{"id":47147,"date":"2025-09-06T10:45:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T10:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/47147\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T10:45:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T10:45:08","slug":"blood-of-my-blood-stars-on-triple-childbirth-episode-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/47147\/","title":{"rendered":"Blood of My Blood’ Stars on Triple-Childbirth Episode 6"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSPOILER ALERT:<\/strong> This post contains spoilers from \u201cBirthright,\u201d Episode 6\u00a0 of \u201cOutlander: Blood of My Blood<\/a>,\u201d now streaming on Starz.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOutlander\u201d has always been a baptism by fire kind of experience for its actors. More than a decade into the franchise, the sweeping romanticism of author Diana Gabaldon\u2019s story is matched only by a constantly evolving definition of trauma, leaving each character \u2013\u2013 and the audience \u2013\u2013\u00a0to brace for the brutality of life and whatever fresh hell awaits them around every corner.<\/p>\n

\n\tJulia (Hermione Corfield<\/a>) and Henry Beauchamp (Jeremy Irvine<\/a>) rounded that proverbial corner in the sixth episode of Starz\u2019s prequel series \u201cOutlander: Blood of My Blood.\u201d In the span of the hour, Corfield gives birth not once but twice on screen, while Irvine plays out Henry\u2019s mental collapse in real time. But before you worry too much for the actors, being handed that defining traumatic moment to chew on is kind of a rite of passage in the world of \u201cOutlander.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think that\u2019s the thing with the show,\u201d Irvine tells Variety. \u201cIt\u2019s an epic, epic story, and everyone will have their time, I\u2019m sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Sanne Gault\/Starz<\/p>\n

\n\tRite of passage or not, it was still a heavy lift for Corfield to perform two birthing scenes back to back, an experience she\u2019s kind of hazy on more than a year later.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think it was a week of birthing, actually,\u201d Corfield says of how the scenes were filmed. \u201cIf I\u2019m remembering correctly, I think that was why it was so intense because I realized I was doing a whole week of this. [For the main birthing scene], we were in that room filming for three or four days.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSince inadvertently time traveling back to 1714 Scotland, Julia and Henry have endured enormous hurdles to survive as people out of time. She has been forced into servitude in the home of the cruel, relentless Lord Lovat (Tony Curran), whom she slept with to cover up that she is carrying Henry\u2019s baby. She feared Lovat would get rid of the baby if it wasn\u2019t his, and a seer prophecy that the child will grow up to be king has now made her even more valuable to him. Henry, meanwhile, has been conscripted as an accountant for Isaac Grant (Brian McCardie), a treacherous position that promises the opportunity to search for Julia if only he can navigate the politics of the time.<\/p>\n

