When I was on the cusp of adolescence, one of my favourite romantic movies was one in which the couple didn’t touch — in fact, they weren’t even on the same plane of existence.Ìý
In “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” (1947), a widow (Gene Tierney) and a long dead sea captain (Rex Harrison) fall in love, but they can’t act on their passion until , when Lucy dies and she and Daniel — finally united in the spirit world — walk off into the mist arm in arm.
It’s a swooningly romantic movie, one built on longing looks and conversations, and I hadn’t thought of it in decades until I watched “Outlander: Blood of My Blood.”
The new series is a spinoff of the popular “Outlander” — like “Mrs. Muir”Ìýa period romantic fantasyÌý— in which a British nurse accidentally time travels from 1940s to 1740s Scotland, where she falls in love with a highlander.Ìý
The journey of Claire (CaitrÃona Balfe) and Jamie (Sam Heughan) will end in early 2026 with “Outlander”‘s eighth and final season. Till then, we’ve got the prequel “Blood of My Blood,”Ìýwhich debuts Friday,Ìýto sate our appetite for affairs of the heart.
But this one, of which I’ve seen six of 10 episodes, is steeped in something that can seem an afterthought in a sea of hyper-sexualized TV content: yearning.
‘True love and love at first sight’
“Blood of My Blood” tells the stories of Jamie’s and Claire’s parents: Brian Fraser and Ellen MacKenzie, and Henry Beauchamp and Julia Moriston.
They meet in vastly different but alluringly romantic circumstances.
Brian (Jamie Roy) and Ellen (Harriet Slater) lock eyes through the slats of the wall of an animal shelter while both are hiding out at a gathering of Scottish clans: she’s avoiding unwanted suitors; he’s ducking rival clansmen who want to thrash him. Think of whatever the Scottish term would be for a coup de foudre and you’ve got the idea.Ìý
When they do steal some time alone, their only physical contact is clasped hands, but there is potent sensuality just in the way they look at each other.Ìý
“I dinna care if it’s fate or divine intervention that brought us together,” Brian tells Ellen. “If I had to bargain with the devil himself to spend a moment more with ye, I would.”
Jeremy Irvine as Henry Beauchamp and Hermione Corfield as Julia Moriston in “Outlander: Blood of My Blood.”Ìý
StarzHenry (Jeremy Irvine) and Julia (Hermione Corfield), meanwhile, fall in love without laying eyes on each other. While in London, censoring letters from the front during the First World War, Julia intercepts Henry’s cri de coeur from the battlefields of Passchendaele and they begin a correspondence.
“More than kisses, letters mingle souls,” Henry writes, quoting poet John Donne, while she tells him, “I could spend an eternity in the dance of our words.”
Are you swooning yet?
“This is a world where true love and love at first sight and soul mates really exist,” English actor Irvine told the Star in an interview alongside fellow Brit Corfield.
“It’s an absolute feast for the eyes and the soul,” Corfield added.
To Scottish actor Roy, a big part of the attraction is the unpredictability of the forbidden romance between Brian and Ellen.Ìý
“If it’s easy, is it really worth having unless you have to fight for it? And boy, these characters have to fight for it,” he said in a separate video interview with English actor Slater.
“The stakes are so high,” added Slater. “They’re dealing with life and death every time they meetÌý… That’s kind of thrilling.”
‘Love and intimacy’
If Brian and Ellen are a highland Romeo and Juliet — their families hate each other, which given the strength of ancient Scottish grudges, would seem to rule out a future together — Henry and Julia are like an Orpheus and Eurydice, separated and trying desperately to find their way back to each other.Ìý
That Henry and Julia are parted in 1714 Scotland — the same time and place as Brian and Ellen, with whom they cross paths — adds an extra layer of adversity.
Viewers are first introduced to Henry and Julia (Jeremy Irvine and Hermione Corfield) as they picnic on a Scottish vacation in “Outlander: Blood of My Blood.”Ìý
StarzNone of these complications preclude sex, however. In fact, when Henry and Julia are first introduced to viewers, it’s as the married parents of Claire, making love outdoors on a Scottish vacation. (It’s the same vacation that in “Outlander” lore ended in a “fatal” car accident that left Claire an orphan but, we now know, made Henry and Julia into time travellers, just like Claire.)Ìý
So far, the sex in “Blood of My Blood” seems less plentiful and explicit than in early “Outlander,” which debuted in 2014 and has become renowned for its spicy content.
(Google “Outlander sex scenes” and you’ll find rankings of the best ones, even some porn links, though shows like “Bridgerton” have since upped the ante on sex in period dramas. Also, it’s worth noting that, as in “Outlander,” some of the sex in “Blood of My Blood” is coercive, highlighting the fact that 18th-century Scotland could be a particularly oppressive place for women.)
Corfield said the sex scenes in “Blood of My Blood” add to the love stories at its heart. “Those scenes show the audience the love and the intimacy. And it doesn’t feel like it’s just plonked in for a bit of fun. You never want to feel like you’re doing a sex scene for gratuitous reasons. And I don’t feel like that.”
‘There’s a trust’
Sex or no sex, none of it would work without chemistry between the actors portraying the two couples. Luckily, they have gobs of it.
That Irvine and Corfield were already friends helped them pretend to be madly in love with each other. They met a decade ago, making a teen fantasy film called “Fallen” in Hungary.Ìý
“It’s so much easier because there’s a trust,” Corfield said of their working relationship. “You’re not scared to try something in a scene because you know each other so well. And it definitely means all the intimacy stuff is easier just across the board.”
“You can fake chemistry, but it’s hard work,” said Irvine, adding that his and Corfield’s had been effortless — although pretending to be lovers “wasn’t on my friendship bingo card.”
Harriet Slater says chemistry came easily to her and Jamie Roy, who plays her lover in “Outlander: Blood of My Blood.”Ìý
Victoria Will/StarzThe chemistry also came easily to Roy and Slater, even though they had never worked together before.
“I feel like it was there from the start,” said Slater. “We just really got on from the get-go and that makes the job 10 times easier when you actually enjoy the company of the person that you’re working with.”
“I put a little love potion into your drink on the first day on set,”Ìýjoked Roy.Ìý
Love, violence and politics
“Outlander: Blood of My Blood” isn’t all romance. The love stories are interwoven with violence and politics, from the First World War to skirmishes between highland clans, even a “Succession”-like struggle between Ellen’s brothers over who’ll lead Clan MacKenzie after their father dies unexpectedly.Ìý
“Outlander” fans will delight in meeting younger versions of characters they know from the original show, including siblings Colum and Dougal MacKenzie (Seamus McLean Ross and Sam Retford); lawyer Ned Gowan (Conor MacNeill); Jamie’s godfather, Murtagh Fitzgibbons Fraser (Rory Alexander), and his aunt, Jocasta Cameron (Sadhbh Malin); and the devious Arch Bug (Terence Rae).
There are also Easter eggs placed throughout, including the magical standing stones at Craigh na Dun and talk of the British crown granting land in North Carolina, where Jamie and Claire settled in “Outlander” Season 4. But the series is also accessible to anyone who wouldn’t know their Lallybroch from their Castle Leoch — especially anyone who appreciates the romantic power of an ardent look or a heartfelt word.
“Outlander: Blood of My Blood” debuts Aug. 8 on Starz via Crave, with weekly episodes on Fridays.
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