Outlander: Blood of My Blood took another unexpected twist this week after Julia Beauchamp (played by Hermione Corfield) gave birth to a healthy baby boy following a traumatic labour ordeal, while her husband Henry Beauchamp (Jeremy Irvine) was spiralling into madness after he was wrongly told his wife and child had died during the delivery.
The episode titled Birthright was lacking in Brian Fraser (Jamie Roy) and Ellen MacKenzie (Harriet Slater) content after fans were sent into meltdown over the scenes at Beltane, which the cast hailed as important to the show last week.
Now, however, many fans have started to predict what will happen next for Brian and Ellen’s doomed love after the trailer for episode seven dropped.
In the brief teaser, the couple were reunited before her brother Dougal MacKenzie (Sam Retford) ripped Brian away from Ellen, and questions started to emerge about her honour.
Lord Lovat (Tony Curran) was gloating when it looked as though the seeds of doubt had been planted amongst those in Clan Grant, particularly after he wrote a series of letters trying to dispute her virtue.
Many took to Reddit to theorise the pair’s next big move, with one person posting: “Based on the preview I’m hoping this is finally the kick for Ellen and Brian to get the hell out but I can’t see how they’ll keep them away from the rest of the story for the remaining episodes.
“Like she can only buy herself some time by lying till they might try and check her physically and then she’ll have no chance to get the heck out. So she has to get away asap after she says no it’s not true.”
A second agreed: “Yeh definitely. They need to “run away” and become visibly pregnant fairly soon if they are gonna get married in the last ep.
“I think the whole stramash with Brian and Lovat today was the kick up the a*** Brian needed to get tf out. I’m sure he will be worried about leaving his mother behind [sic].”
A third commented: “I think we might finally get an episode that features BOTH couples storylines! Praise be. I’m sick of the back and forth. And stop making me wait two weeks for Brian and Ellen scenes. “
Another Redditor joked: “Maybe by the end of the season they finally meet again and Brian and Ellen finally run off hiding.”
The trailer also saw Murtagh Fitzgibbons (Rory Alexander) confronting Brian, confirming he knew about the clandestine affair with Ellen.
The predictions come after this week’s sixth episode left many audience members upset, particularly with the inclusion of several flashback scenes featuring Davina Porter (Sara Vickers) being raped by Lord Lovat and her own traumatic birth.
Many blasted the scenes as one person posted on Reddit: “We did not need two scenes of Lord Lovat on the ‘toilet’. We did not need two Davina rape scenes.”
Someone else commented: “I agree. I’m pretty sure we all knew Brian wasn’t conceived from a loving union. There was no need to show us. If Lovat raped Davina once and got her pregnant it stands to reason he did it multiple times. We the viewers are smart enough to deduce that without seeing it.”
As a third noted: “I 100% think we could’ve done without them (or at least, done them differently), but they did help me understand Davina more. It was all building up to explain Davina’s own birth scene, and her “forgiveness” of Julia.”
A fourth added: “That’s was one of the most painful episodes of television I’ve seen. Right up there with “Wentworth Prison”. Hard to have words, right now.”
Yet another commented: “Ugh, that flashback with Lovat and Davina was completely unnecessary. Edit: the second one too.”
Fans will have to see if next week’s episode seven will hold a little more lightness than the scenes this week.