The final season of Outlander is working to close out several years’ worth of storylines. Episode six, “Blessed Are the Merciful,” focused particularly on the long journey of Ian Murray (John Bell). At the end of episode four, he departed Fraser’s Ridge with his wife, Rachel (Izzy Meikle-Small), to head north after reading in the newspaper that the Mohawk village he previously lived in (among 40 others) was burned to the ground by the Continental Army in retaliation for a previous siege laid by Mohawk leader Thayendanegea (Meegwun Fairbrother) and the British.

That area includes where Ian’s first wife, Wahionhaweh (Morgan Holmstrom), and their son, Swiftest of Lizards, live, leading him to worry if they’re dead. Ian immediately decides that he must go north to find out if they’re alright or not, and Rachel says she’s going with him. “I think Ian’s whole journey, even before Rachel and all of that, is about coming to terms, is about closure,” Bell tells T&C. “I don’t think he realizes that he hasn’t quite got that yet. So that this could be his opportunity to get that closure.”

When they arrive up north, they are greeted in the stately home of the Mohawk chieftain, Thayendanegea, and his wife, Catharine (Océane Kitura Bohémier-Tootoo). The meeting is initially cordial, but turns frostier, as seen in the clip below.

Thayendanegea, a real-life figure who allied with the British and also went by the name Joseph Brant, informs Ian that Wahionhaweh and her children lived, but that he cannot see them. Ian is outraged by this, and while she quietly supports him, Rachel says nothing. Only Catharine seems to take notice of the pain in her eyes.

“I don’t know if she quite has the words at that point. I think she’s just terrified she might lose Ian, and that’s really what she’s thinking about,” Meikle-Small says. “She’s just given birth. She goes on this huge trip with him to go and save his ex-wife. He’s asking a lot of her, and in that moment she’s like, ‘Okay, great. They’re alive. But at the same time, like, what does this mean for me? What does this mean for us?’”

For Ian, Bell says, his whole world and everything he knows is turned upside down. So he reacts in a “very typical Fraser way” of being headstrong without considering his wife beside him. “He just completely blocks out everything. He’s thinking, ‘That’s my goal. I need to see them. I need to basically corroborate this information,’” Bell says. “He completely forgets about the family that he actually has, the one that didn’t leave him. It’s really only through the conversations that they then have as a couple that he’s able to kind of see the error of his ways and begin to be able to communicate what he’s feeling. There’s a huge rush of memories that he’s gone through that comes back to the surface.”

Dejected, Rachel and Ian have a quiet conversation in the woods outside. Here, we see Rachel at her most vulnerable, perhaps more than ever during in her time on the series. She admits, being “only human,” that she has irrational feelings, wondering if Ian would have come back to her if she had not gone on this journey with him. She says to him, “Ghosts have a way of inserting themselves where they are not wanted. And a living, breathing wife would surely take up more room than any ghost.” It is here where Ian realizes the potential cost of this trip.

“He sees in this moment between them that their relationship is being tested and he’s already lost one wife. I don’t think he could potentially survive losing a second wife. So that fear in him comes up quite quickly,” Bell says. “We were talking about Rachel having a lot of guilt around her feelings. Ian feels a lot of shame as well, but he transforms that into guilt, which then is his motivational factor to push through and actually fight for this. He’s gone through shame before, and that’s taken him to very dark places. But his growth as a character, his maturity, he’s wiser now.”

Whereas Ian might be resolved to moving on, Rachel is not giving up on the objective of their journey. From Rachel’s perspective, Meikle-Small says, her mindset is: “They’ve obviously had a falling out as men, I am the Quaker, the peacemaker. I’m the only person who can probably get Ian to see his family. It’s something that I feel like I must do, not only for him, but for my own sake.”

Many people say they would make any sacrifice for the people they love most, even if that means letting them go. But even then, Rachel’s motivations are more complex for what she does next as she returns to Thayendanegea for a private meeting, asking him to reconsider letting Ian see Wahionhaweh and Swiftest of Lizards. Even Thayendanegea seems surprised by her actions, as well as the revelation of Swiftest of Lizards’s true father, yet it does appear to move him.

“I think she was being self-sacrificing in the sense that she knows that Ian needs to see Wahionhaweh and his son, and she knows that Thayendanegea does not know that the boy is his son,” Meikle-Small says. “Maybe at that point, she does realize that it’s a bit about closure, and a bit about if this doesn’t happen now, she’s just pushing it down the line. This moment has to happen and if it doesn’t happen today or tomorrow, it will happen in five years, 10 years. I think she could not live with not knowing.”

In the final scene, Ian’s story comes full circle as he and Rachel are back in Thayendanegea and Catharine’s drawing room. Thayendanegea opens the door, and Wahionhaweh walks through slowly. It’s not an effusively tearful or joyful reunion, and yet it’s palpable with emotion nonetheless. “It was lovely to get Morgan back in the room,” Bell says. “It was just one of those scenes that felt very Outlander. I don’t know how else to say it. There’s so much said in the breath and the silence, and we had a whole day to actually do that scene. So we really felt like we could take our time with it and find those emotional beats.”

Wahionhaweh tells them that Thayendanegea has told the Mohawk that the war will be over soon, possibly in their favor should the British win, but that Catharine’s eyes don’t convince her this to be the case. Wahionhaweh also says that she’s had a dream that Swiftest of Lizards will be beaten, and worse harm could come to him. Now it is Wahionhaweh who is making the greatest sacrifice, asking Ian and Rachel to take her son with them when they leave so that he’ll be safe when the war is over. They both agree, and Rachel says while Wahionhaweh will always be his mother, it is an honor for her to be a mother to him as well. In return, Wahionhaweh says since Ian named Swiftest of Lizards, she will name their son, who up until now has been just known as Oggy. She names him Hunter, which both stuns and touches Rachel especially given that is her maiden name.

“Morgan did a really great performance because there was such a quiet sorrow,” Meikle-Small says. “[Through the performance], you can tell that she’s been through so much, even though we haven’t seen it. It was her speaking and asking the questions, and we were led by the performance. As John said, it’s very Outlander—lots of meeting of worlds, lots of like perfect moments slotting into place.”

Outlander is currently streaming on Starz.