Warning: This postmortem for the “Through A Glass, Darkly” episode of Outlander contains episode, series, and even a few book spoilers.

Outlander executive producer Ronald D. Moore knows he’s probably gonna get some hate mail from the book purists now that one of the biggest secrets of Season 2 is out of the bag.

“There are still people who are mad about the wedding ring, and that was a fairly small change compared to restructuring the order of book two, starting in the 1940s instead of the 1960s, and enlarging Frank’s part to make him largely more sympathetic,” Moore says. “But I feel good about the changes we made, and I am well aware after doing Battlestar Galactica and Season 1 of this that you are never going to make 100 percent of the people happy 100 percent of the time. That is just how it goes.”



Related: ‘Outlander’ Review: We’re Not In Scotland Anymore



Maybe it would help the haters to know that their spirit animal, author Diana Gabaldon, is still singing the praises of the TV team, even more so than last year given that she wrote an episode and feels more a part of said creative crew, and is not only fine with the adjustments that were made, but she actually thought it was a “good way to handle a complicated story” given the restraints of episodic television.

“I always enjoy these tiny interpolations that they have to do to make the structure work. It makes it new and interesting to me to watch,” she says. ”I have all the time and space in the world when I write a book. You’ve seen the size of them. There is no conceivable way that you could film book two from beginning to end. It would take probably 120 hours. Some fans would be into that, but in reality, good luck with finding a sponsor for that. Ron and his team have a limited number of 55-minute chunks, and each chunk has to have its own dramatic arc. Each has to have conflict and resolution and follow the traditional storytelling structure. The book is not arranged that way, and consequently they are going to have to rearrange the material and select certain bits while they lose others. The writers get together and brainstorm and usually it starts with Ron as the showrunner. Then the studio and the network get involved. When I am at home writing, I have all the power. I am God. But TV is a polytheistic universe.”

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To recap, Season 2 started with Claire (Caitriona Balfe) coming back through the stones a few years after she left, grieving, distraught, pregnant, and wearing some very fancy vintage threads. Frank (Tobias Menzies) is confused, but elated to have his wife back. Things are a little harder to swallow once Claire comes clean about time-traveling to the 18th Century, finding and marrying her soulmate, and trying to alter history. Oh and by the way, she’s knocked up and would like to know if Frank will raise her ginger lovechild. Then it flashes back to show Jamie (Sam Heughan), Claire, and Murtaugh’s forays in France, trying to thwart the Jacobite rebellion.

Dragonfly In Amber, the second book in the soon-to-be nine-book series, however, begins in the 1960s. Claire has already been back in her era for years and that baby is all grown up and named Brianna.

“When we got those scripts from Ron, it was really exciting,” Balfe recalls. “It was a really bold storytelling move to, at the very front, be like, ‘Well, here’s where these characters are going to end up. And now, we’re going to tell you how that happened.’ It’s like any great episode of Columbo, which I loved. Technically it’s a spoiler, but to me it actually proves that it’s the telling, the journey that’s what’s important.”

It might also assuage some of the feels if you know why they made the changes they did. “I liked the beginning of the book, but I thought it was too much to give to the TV audience all at once,” Moore says. “The book starts in 1968, and that means Claire returned to the 20th Century, the battle of Culloden’s been lost, she left Jamie behind, and she brought the child forward [in time]. Also it’s 20 years later. She’s a doctor. Brianna’s an adult. Frank’s dead. That’s a lot of information, and I’ve only got 30 minutes because I’m not going to spend multiple episodes in 1968. So I thought, ‘Let’s start at the beginning of that story. It’s also shocking enough to return to the 20th Century apropos of nothing when fans are expecting France? And [it’s still a lot to process that she] goes to the 20th Century and, oh my god, they lost? It was all for naught? And holy s–t, she left Jamie behind? And a baby? Let’s just start with what did she say to Frank and how did that happen?’ You knew that had to be one hell of a conversation, so we started there so that when we do catch up to the 1968 story — and we will — and Brianna is around, you have some kind of foundation.”