Shared grief for Jamie (Sam Heughan) – who later turned out to be very a lot alive – drove his “widow” Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and his good pal Lord John Gray (David Berry) into one another’s arms within the December 6 episode of Outlander. However you could possibly hardly describe their evening collectively as tender and loving.
“There’s quite a lot of aggression in the best way that they specific their intimacy, particularly Claire,” says Berry, who breaks down the episode in our aftershow, Inside Outlander (click on on the video for the complete interview). “Claire processes her grief via quite a lot of rage and directs it at Lord John. Lord John is trying to discover consolation. And he’ll persist via that rage to interrupt down this wall of rage that Claire places up. That’s the essence of their ardour.”
Berry tells us that initially not everybody engaged on the collection was on the identical web page about easy methods to depict the scene between Claire and Lord John. “There have been quite a lot of discussions about to what extent will we present the intimacy, competing concepts about how far will we take it. I believe within the authentic script it went quite a bit additional. Then there was a negotiation about, ‘Properly, will we take it that far?’ I used to be joyful to discover that, however I believe that via this strategy of negotiation, it was pared down quite a bit. There was improvisation that Cait and I did, and quite a lot of rehearsal of the non-speaking parts. I believe quite a lot of that ended up on the slicing room ground. This might have been shot in so many alternative methods. It’s such a bizarre and complicated factor, and I assume we simply gave it our greatest shot. There was quite a lot of improvisation main as much as a second the place there was a crimson line on how far the intimacy might go — after which they sort of stopped there.”
When Jamie returns in the direction of the tip of the episode, Berry says, “[Lord John is] shocked. He’s relieved, he’s fearful, he’s confused. He’s only a flood of feelings. He doesn’t get time to course of any of that as a result of he’s thrown instantly into one other huge dramatic second the place William finds out that Jamie is his actual father.”
William’s rage is devastating to Lord John, who has raised the younger man like his personal youngster. “His relationship together with his son is probably simply as necessary and profound as his relationship with Jamie,” Berry says. “And to lose that and to have these issues in opposition, one coming in, one going out on the similar time, simply throws him. He now should battle to get again his son and to restore that relationship and to be the daddy that he believes he’s to William.”
However that’s not the one drawback Lord John will face. Though he and Claire solely spent one evening collectively, the act will fill Jamie with rage in the direction of his pal. Within the December 13 episode, Berry says, “It’s going to have actually profound penalties for his or her relationship. He doesn’t count on that Jamie’s going to react within the brutal manner he does.”
Outlander, Season 7, Half 2, Fridays, 8/7c, Starz (Midnight on the Starz App and On Demand)