If you look closely at Tom’s reactions when Malva is telling her story in Outlander Season 6, you may wonder if he actually believes her words.
Tom Christie is a complicated man. He wants to be righteous in his faith, but he has moments where he struggles with that. One thing he wants is to raise his children as pious people. Sadly, that’s not what happened.
He is disappointed in them a few times in Outlander Season 6. One of those is when Malva announces that she is pregnant out of wedlock. Malva refuses to disclose who the father is without being in front of Jamie, and that’s because she tells everyone that Jamie is the father.
However, Tom’s expressions while Malva tells this story are interesting. He’s shocked too, and that might not be just the fact that Malva is accusing Jamie. It may be that Tom doesn’t actually believe what she’s saying.
Tom knows the man Jamie is in Outlander
After spending such a long time in prison with Jamie, Tom did get a sense of who Jamie was as a person. Jamie helped his fellow prisoners, even to the point of taking a lashing that wasn’t his own to take. Tom sees him as a protector, and he potentially sees Jamie as a good man. Tom is jealous of Jamie, and that’s where some of the issues between them lie.
The idea of Jamie having an affair seems ludicrous. Claire eventually realizes that Malva is lying because she knows her husband well enough. Tom seems to question Malva’s story. You can see it in his face that he’s trying to figure out if this story is true. And then there are the reactions at the funeral when Allan refuses to let Claire carry the baby’s coffin out.
Does Tom believe Malva in the books?
We’ll get into some spoiler territory for those who haven’t read the books. We don’t get to know what Tom’s expressions are in A Breath of Snow and Ashes as Malva tells her story. This is because we’re seeing all this play out through Claire’s eyes. She’ll only narrate what she sees, and she wasn’t exactly paying attention to anyone other than Jamie and Malva.
So, we don’t get to see if he questions anything. This is the beauty of the TV series. We get to see the actors show off what they think their characters would do or think.
Eventually, Claire learns the truth about the paternity of Malva’s baby. I don’t think Tom ever really finds out the truth, but part of me thinks that he always knew deep down that Jamie was not the father.