Starz‘s The Couple Next Door has finally made good on its steamy promises. In The Couple Next Door Episode 3 “Blurred Boundaries,” unhappy couple Evie (Eleanor Tomlinson) and Pete (Alfred Enoch) join their hot, non-monogamous neighbors Becka (Jessica De Gouw) and Danny (Sam Heughan) for an all-expense paid spa break at a local opulent hotel. After the wine flows and flirtation sparks, Becka and Evie finally broach the topic we’ve all been waiting for: will the couples swap?
What follows is a twisted, yet sexy, climax that sees Evie’s fantasies come true while Becka’s worst nightmares become realized. And according to series star Sam Heughan, The Couple Next Door achieved this fascinating sequence with the help of a special someone he borrowed from the Outlander set…
**Spoilers for The Couple Next Door Episode 3 “Blurred Boundaries,” now streaming on Starz**
The Couple Next Door Episode 3 “Blurred Boundaries” crescendoes with the hot housewives of suburban Leeds — Becka and Evie — initiating their sexy version of a wife swap. While Evie and Danny happily get to it, boning so hard that Danny’s condom breaks, Pete and Becka’s make-out session stalls before any boundaries can be crossed. Becka’s night only gets worse as she finally discovers that she has become the victim of revenge porn.
But lets get back to Evie and Danny. Since the very first episode of The Couple Next Door, we’ve known that Evie has been coveting her neighbor’s husband. Danny, too, has found himself rather smitten with the hot, koi-killing redhead across the cul de sac. So when they finally act on their desires, the resulting sex scene is understandably hot.
If you’re an Outlander fan, you already know that Sam Heughan knows his way around a steamy sex scene. According to Heughan, he didn’t necessarily bring any particular experience from Outlander to The Couple Next Door — but he did bring intimacy coordinator Vanessa Coffey.
“We asked and were very lucky to have Vanessa Coffey, who was our intimacy coordinator that I met and introduced to Outlander,” Heughan said. “She came and worked with us in Belgium.”
According to Heughan, intimacy coordinators were “kind of a new concept” for the Belgium-based production and crew. “So it was really cool to sort of be like, ‘Okay, this is how we’re doing it and how we’re learning and digging into these scenes.’”
For Heughan, the addition of intimacy coordinators to sets adds far more nuance and depth to the actors’ performances.
“Again, [Coffey] really just helped facilitate and allow us to explore these characters, and I think even more than on Outlander,” he said. “Because you’ve got four characters here. They’re having this strange relationship that is intertwined. So yeah, I think it was really important for us to have someone like that, just so you feel comfortable.”
Heughan went on to say that having Coffey on set gave him an addition personal boost because he already knew her so well.
“For me, I was very lucky. I felt like I knew everyone,” Heughan said, “and, yeah, she was a great asset to the show.”
Heughan might have felt lucky with how it all came together to bring Danny and Evie’s night of passion to life, but will things go so smoothly for his Couple Next Door character? Something tells us that Danny’s life is about to get far more complicated than it even already is…