, and Claire with her first husband, Frank (Tobias Menzies), in the 20th century.

Caitriona Balfe previewed some of Claire’s upcoming struggles to TV Guide’s TV Insider, who also published exclusive new production stills.

“At this point in Claire’s life, Jamie’s dead. She’s trying to build a life after him, but once you’ve experienced a love so all-consuming, nothing can live up to it,” Balfe said. “Claire decides to focus on her career and tries to slot Frank in. That leads to disappointment and resentment. It’s a broken marriage.”

One bright spot for the conflicted pair will be Brianna, the baby Frank agrees to raise even though Jamie is the father.

“Claire and Frank are coparenting, so it’s not miserable 24/7.”

Balfe also talked about Claire and Frank’s complicated Outlander Season 3 relationship with E! News.

“We start the season, I think everyone’s seen from the trailer so it’s not a spoiler, that Claire goes back to Frank,” she explained. “And it’s very tough for her, because this is a man who really didn’t do anything wrong. You know, he was her first love, he was a good husband to her, but because of circumstances, she fell in love with someone else in a much deeper and much truer way than she ever did with Frank. So when she goes back, she’s a woman in the depths of grief, and also here’s a man who’s kind of pleading and full of hope and full of love and expects them to maybe get back to where they were. And that will never happen for Claire, so she feels love for him but also feels she has to keep him at an arm’s length.”

[Image via Starz]

The entertainment website also chatted with Tobias Menzies, who provided insights into Frank’s perspective.

“I don’t get a sense that he’s moved on emotionally, particularly,” he said. “I don’t get a sense that he’s gotten involved with anyone else. He seems like a man who’s sort of had to bury that bit of himself.”

According to the actor, Frank has likely stopped searching for Claire by the time she shows up again and “buried himself in work” to try to cope with his grief. When Claire finally turns up pregnant with Jamie’s baby, Frank responds the best way he knows how.

“His good qualities are that he’s loyal, I think he has — he’s moral. I think he is, albeit maybe quiet, he’s a person of substance. When we see the stuff in Episode 1, his response is rather remarkable. A very compromised, a very imperfect, but nonetheless wonderful expression of love, really.”

In other Outlander Season 3 news, last week, series co-executive producer Maril Davis tweeted a dialogue preview from the new season.

She didn’t say who spoke the dialogue but did confirm it came from an Outlander Season 3 script.

What do you think about Claire’s storyline with Frank in Outlander Season 3?

Outlander Season 3 returns to Starz later this year.

[Featured Image via Starz]

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