Outlander fans might have overlooked a crucial detail from a scene in season two where Claire Fraser, portrayed by Caitríona Balfe, was poisoned by the Comte St. Germain, played by Stanley Weber.
The nefarious Comte and other French nobles poisoned Claire as payback for causing them to lose a ship full of goods.
Claire, a doctor from the 20th century, accurately identified a smallpox outbreak on the docked ship.
In line with the standard procedure of the time, the ship and its cargo were incinerated to halt the spread of the disease.
In retaliation, Claire was served a drink laced with a small amount of bitter cascara, a natural laxative rather than a deadly substance, reports the Daily Record.
The aftermath of Claire Fraser’s poisoning was shot months before the attempt itself (Image: STARZ)
Rather than trying to murder her, the poisoning was a warning, with Claire discovering that the Comte had purchased it from Master Raymond’s apothecary, played by Dominique Pinon.
What viewers may not have noticed is that the filming of this scene differed significantly from how it appeared on screen.
In a previous episode of the official Outlander podcast, executive producer Ronald D. Moore and executive producer and writer Toni Graphia provided insight into the behind-the-scenes workings of the sequence.
Moore revealed: “All the Paris stuff was shot in Scotland and then we went to Prague at the end.”
Claire Fraser was poisoned by the French nobility (Image: STARZ)
Graphia further explained: “The interior Paris stuff was shot in Scotland, but we saved certain scenes.”
Moore added: “Which is very complicated, it’s called crossboarding when you’re separating scenes like that and shooting in batches, which is a practice.
“But doing it as aggressively as we did in season two with Prague and Scotland and France and the South of England, and all this kind of stuff, it’s very complicated – not just in terms of production but also for the actors.
“Because the actors have to remember where there were. I don’t how they do it.”
Claire and Jamie’s scene after the poisoning was filmed in Scotland earlier (Image: STARZ)
Writer Graphia lauded the cast for their ability to transition between these different parts of the story and deliver powerful performances: “Hats off to them.
“They have to shoot all these things out of order and today it’s like, ‘Hey, am I happy? Am I sad? Am I mad at Jamie? How far along in the story are we?”.
“It’s very tricky to boomerang those emotions from day to day and they do it masterfully.”
Executive producer Moore chimed in: “They do it so well. Like this sequence is the aftermath of her poisoning but they hadn’t shot the poisoning yet. We didn’t shoot the poisoning for months.”
This implies actress Balfe would have had to align her performance from the aftermath of the poisoning with the attempt itself, which was filmed months later.