Note: This story contains spoilers for Outlander Season 5, Episode 5.

The drama of Outlander Season 5 ramped up during the show's fifth episode, "Perpetual Adoration". The Highlander strangled the Redcoat officer he'd been serving with after the lieutenant learned of Jamie's past in Ardsmuir Prison and his family connection to Colonial America's most-wanted Regulator – Murtagh Fitzgibbons (Duncan Lacroix) – and threatened to turn him in.

There was also more conflict for newlyweds Roger (Richard Rankin) and Brianna MacKenzie (Sophie Skelton) who began the episode contemplating their futures and how that may include finding teaching jobs in pre-Revolutionary War America (as opposed to returning to their own time). Then, after Roger discovered Stephen Bonnet's (Ed Speleers) tooth diamond tucked away in a handkerchief in their cabin, it led to a couple of reveals for him – that Brianna saw her rapist Bonnet in jail (during Season 4), and that he gave her the jewel after she implied she was carrying his child (something that seemingly suggested to Roger that his son is related by DNA to the Irish smuggler). It also prompted Roger to seek advice from Claire Fraser (Caitriona Balfe), who suggested honesty isn't always the best policy when it comes to the truth of a young child's parentage (she didn't originally tell Bree that her father was a Scottish warrior from the 1700s). This helped lead a still-overwhelmed-by-the-times-Roger to reflection and by episode's end, a heartfelt apology to his wife and a pledge from Roger to take them back to their own time, using the gem for the tot if he can time travel (Brianna looked unsure).

Claire's journey in "Perpetual Adoration" saw flashbacks to the 1960s, when she lost a Scottish patient (who reminded her of Jamie) due to the man's rare penicillin allergy. Those memories haunted Claire as she managed to make the antibiotic in her surgery room at Fraser's Ridge – testing perhaps God and time – 150 years ahead of the medicine's invention.

With so much to unpack in the episode, Collider turned to Outlander executive producer Matthew B. Roberts for some insight into the latest game-changing twists, developing themes, emotional moments, and of course, the show's new cast member – adorable kitten Adso.

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Image via Starz

Let's talk a little bit about Claire in this episode. … She has some concerns about God and his plans –with her creating penicillin early. Are the consequences of time travel and maybe doing things before their time something that you're looking into more deeply this season?

MATTHEW B. ROBERTS: I think we've always looked at that. … When they're dealing with a battle or something as major as Culloden or Prestonpans – something like that – it's more immediate. And with something like penicillin, you kind of look at … what would this do in the long range? What Claire would be trying to do is protect her community – the Ridge – and not let it get out, not let the invention get away from her. If she kept control of it, who else would know how to make it or to use it? So, I think she feels like she can keep control of it. About her knowledge – the Dr. Rawlings of it all – that is probably, in a weird way, more dangerous than the penicillin. … It's the ideas that spread so quickly, I think, [that] are more of a challenge for her to keep contained. And as the season goes, that becomes an issue.

Obviously, there is interest in how Marsali's apprenticeship will affect another storyline that happens with a character from the next book named Malva. Did you have anything to say about that?

ROBERTS: I will say this, Marsali is not Malva just like Murtagh is not Duncan Innes. … That character does things and is a person that isn't Marsali, so how could you just take Marsali and go, 'OK, now we're going to give her all the characteristics and character traits of this other person?' It's impossible to do. So, we've never once thought of doing that.

So, it'd be fair to say that Claire could possibly have future apprentices as the story continues?

ROBERTS: It would be extremely fair and balanced to say that.

Ha! So let's talk about revealing Jemmy's DNA parentage in this episode. Why was it time and then also, I wanted you to maybe reflect on what Roger had to go through to come out to how he landed in this episode. I feel like, we sometimes judge him, but he's a character that we see as a human and he had to go through a bunch of stuff to kind of come to the other side.

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Image via Starz

ROBERTS: I noticed that Roger gets kind of a tough time from the fans. It seems people love him or hate him for whatever reason and I'm always struck by how – because Jamie is Jamie and Claire adapted so, what seems, easily to the time, even Brianna in some ways feels like she adapted, whereas Roger's the one that we're really treating like the audience. There was a show on PBS here in Los Angeles called [Frontier] House and I'd watched it … and [it was about] how people struggled to live in a period house in the 1800s. And it was just contemporary people living in this home. I actually had the writers watch some of the episodes to go, 'See, it's not so easy.' And, I think Roger's the audience and people want him to get on with it and say, 'They do it, why can't you?' Whereas, I think it would be a struggle to try to reevaluate your entire life and go, '… I'm here and I'm never going back?' Bree's plan was to tell her parents about the obituary and go back to her own time – even be with Roger. He followed and kind of ruined that plan to come and get her as a rescuer, which men historically tend to try to do. They're fixers – we try to fix things – and sometimes we mess them up as we go.

