Showrunner Ron D. Moore has explained how Outlander season 3 keeps Jamie and Claire separate and how pivotal it is for their much-anticipated reunion. With Just over a month before "Droughtlander" officially ends with new episodes of the period drama finally airing on Starz. But fans may have to wait a little longer before they are finally treated to a Fraser family gathering as the series is biding its time to catch up with us on what the couple has been up to in the two decades that they are apart from each other.

Outlander's season 2 finale left everyone on the edge of their seats after the time-travelling Claire finally finds out that her long-lost lover has survived the Battle of Culloden and is possibly still alive on the other end of the Craigh na Dun stones. With the tease of the two star-crossed couple finally meeting again after countless years apart (on top of the 14-month real-time wait for the series to come back on the air), die-hard followers are already excited for the iconic reunion of the couple at the print shop.  Unfortunately, it appears that the show will be taking a bit more time to deliver on that promise, but Moore shares that in the end, everything will be worth the wait.

Talking to a bevy of reporters, including THR, at the Television Critics Association press tour, the show exec has explained the reasoning behind their decision to focus Jamie's and Claire's lives away from each other, despite it not being something that fans were eager to see:

"We decided on that parallel structure for the first half of the season and we never really vary from that. It felt like the right amount of time. It felt like it was enough to build a want, a desire for the audience to get the characters, to get Claire and Jamie, back together so that they were really pushing for it but it wasn't dragging it out too long. It's two decades of these two people's lives. To do that justice, you had to give it some time and space. We didn't just brush over it and pretend like nothing really happened."

Sourcing Voyager, (Diana Gabaldon's third novel in her set of books which the series is based on) which is the main inspiration for the story of Outlander season 3, Moore has furthered that the first five episodes of the upcoming installment will inherently be emotionally burdening:

"It was the nature of the book. You're traveling through 20 years of their lives apart and it's a considerable amount of time. You focus on the heavier moments as you move through that chronology."

Readers of the Gabaldon novels know that when Jamie and Claire finally reunite, things are somewhat complicated for the two to just immediately get back together. At that time, Jamie is already fathering another child from another woman because he believed that Claire would never come back again. It is unknown whether the Starz series will further that territory or not, but the upcoming introduction of  Lord John William Grey (David Berry) who develops a friendship with Jamie indicates that there will be some complications to hinder the leads picking up where they left off romantically.

The first trailer for Outlander season 3 heavily featured Claire staying in her marriage with Frank (Tobias Menzies) despite his contemporary husband knowing that she continues to long for her Scottish lover. They even put on a happy front and raised Brianna (Sophie Skelton) together without letting her know the secret behind her real identity. However, the latest trailer highlights Jamie's struggle to settle back in his old life after he survives the Battle of Culloden and returns to Lallybroch as the ghost of Claire continues to haunt him.

Source: THR