Geillis Duncan / Gillian Edgars

Geillis Duncan is the village healer and apothecary in 1740s Cranesmuir, a sharp-tongued young wife married to a much older, powerful man. She befriends Claire with unnerving speed, trading herblore and gossip, and seems to know far more about medicine, politics, and Claire herself than a farmer's wife reasonably should.

Lotte Verbeek plays her as pure charm with something coiled underneath, a friend you're glad to have and slightly afraid of. The writing lets her be funny and useful long before it lets her be strange, so by the time the strangeness surfaces, you've already liked her too much to look away.