Jamie and Claire will face issues due to Claire's secret; Credits: Cheat Sheet

The residents of Jamie Fraser's are on the verge of a very unsettling experience. The residential area has to face a big threat. 

The Outlander series premiered its sixth season on Starz this Sunday and the episode brought forward a new array of drama for the residents of the Ridge to contend with. The season follows a little after the end of the 5th season of Outlander. 

The series shows Claire, played by Caitriona Balfe, experimenting with ether as the residents work towards a state of normalcy. On the other hand, Jamie, played by Sam Heughan, is facing down the Crown as he wishes to reject the offer of becoming an Indian agent. 

Yet, troubles increase manifold as the Christie family comes into the scene with their settlers along with the recurring threat of the Browns and the Committee for Safety. Regardless, there still is the issue of Claire putting off the necessity of facing her trauma. 

Claire was gravely abused and assaulted at the end of season 5 when she was kidnapped and then raped by a group of men leading to her PTSD. She puts on a brave face and maintains that she is fine as very concerned  Jamie, Bree, played by Sophie Skelton, Marsali, played by Lauren Lyle, and others insist on taking care of her. 

However, she is maintaining the brave facade only with the help of a dangerous secret. Owing to her trauma and the horrors she faced, Claire is suffering from horrendous nightmares. 

Hence, to put herself at ease, she is medicating herself. In fact, she has taken to consume the ether that she has been producing to be used in surgical operations. 

Though Claire has always employed her skill as a doctor to distract her from difficult situations, using the same skills of self-medication can prove disastrous. The self-medication trope is a novel feature of the series and is not based on the Outlander novel by Diana Gabaldon. 

Explaining why the producers decided to introduce a new plot into the storyline as opposed to the original plot of the book, executive producer Maril Davis shared that they wanted a "throughline" for Claire in the series. 

As season 6's events pick up soon after season 5, not addressing the trauma of Claire and what she went through might have been a "disservice" to her character. Hence, the creators did not want to abandon the plot. 

Also explaining why they chose ether to be the substance that Claire would take, Davis said that though ether is not addictive, the real focus is on the fact that Claire is intent on numbing the pain. Claire has been mostly open about what she feels throughout the series. 

Therefore, showing her as someone who would hide what they are feeling is a major change in the way she is perceived in Outlander. 

And while the audience might think that Claire is drowning in the trauma and the pain she was dealt with and silently takes care of her own monsters, there is only so much that she can hide. The producer teased that as the season will continue onward, we will get to see more of her PTSD and trauma. 

Other aspects that will haunt the residents of Frasers will be the arrival of the new and yet secretive Clan Christie. It is already revealed that Jamie and Tom Christie, played by Mark Lewis, do not like each other much and have a history. 

They had stood against each other when they were imprisoned in Ardsmuir after Culloden. Though these events had taken place in book 3, Voyager, they will make an appearance on the Outlander series in the sixth season. 

Of course, as with all book adaptations, a series can not accommodate all the events that happened in a book. Despite Outlander wanting to stay true to the novels, there is only much space for all the incidents. 

In TV series not only are the episodes a limited luxury, but the production has also to contend with finding locations and the actors to accurately play the role as described in the books. 

When the series had shown the Ardsumir scenes back in season 3, there was a limited amount of story they could portray on the screen. The series was still running the main plot parallel to the timeline of Claire's story. 

Yet showing the scenes was necessary for the series as they would set the base for the complicated relationship of Jamie and Tom and explain why they don't like each other. 

While Jamie is a natural leader, he chooses to stay alone when he comes out of Ardsmuir, but that is not what is intended for him. He has to face Tom, who though not a natural leader, has his own skills and has learned to lead and sowed discontent between the two. 

Hence, when the family comes to Fraser's Ridge, tensions run all-time high. The past has come knocking again for Jamie. 

Outlander airs on Starz each Sunday at 9 p.m.