If you're an avid Outlander fan – either of the series or Diana Gabaldon's best-selling novels – you will know all the little details about Jamie and Claire Fraser's story, from the importance of the phrase "blood of my blood and bone of my bone" (it was their wedding vow) to just where to spot author Gabaldon's cameo in the series (she popped up as a bitchy guest at the gathering in the fourth episode of season one).
And you'll definitely be aware of William Ransom, whom Jamie and Claire's daughter Brianna meets for the first time in the second episode of Outlander's new season.
However, if you're a newcomer to the addictive fantasy series – or just can't keep up with all the time travel, relationship plot twists and highlander action – the significance of their meeting, and how William may shape future events in the series, may not immediately be apparent.
To begin with, the second episode of season seven covers an awful lot of ground before we even get to Brianna and William's meeting in Wilmington.
The question 'Who killed Malva Christie?' is finally answered, as Claire finds Malva's brother Allan (Alexander Vlahos) at his sister's grave and he confesses to having had an incestuous affair with her, and being the father of Malva's unborn baby. He admits to killing Malva when she refused to leave Fraser's Ridge for a new life with him, and when Young Ian (John Bell) sees Allan with Claire, he shoots him with an arrow.
Claire and Ian bury Allan in the woods – thank goodness they decided to set up home in the remote countryside where there's lots of places to hide a corpse – and are aided by a passing Mrs Bug: "I knew the devil had his hands on Allan Christie the first time I laid eyes on him," she says, helpfully grabbing a spade.
If the Frasers thought their problems were over, however, they are in for a surprise after Brianna gives birth to her and Roger's daughter, Amanda, and Claire realises that she has a heart defect that can only be repaired by 20th-century medicine.
Brianna and Roger decide the only solution is to go back to the future – or to the 1970s, at least – with their son Jemmy and Mandy to get their daughter the life – saving help she needs. This leads the whole family to Wilmington as they need to procure enough gems for the four of them to be able to travel through the stones and forward in time.
It is there that Brianna sees Jamie's old friend Lord John Grey, and standing with him is his son, William Ransom, whom John introduces to Brianna as Lieutenant Lord Ellesmere, a soldier in the British army.
So who is William, and why does Brianna react by uttering her mother's favourite phrase, "Jesus H Roosevelt Christ" when she sees him?
Who is William Ransom?
Now played as a redcoat-wearing officer by Charles Vandervaart, William's story actually begins back in season three of Outlander, when Jamie was released from Ardsmuir Prison after spending years there following the Jacobite Rising.
While Claire was safely back in the 1950s and 1960s, raising her and Jamie's daughter Brianna (with Claire's 20th century husband, Frank), Jamie was imprisoned for being a traitor, and during his time at Ardsmuir formed a friendship with the prison's warden, Lord John Grey.
When Ardsmuir was closed, many of the inmates were shipped to the Colonies, but Grey secured Jamie a reasonably cushy job as a groomsman at the English aristocratic estate of Helwater.
In the fourth episode of the season, 'Of Lost Things', Jamie was blackmailed by the spoilt heiress to the estate, Lady Geneva Dunsany. She had private letters from Jamie's family in her possession that could place them all in danger, and she demanded Jamie have sex with her if he wanted the letters back – not just because he was a hot Scot with a way with the horses, but because she was betrothed to the very old and rather unattractive Earl of Ellesmere and wanted to have at least one night of passion before her marriage.
Reluctantly, Jamie agreed, but their one night ended with Geneva becoming pregnant. And while she hid the pregnancy and still married the Earl, her deception ended in tragedy.
On the day of William's birth, Geneva died, and the Earl snatched the baby and declared he knew it was not his child. He held a knife to William and prepared to stab him, only for Jamie to intervene and shoot the Earl dead.
Jamie was cleared of any wrongdoing, and decided to stay on at Helwater to see his child grow up. William was to be raised by the Dunsany family, with Geneva's sister Isobel taking on the role of his mother, and all seemed well until Jamie realised after a few years that Willie, as he was known, was beginning to look like him, and people were beginning to gossip.
With Willie set to inherit the deceased Earl's title, it would be a scandal for his true father to be revealed, so Jamie decided to leave Helwater for good. By this time, Isobel was engaged to Lord John, who would take on the role of Willie's stepfather, so Jamie knew he was leaving his son with the man he trusted most.
When, in episode 6 ('A. Malcolm') of that season, Claire returned to the past and to Jamie, he did tell her about William, and in the 12th episode ('The Bakra') when they both encountered Lord John in Jamaica, John updated Jamie on his son's progress.
Jamie didn't see Willie again, however, until season four, when Lord John and Willie arrived at Fraser's Ridge in episode six ('Blood of my Blood') and Claire got to meet Jamie's illegitimate son for the first time.
In that episode, John revealed that Isobel had died on the journey to America and he was now Willie's only parent. Willie and Jamie bonded – and Willie, now wanting to be known as William, remembered Jamie from Helwater – before John and his stepson left for a new life in Virginia.
Later in the same season, when Brianna came to the past to see her parents, Jamie revealed to her that he had a son, and when she herself became friends with Lord John, she admitted to him that she knew of William's existence.
However, the last update from John was that William was studying in London, so it is understandable that Brianna – and Jamie, too, who watches from afar – is somewhat shocked when she sees Lord John and her half-brother together in Wilmington in the seventh season.
When they do meet, William asks Brianna if they have met before (they haven't, but maybe she reminds him of Jamie) and tells her that "my regiment is here to help quell the trouble" – a forewarning that William will be fighting for the British which is bad news, not just because the British lose the Revolutionary War, but because Jamie and the Fraser clan will be fighting for the rebels on the opposing side.
"I'm looking forward to engaging the enemy when the time comes," William tells Brianna, blissfully unaware that his real father is that enemy, before taking his leave by saying "I hope our paths shall cross again."
Knowing Outlander as we do, that innocent hope probably won’t turn out so well, given that season seven is set against the war itself, and the trailer features Jamie stating "I made a promise to myself to never face my son across the barrel of a gun" – just before we see him, holding a gun, on the battlefield.
Only time will tell whether Jamie and William will find themselves at war with each other this season, whether William will one day find out who his true father is, and how his presence could affect the Fraser family in the episodes to come.
But we have a feeling that that the story of Jamie and his illegitimate son William won't have a happy ending (after all, this is Outlander).
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