\n\tJulia\u2019s tenuous circumstances at Castle Leathers reach a breaking point in Episode 6 when she goes into labor, leading to a frenzied birthing scene where she is assisted and then berated by a gaggle of howdies (Scottish midwives) who come to support her until her fellow housemaid Davina (Sarah Vickers) begins to question the legitimacy of the pregnancy. When she claims Julia seduced Lovat, the howdies become venomous, leaving the expectant mother writhing on the straw-strewn floor to defend the paternity between contractions. She\u2019s lying, of course. Henry is the father. But in this moment, she vehemently stands her ground as if it were the truth because for her baby to survive, it has to be.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think she must die a little bit inside every time she has to lie and say Lovat is the father,\u201d Corfield says.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe actor says she loaded up on energy drinks to get multiple days of shooting the birth, much of which required her to fend off the threats of the howdies and a furious Davina.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Sanne Gault\/Starz<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI wanted to map out the intensity of the contractions, as well as the intensity of the women for this moment because it kind of goes hand in hand,\u201d she says. \u201cThey both get more and more wild as the scene goes on. But the main thing for Julia is she is just in absolute animal instinct mode. She\u2019s purely trying to protect this child, and that\u2019s her only intention. The howdies were having to grab onto me and I was being sort of manhandled all day every day. So it was really quite easy to do, because I didn\u2019t have to pretend to be exhausted. I was absolutely exhausted fighting for my life!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis scene is intercut with a comparatively calm flashback to when Julia gave birth to Claire (the character played by Caitriona Balfe in the flagship series). Then, she was standing in a crouched position, grabbing onto the metal bars of her and Henry\u2019s bed in their flat back in London. Meanwhile, he\u2019s fumbling around trying to find something to comfort her in an impossibly uncomfortable moment. It\u2019s become an increasingly rare sight, seeing these two together and happy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s an elation there, and it feels like young love epitomized,\u201d Corfield says. \u201cIt\u2019s in total opposition to what we see in the other scene, which felt like a totally different experience. In the castle, she\u2019s on her knees a lot. She\u2019s crawling around. [The howdies] are circling her. She tends to be sort of below all of them for quite a lot of it, and there\u2019s that sensation of them closing in on her.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThroughout the writhing and the screaming, Julia\u2019s fortitude wears down a defiant Davina, whose history with Lovat feeds the moment. Further flashbacks show when Davina was first raped by Lovat and the resulting birth of her own son, Brian Fraser (Jamie Roy), aka the father of Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan). If you\u2019re counting at home, that\u2019s the third birthing scene in this one episode. But it\u2019s revealed she also rejected the howdies\u2019 scorn for how she got pregnant, just as Julia is doing now. Davina eventually casts out the howdies on Julia\u2019s behalf, and even banishes Lovat when he barges in with a priest trying to marry Julia before the baby is born so it won\u2019t arrive out of wedlock \u2014 something that will likely come at her own peril.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a really lovely moment, because Julia appeals to Davina as a mother,\u201d Corfield says. \u201cShe\u2019s saying that the way you shaped your son is down to you. Please let me shape my son. Don\u2019t let me die, and don\u2019t leave me in the hands of Lovat. At that moment, they become a team.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe impact these three births have on the \u201cOutlander\u201d canon is massive. Fans will undoubtedly be thrilled to see the literal origins of Claire and Brian, both of whom are essential for bringing the original series story to pass. But it\u2019s the new as-yet-named baby boy who remains a question mark. Gabaldon has always told fans Claire\u2019s parents died when she was five years old, making their survival in the past and the arrival of her little brother a new wrinkle in the story. Let the wild theorizing of who he will grow up to be commence!<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Sanne Gault\/Starz<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for the boy\u2019s father, Henry does not get to share in the joy of his son\u2019s birth. His desperate search to find Julia has angered his boss Grant, who concocts a plan to end the perceived distraction once and for all by paying a local midwife to tell the poor guy that his wife died in childbirth nearby. The sudden loss of his anchor and purpose completely shatters Henry\u2019s fragile grip on reality, triggering a PTSD-induced episode in which he runs off screaming and dry heaving \u2013\u2013 he has that in common with Julia\u2019s storyline. Then, all of a sudden, a switch is flipped, and he retracts back to a joyous memory of racing home to tell Julia that WWI was over. The creatively shot scene shows him running through the Scottish woods as vestiges of the 20th century dot his path, cementing his break with reality.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s something I put a lot of thought into,\u201d Irvine says. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen why they\u2019re in love when we\u2019ve seen them together. We\u2019ve seen how happy it makes them. So now we need to see that Henry cannot face the facts. When she dies, he dies. We need to see that visceral reaction, and how unsettling would it be to see him have this mental breakdown with the absolute limits of despair and grief, and then that turns into elation and laughter? I thought that would be quite unsettling to watch. This is someone who is incredibly damaged, and who might be so broken at this point that we\u2019re not sure what he\u2019s going to do next.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAudiences at least know where he\u2019s headed in the immediate future as he runs off into his 1910s fantasy world. While Henry thinks he\u2019s falling into the arms of Julia in his memory, he actually races straight to a sex worker whose advances he\u2019d denied \u2013\u2013 until now. In the fog of his mental break, he believes she is Julia and has sex with her, adding yet another line item to the list of things the Beauchamps have to catch up on.<\/p>\n

\n\tCorfield and Irvine are currently filming Season 2 of the series in Scotland, so they are bound to secrecy on what\u2019s to come. But they both agree this is the moment that will make or break their once-happy couple. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of putting unconditional love to the test, I suppose,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\n\tJulia has been with Lovat out of pure survival instincts, so Henry isn\u2019t the only one in bed with another. But Corfield admits this particular twist is different.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a hard pill to swallow for me and for Julia,\u201d she says. \u201cI was heartbroken when I read it. Their love is so deep, but that\u2019s not to say that something like this would be easily forgotten. It\u2019s something they will definitely have to talk through when they meet again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers from \u201cBirthright,\u201d Episode 6\u00a0 of \u201cOutlander: Blood of My Blood,\u201d now streaming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[265],"tags":[18,117,34985,19,17,34986,34857,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-47147","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-hermione-corfield","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-jeremy-irvine","14":"tag-outlander-blood-of-my-blood","15":"tag-tv"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}