Outlander Kills Off SPOILER In Surprising Season 6 Twist

Fans of Starz’s Outlander have been thrilled to have the beloved series back, with the series returning for Season 6 last month, more than a year since the Season 5 finale. But while the series is often full of surprising turns, Sunday night’s episode, “The World Turned Upside Down” came with a shocking death that may have some major impact on the rest of the season for the historical drama given the mysterious circumstances around it and some of the allegations that preceded it.

Warning: spoilers for the Season 6 episode of Outlander, “The World Turned Upside Down”, below.

In the episode, Claire (Caitriona Balfe) discovered Malva Christie (Jessica Reynolds) dead just outside her home on Fraser’s Ridge. Malva’s death is shocking, but it’s everything around it that could be problematic. The episode also saw Malva reveal that she was pregnant and claim that Jamie (Sam Heughan) was the father. Jamie and Claire attempt to dispel the allegation, but the rumors start to breed a rebellion with the Ridge turning against Claire and her family. There’s also how Claire finds Malva. Claire spots Malva walking up to the house but locks the door to her surgery room and puts herself to sleep with ether to clear her mind. When she wakes up, she finds Malva just outside the house, the young woman’s throat having been slit.

It’s clearly a complicated and heavy situation that could have explosive fallout for Claire, Jamie, and everyone at Fraser’s Ridge — particularly Claire. It’s something that Reynolds spoke about with Variety following her characters demise.

“It’s a really interesting thing about the Protestant community coming over to the Ridge and putting all this blame and all these superstitions and this witch ideology on Claire again, even though she overcame that in Season 1,” Reynolds said. “It’s going to impact her greatly. But then you’ve got that personal aspect for Claire. She loved Malva. Maybe it’s her thinking why can’t’ she have done more? I think it’s going to be tough. It’s interesting seeing a lot of the fans say, ‘Why can’t Claire see that she’s evil and she’s manipulative?’ Malva has a lot of sides to her and ultimately, I think she is a victim. I think Claire sees Malva as a victim as well when things were revealed. Also, it’s trauma after trauma for Claire, right? She’s processing the rape of last season, and then Malva distracts her. She’s got a lot of things to look forward to. And now it’s another blow. How much trauma can one take on?”

Outlander airs Sundays on Starz.