So, I think as Roger goes, that's what he tries to do, but he's always trying to do the right thing. As for Jemmy's DNA – it's left open, I think, in the book [The Fiery Cross]. We really kind of have a hard time figuring out what it really is, and for Roger, with all the adopted kids and people in our story that Diana's [Gabaldon] created – Claire's raised by an uncle, Roger by someone else, Brianna, Fergus, even Jamie helped raise Ian. … It's the way the world worked back then, so for Roger to say, 'I'm your father and that's all there is to it,' and he does the blood oath and like, 'Let's not talk about it anymore,' in the sense of, 'Why does it matter?' And I think the struggle would be internal for him, but when it was thrown in his face -- when it is thrown in his face, after his blood oath, I think anybody would have a problem with it. I think if it was reversed, not that it could be -- Brianna knows, but you know what I mean in a sense, I think if anybody -- and Jamie for the most part, he's a man of his time and he loves Brianna because she is his. And even Willie, he is part of Jamie and I think that's a really big deal. And we've got to remember Roger isn't a contemporary man in the scheme of things. He's not a 21st century man. … He's close to his eighties [in age] in contemporary time.

You had talked about this season being about how far people will go to protect their loved ones. Jamie's willing to commit murder of what is essentially an honorable guy (Lt. Knox). And I think what's important to ask you about that is what sort of repercussions are in store? I imagine that that has to weigh heavily on Jamie and could obviously create other sorts of problems.

ROBERTS: I think for Jamie, it weighs heavily on his conscience in the sense that one of the lines he says is, 'I wish I could have given you a soldier's death.' He knows he's not and he is protecting his family; he's protecting the Ridge; he's protecting Murtagh; he's protecting everything dear to him. It was a tough decision for us to make. There's a moment – and where this kind of came from – … in Outlander, the book, where Claire has to make the very same decision. What we did here is we flipped it and we gave it to Jamie. … Claire kills someone – murders someone, in a sense – to protect Jamie because if this guy sounds the alarm then Jamie's going to go back to prison and their life together would be over. And she has to make this gut-wrenching decision in that moment. [We never played] that moment and to me, it was always just such a strong moment in Outlander – just an amazing moment for the characters. … And so, that's why [Lt. Knox] – he wasn't an adversary of Jamie's and in any other world they could have been friends. … What Knox says is, 'We both can't be righteous.' And he's right. They both can't walk out of that room. … The same decision Claire had to make to save him, he's making to save his family, because he knows if he goes, if he's hanged for treason, Fraser's Ridge could fall apart. And I will say this – and book readers will know – Jamie feels like he is the protector. There's no doubt that if something happens to him, he wants Claire to go back. He needs to know that they're safe and he is the safety valve. Without him, all of Fraser's Ridge falls apart. … Who knows what could happen and what would happen to Claire and Roger and Bree and Jemmy and Jermaine and Marsali and Fergus. There's so much weight on him in that moment, I think it was, 'I need to protect.' And I don't even really think he was protecting himself. He was protecting everybody he loved.

How thrilled were you to be able to include the cat, Adso? … It's tough to work with animals, too, but to be able to introduce the cat – was it fun to do that or was it actually more challenging? Obviously, we know about Marcel, the monkey, from Friends.

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Image via Starz

ROBERTS: Adso's actually, in a way, easier to work with than the dogs. The kitten and now the more grown Adso – they're a little more chill. You put them in a spot and they just kind of hang out and for the kitten, just look adorable. That's usually the problem is that people are just so taken by the cuteness that it kind of stops filming for a while when the cat rolls in. … But I do love the addition of the animal. It just creates a [richer] community.

I'm going to sneak in one last question about identity, which I think is a big theme this season – especially with people like Brianna and Roger as they try and find their place in the society and figure out who they are, what they can do and how they fit. Am I right on that, and how much [does] that continues throughout the season?

ROBERTS: Finding your place in any world is tough. People struggle – they're in college, they go through three different majors before they figure out what they want to do and that's OK in this world, but in that time, you were almost saddled with something – whatever your family did, you did. … So, when Bree goes back in time, she has a calling, she knows something she wants to do. Roger has a calling and he knows what he wants to do. Even Claire. For the rest of the people on the Ridge, there's no real calling. You're just going to do what you were trained to do by your father or your father's father, or your mother. So, I think that's where the dilemma is. It's kind of a contemporary dilemma, and a bigger question of identity is do we actually fit in this time? … We know Claire fits in this time perfectly because she fits so perfectly with Jamie and they work, but Roger and Bree have to struggle on two things – one, do we even work in this time and if we do work in this time, what do we do, and can we make a difference and can we make a difference for Jemmy? And I think that's the biggest question for them.

Outlander airs on Starz on Sundays.