If you thought Season 1 of Starz's genre-crossing period drama Outlander was a nail-biter, just wait till you see Jamie and Claire try to change history.

As Season 2 of the sleeper-hit-turned-phenom begins, the pair find themselves in France circa 1745 trying to stop a rebellion that time traveler Claire (Caitriona Balfe) knows will mean the death of thousands.

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It's a mountain of a goal to be sure, but the good news is that means lots of juicy tension and twists for the loyal viewers of this book-to-TV hit to get excited about.

Ahead of the show's Season 2 debut, here's why we'll definitely be tuning in:

There will be surprises even for book readers

Adapting the first book was a piece of cake compared to the challenge that faced the Outlander writers in Season 2. Where as Book 1 had a fairly linear narrative, Book 2 — for those who haven't read — has jumps in time periods, conspiracies, mental chess play and much more.

"As a result, the process of adaptation was much more difficult," says executive producer Ronald D. Moore. ""We made more changes as a result. You just ended up trying to press this stuff into the hour format and also just make it coherent to the audience who hadn't read the book."

As has been talked about for months, Season 2 will also see Jamie and Claire shift a bit away from fighting with swords and brawn to fighting with their minds. In this there's a risk, Moore admits, but "the positive side is, the nature of the books and the story we're telling, change of scenery happens all the time."

"Characters come, characters go. Next week's episode is never going to be like this week's episode. So there's a certain freshness to it," he says.

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Jamie and Claire's new challenges

Sam Heughan admits it was "unsettling" to see Jamie and Claire not only in new physical surroundings but also forced to push shades of their true selves to the background.

They do so, of course, by necessity. But, he admits, there will be strain put upon them.

"They're constantly being dragged into social circles they wouldn't even normally hang out with or participate in. So it was hard," he says. "But the moments that are great are when Jamie and Claire are alone. It's like, 'Ah, they're ok. They're at least touching base with each other.' But it pulls them apart. He's out day and night sort of on this task trying to fill up all this time so he doesn't think about what happened to him and she's kinda of lost and ... goes on her own sort of mission. It's ultimately pulls them away from each other and they begin to lose each other."

Baby love

As anyone who watched the Season 1 finale knows, Claire is pregnant. And beyond a baby bump, what that means for Season 2 is adorable moments between the parents to be, including a makeout scene that has a touching twist. (Warning: mild, adorable tease for a future episode)

The scene actually came to be after author and executive producer Diana Gabaldon suggested in passing to Heughan that they should have a moment where Jamie feels the baby move. Just one week later, Heughan and co-star Balfe were filming a scene where the two characters were going to be interrupted before being intimate.

"We couldn't work out a good reason why and I said, 'This is the exact moment we should do it.' ... Suddenly it becomes this moment," he says.

Feeling his baby move ends up being a huge moment of realization for Jamie.

"I think that's the moment he realizes, 'Wow, it's the three of us,'" he says. "And that's lovely; it's a very tender moment and I think when that other person is in the room or with them, they become closer and it brings them together."

Playing pregnant Claire didn't come easy for Balfe, however. In the scripts, Claire and Jamie are so focused on their missions that much of Claire's personal feelings about the early parts of pregnancy had to be played internally. So she reached out to Gabaldon for advice.

"I was struggling a little bit and I emailed Diana and said can you give me some insight because Claire's having to put this aside. So what is she going through?," Balfe recalls. "And Diana wrote me this beautiful email about her experiences and what goes on when you're pregnant. She said, 'I'm going to tell you things your mom will never tell you.' So it was this wonderful gift of knowledge and really helped me kind of focus and pinpoint what Claire would be going through."

Outlander airs Saturdays on Starz. New episodes will be made available for streaming and download via the Starz standalone streaming service, which launched last week. U.K. viewers can download new episodes on Amazon Prime starting April 10.

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