【Ashley Lopez Archives】

This recap contains spoilers for Outlander Season 3,Ashley Lopez Archives episode 6, titled "A. Malcolm." To refresh your memory of where we left off, check out our episode 5 recap.

On Oct. 22, Outlanderfinally gave us the reunion that we've been waiting five episodes for (which is a while, sure, but definitely preferable to the 20 years that Claire and Jamie had to suffer through).

"A. Malcolm" was supersized to 74 minutes to give Claire and Jamie (and us) ample opportunity to... ahem... catch up -- which was just as well, considering how frequently they were interrupted over the course of the episode.

The narrative spine of episode 306 -- beyond the simple anticipation of Claire and Jamie's physical reunion -- traced their tentative steps back together on an emotional level.

As Jamie pointed out with agonizing honesty, they almost know less about each other now, after 20 years of separate life experiences, than they did when they first got together. That resulted in some beautifully awkward (and kind of heartbreaking) moments as the couple relearned each other -- like Jamie's instinct to turn around out of modesty when he had to take off his trousers in front of Claire, despite the fact that she's seen it all before.

"I think Claire, when she goes back... this is a woman who's put her entire romantic and sexual life on hold for the best part of 20 years. Obviously that gives you a slight rigidity," Caitriona Balfe tells us. "I think it's that thing of, almost like when you go home to your family, we all sort of regress, and even though there's that initial trepidation with Jamie, once they're in each other's company, all of that starts to strip away quite quickly."

Jamie's had plenty of aliases over the course of the show, and episode 6 introduces one more: the titular "A. Malcolm." Sam Heughan tells us that he relished the opportunity to explore another new facet of his character in a season that has already been full of transitions.

"I love that episode because it's like, we lose track of Jamie; he's gone through these different permeations of different people. He's obviously Jamie Fraser, then he's an outlaw -- the Dunbonnet -- then he's Mac Dubh, then he's Mac to Willie. So he becomes these people and finally we find him as Alexander Malcolm, this print maker," he says. "I loved that first scene in episode 6 where he's going about his everyday business at the print shop. I was like, 'Who is he now?' And it was so fun to think about what's been going on in his life since we last saw him. So when [Claire] reappears, it's a blast from the past -- a blast from the future. She turns his whole world upside down, which is exactly what happened in Season 1."

Many of the moments in the print shop were lifted straight from Diana Gabaldon's Voyager, but the producers did decide to deviate from the novel in one pivotal way -- after Claire told Jamie about their daughter, Brianna, he opened up about the fact that he also has a son, Willie. That's a revelation that comes much later in the book, but executive producer Maril Davis reasons, "when she brings up Brianna, I just think he feels like 'I want to share this and get it off my chest," so that he's not keeping too many secrets from her right off the bat. (That doesn't mean he doesn't have othersecrets, of course.)

Balfe points out that after 20 years apart, it's inevitable for Claire and Jamie to have put each other up on a pedestal, but she notes that it's hard for anyone to live up to those romantic ideals.

"There's that initial excitement and... it's almost like no time has ever passed. Then you have to start learning who that person is again. It's like a complete reintroduction, and unfortunately both of them have changed," she says. "It would be ridiculous to imagine that Jamie hasn't lived a life, same with Claire. I think it's hard sometimes to reconcile the person in front of you with the image in your head, but they do."

Heughan reveals that by this point in his life Jamie has basically closed off a huge part of who he is, because he isn't whole without Claire. He explains that he tried to shape the character over the course of the season in response to that loss.

"When he's at Culloden and afterwards, he's lost her, but he sees her. And definitely as the Dunbonnet, he's this feral, barely human being... I tried to make him more animalistic," he says. "So it's about his awareness and his character -- he's quite an outgoing and resilient 'king of men,' so it's about shutting all that down. And then as Mac Dubh, he's more separated from everyone; he's in the shadows. So then when she does come back, it's a reawakening of who Jamie Fraser is."

That reawakening has its bumps in the road -- including Jamie accidentally bashing Claire in the nose when they start to get hot and heavy again -- but let's be honest; that's part of the charm of their dynamic. Real life sex is rarely as easy and perfect as it's often portrayed in pop culture, and these characters are so resonant precisely because their relationship is so honest, even in the most fantastical circumstances.

"We wanted to have it not be the classic romance novel moment. We wanted to play with it in terms of that they're like two teenagers again," Balfe says. "And to do some mirroring to the wedding episode, where even though they've never forgotten about each other, they don't really know each other. So there's definitely a process of discovery, and they're not quite sure what to do with their bodies or their words. And I think that that lends a realism to it."

Outlanderairs Sundays at 8 p.m. on Starz.