This story contains spoilers for Outlander Season 3, episode 8, titled "First Wife." To refresh your memory of where we left off, check out our episode 7 recap.

Now we know why Jamie was so hesitant to tell Claire his other big secret.

Okay, if you've read Diana Gabaldon's Voyager, you've known about — and likely been waiting for — this moment since the season began, as Claire finally came face to face with Jamie's second wife (and her longtime nemesis) Laoghaire, the woman who was so jealous of Claire's relationship with Jamie that she plotted to have her burned at the stake as a witch back in Season 1.

And, judging by Laoghaire's actions in episode 8, middle age hasn't made her more reasonable — she ends up shooting Jamie in a jealous rage, which gives us another great opportunity to see Claire in surgeon mode, but also uses up her precious penicillin.

So, yeah, of all the women Jenny could've emotionally blackmailed Jamie into marrying, we probably would've voted for Mary McNab.

One of the biggest changes from Gabaldon's book came from Jamie deciding to tell Claire about his son, Willie, at the same time Claire told him about their daughter, Brianna, in episode 6 — something that happened much later in Voyager — but simultaneously choosing to withhold the truth about his marriage with Laoghaire, something he's struggled with ever since.

Executive producer Toni Graphia gave us some insight into how the writers chose to approach Jamie's big revelations: "In the book there are several secrets, and they come out at various times in various ways," she explained, noting that, with the show having limited real estate to space out each big bombshell, it would've become hard to justify why Jamie was keeping so many things from Claire and dropping them one after another over the course of weeks or months, instead of right away.

"At some point you'd start saying, 'Okay, what else are you keeping from me?' Jamie's a very honorable, very principled man. It would be hard for him to keep any secret from Claire. But we made the judgment when we looked at these secrets that the Laoghaire one is one that would put him at risk of losing Claire," Graphia said. "We decided that if he told her that right out of the gate, she would run screaming back to the stones, 'cause that would be something she couldn't wrap her mind around."

"He feels bad that he holds onto it until they can get on more solid ground and get to know each other again and feel secure again," she added. "He doesn't want to lie to her or keep that from her, but he feels like he also wants to buy himself some time to check with Ned Gowan and find out whether that marriage is even valid anymore now that the first wife is back. He was hoping to tell her that with news of, 'Don't worry, it's not even an issue now. I checked legally with Ned Gowan,' to soften that blow a little bit."

Graphia said that the Willie revelation felt different because "he wasn't afraid to lose her over having a son. He wasn't afraid that she was gonna leave him, especially because he didn't love the mother and he was blackmailed into that one night ... She knew before she ever went back that he might've fallen in love with someone else, and that's really her only question to him. 'Cause if you notice in the reunion, a few times he gets uncomfortable and he starts to tell her things, and she kinda shushes him and says, 'The only thing I need to know is did you ever fall in love with anyone else?' And he says, very truthfully, 'No.' That's enough for Claire."

The Willie revelation came from a place of happiness, not heaviness, according to Graphia. "He wasn't confessing it... It was something that was important to him that he wanted to share. He loves Willie, and Willie's probably the only joyous thing that happened to him while Claire was gone. And while they're discussing Brianna, it felt like an organic time for him to say, 'I want to share something with you. I have a son.' We saw it as a bonding thing with Claire."

While some fans might not have agreed with the choice, Graphia insisted that "we truly meant it not at all to take away from Brianna. Jamie very much wants to know about Brianna — in fact, in future episodes, he brings Brianna up, and they discuss her in practically every episode. But if they had talked about Brianna and he didn't mention his son, and mentioned it later ... We saw it as something that we thought would bring them closer, and we meant it to be a celebration. That's why we mentioned Faith as well, because it was a moment of reverence for the three children between them."

In fact, that journey of fatherhood is something that's integral to Jamie's character this season, as showrunner Ron Moore explained to us.

"He knew he would never see the child he sent through the stones with Claire, so that child is gone to him. He has Willie, but he can't really be a father to him — but he enjoys him for the few years he has — and then has to let go of him as well," Moore noted. "And then the next step of that development is when he marries Lagohaire, in large part because Lagohaire has two daughters, and we play it where that was a really strong motive for him to do this in the first place, because he wanted to be a father and he wanted to have a family and he kind of talked himself into believing that this would work. So it's really important to see that on Claire's side, she has this whole experience as a mother and raising a daughter, but Jamie's desire to have that for himself was equally as powerful on the other side."

Graphia agreed, "My favorite part of the episode is the Hogmanay... and you see that Jamie, who's been depressed and lonely and sad, and his life is just an empty shell without Claire, sees these girls, and the girls sense his sadness, and they pull him out of his shell. And he falls in love with those girls, and he doesn't even know they're Laoghaire's girls."

Despite both Claire and Jenny telling Jamie that he doesn't understand what it means to be a worried parent over episodes 7 and 8, it's clear that his protective instincts are every bit as honed as theirs.

"One of my favorite things, and it goes by kind of unnoticed, maybe, is that when they burst in the room and Claire looks at that little girl and she obviously thinks, 'Oh, my God, here's this little redheaded girl — that's his daughter.' He could've right then said, 'It's not what you're thinking. She's not my daughter.' And he doesn't, because he would never hurt that little girl," Graphia pointed out.

"He could've protected himself right away with Claire by blurting that out, because a lesser man would've said, 'Don't worry, that's not my kid.' And that would've killed that little girl. So he actually leaves the room letting Claire think that might be his daughter because he puts that little girl first ... He goes downstairs and talks to her and he tries to explain Claire. And then he comes back up and he takes it, Claire's anger and Claire's confusion, because his first thing, as any parent will tell you, [is to] protect the child. And even though that's his adopted child and he's only been her parent for a few years, he put her feelings first and I think Claire understood that eventually. But that really made me love Jamie Fraser right there."

We see that there's still a lot of insecurity between Claire and Jamie, even after the steaminess of their reunion — and as much as Claire is concerned about Laoghaire, it's clear that Jamie is equally worried about her time with Frank.

"He doesn't ask her right when she gets back, like, 'Well, did you love him? Did you sleep with him? What was the deal there?' But in the back of his mind, he's like, 'So, what did happen with that?'" Graphia noted, pointing out that it wouldn't have been terribly romantic for them to interrogate each other like a cop show on their first night together.

"Their reunion is fragile, and they have to treat it with kid gloves. They have to get to know each other again and explore these things, and you have to parse out the information in a way where you know that it's also not just for Jamie — it's not like a selfish thing. It's also being protective of Claire, and trying to not break her heart, but let her know [these things] in the time frame of where she could understand it," she said.

"And the other thing we talk about all the time is that in the book you're hearing Claire narrate it. It's her point of view. If you're talking about Claire and what she's seeing and her feelings, there's not a camera on Jamie while she's doing that, because it's a book... You would have to imagine, 'What is Jamie doing right now?' Well, right about now he'd be looking kind of uncomfortable. So we do see hints that he is wrestling with this, and that he's trying to find the best way to do this to protect the relationship."

Of course, before Claire and Jamie can get back on solid ground — and before Claire can answer Jamie's lingering question, "Will you risk the man I am for the sake of the one you once knew?" (swoon) — Young Ian is captured by a mystery ship off Selkies Isle, with Jamie too injured to swim after him.

Which means that Claire and Jamie will have to find a ship of their own, to follow Young Ian into a brand new chapter on their journey — one that will lead to some very unexpected places...

Outlander airs Sundays at 8 p.m. on Starz.