The Droughtlander is finally over with the premiere of Outlander season 6 on its new home of Starzplay, and the opening episodes see the usual promise of trouble and strife for Jamie (Sam Heughan), Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and family already brewing – and then some.
Based on the sixth book in author Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, the season rumbles into life with a slightly slow start via a necessary but lengthy flashback to 1753, when really we’re just desperate to get back to the Ridge with Claire, Jamie et al.
However, this leap in time (surely par for the course at this stage) does set up the new main antagonist, a fellow inmate of Jamie’s past from Ardsmuir Prison.
Mark Lewis Jones is deliciously sinister as the pious and cold Tom Christie, who Jamie reluctantly welcomes to Fraser’s Ridge with his children Allan (Versailles’ Alexander Vahlos) and Malva (Jessica Reynolds), after sending out an open invitation to all Ardsmuir men to settle in North Carolina last season.
While Malva is keen to learn from Claire, the new family’s tension simmering under the surface hints at the dark path their storyline will drag them down, ultimately entangling the Frasers too, all with Claire still struggling to recover from her barbaric ordeal at the hands of Lionel Brown and his men last season.
As fans of the books will know, if you thought last season was brutal, this one is likely to delve even deeper and darker, so take that as your warning.