Claire and Lord John Get Married, Have Intercourse, Jamie Is Alive

SPOILER ALERT: This publish comprises spoilers from the “Outlander” Season 7, Half 2 episode, “A Hundredweight of Stones,” now streaming on Starz, and the Diana Gabaldon’s ebook, “A Echo within the Bone.”

David Berry recollects that penciled into the margin of the scripts for this week’s episode of “Outlander” was a reminder of the tone they wanted to strike: “the worst wedding ceremony ever.”

To be honest, it wasn’t one thing anybody was going to overlook. For the second time within the collection’ 10-year run, Claire (Caitriona Balfe) stood on the altar in opposition to her will, reverse a person who she is instructed she should marry or threat a menace to her life. On the finish of final week’s episode, a messenger informs Claire that her husband Jamie (Sam Heughan) has been misplaced at sea on his solution to the American Colonies. However virtually instantly, his good friend (and not-so-secret admirer) Lord John Gray (Berry) breaks the information that she can be wished for treason for helping in espionage for the Continental Military, and he graciously provides to marry her as a Loyalist to avoid wasting her from being arrested.

That is the third marriage for Clarie general, all of which she later admits have been “unconventional” at finest. However Balfe says this one is, certainly, the worst.

“I believe Claire appeared equally as depressing for her Jamie wedding ceremony, though secretly comfortable inside,” she tells Selection. “Outwardly very depressing then, and definitely depressing now. I believe she is simply numb now. She is within the technique of shock. It’s purely practical — that is to avoid wasting her. She is at that stage of grief the place she doesn’t fairly know what to assume or really feel, and I believe she expects to really feel one thing totally different than she does. And the truth that she doesn’t really feel it’s a supply of betrayal of her personal self. It’s not a really comfortable event.”

Even speaking about it now isn’t straightforward, so Heughan jumps in to lighten the temper: “After thrice, she ought to have gotten the dangle of it,” he jokes, placing a smile on Balfe’s face.

However it’s Berry, who stands reverse Balfe on the altar, who has an much more candid evaluation of the scene.

“It’s horrible, to be sincere,” he says. “[For Lord John] to be the one who makes the proposal and who’s keen it ahead, in opposition to one other one that is simply so useless in opposition to it and useless inside, it’s only a horrible expertise for each of them. To offer your vows to somebody like that’s simply horrible.”

Balfe did discover the formality of the vows, which Claire can barely muster sufficient power to verbalize as commanded, to be particularly painful. “It’s merciless, if you consider it, that proper after shedding her husband, she is being compelled to say these phrases,” she says. “They may have simply executed the “I Dos,’ however no. To make her say all of that may be very merciless.”

Followers of writer Diana Gabaldon’s books on which the present is predicated have been ready for this second for seasons, because the whirlwind of occasions depicted on this episode shut out the seventh ebook, “An Echo within the Bone.” However simply as rapidly as Jamie is seemingly snatched from Claire’s life but once more, he reappears within the closing moments of the episode, having missed the departure of the doomed ship. Solely his baggage now rests in a watery grave.

However it isn’t only a traumatic wedding ceremony that he must reckon with after his absence. Upon sharing their vows, as reluctant because the ceremony could have been, Claire and Lord John wrestled their grief into submission — no less than for a second — by having a violent evening of sobbing and drunken intercourse. They awake the following morning within the awkward afterglow of their surprising new bodily relationship, and it isn’t to a sudden realization of unknown ardour.

Each Claire and Lord John are surprised by the occasions, acknowledging they each did it as a method of attempting to be nearer to the reminiscence of Jamie. Then, in a surprisingly sincere second of pillow speak, they vocalize their shared fondness for a sure Highlander and, extra particularly, speak about Lord John’s personal sexual historical past as a closeted homosexual man in a time when his romantic preferences have been against the law.

Balfe praises Berry’s “stunning” efficiency on this episode, as Claire respectfully interrogates him a couple of life lived in secret. It was a second of intimacy on set that referred to as for the present’s long-time intimacy coordinator Vanessa Coffey to work with Balfe and Berry.

“That’s such an odd, stunning factor of this,” Balfe says. “Sam and I’ve clearly labored collectively for a few years, and have a shorthand and a deep understanding of our characters and their relationship. However this was one thing that was so out of left area and new. I’m very grateful to have had all these folks for this episode.”

Berry, equally, famous the delicacy of the second. Nevertheless, he expressed some disappointment with the ultimate scene that audiences see within the episode.

“It has been lower in a approach that, I believe, I needed it might have been pushed slightly additional,” he says. “There are issues about it that I believe are form of lacking. In my interpretation of it, I wished it to be extra of an intimate second. There are bits which are lower out which are from the ebook that I want have been nonetheless in there. And after I first learn it, I assumed it was a very nice and fascinating second between these two characters of going via this traumatic occasion, connecting in a traumatic approach after which attempting to make sense of what has occurred.”

Whereas Berry didn’t specify what from the ebook he felt was lacking, Gabaldon’s authentic scene was longer and extra awkwardly comical in some methods. Among the many materials lower for the display screen is a notable second of vulnerability the place Lord John asks Claire to indicate him her bare physique, and he in flip reveals her his. He explains this as mere curiosity, as he doesn’t have a lot expertise with ladies since he misplaced his spouse years earlier than –– and despite the fact that have been bodily except needed. When Claire obliges, he praises her “very pretty” determine (despite the fact that she initially thinks his response is a placation of her age), and she or he notes, considerably to her shock, that he has a “warrior’s physique.” Additionally, in Gabaldon’s novel, he shares the white deer metaphor at his plantation virtually phrase for phrase as he does within the present. Nevertheless, his closing line within the scene — “Consider the deer, my pricey” — is delivered in response to their dialog about Claire’s historical past as a time traveler, not about what could lie forward for them. Lord John doesn’t fairly consider the story he first heard from Brianne (Sophie Skelton), however he assures his new bride that her supposed secret is secure. 

Whereas Claire and Lord John have at all times been pleasant as a result of they each care deeply for Jamie, his unrequited affection towards Jamie has at all times put them in a quiet opposition. The bed room scene, together with their evening of grief via intercourse, is one thing that Berry sees as serving to bridge their divide.

“I take one thing else out of this scene now,” he says. “It’s a actually cool approach of seeing Lord John as an entity unto himself. That he’s not doing these actions simply out of some form of obsession with Jamie. He does have his personal life and company. Though it’s via a muddy metaphor, and I’m unsure I ever fairly figured it out, he is the white deer. He has an independence and he has a lover other than Jamie. And the way in which we perceive his obsession with Jamie is much more fleshed out and extra nuanced, and I believe Claire involves respect him in a brand new approach. She is compelled to reconcile that this man is not only some sycophant or simp for Jamie, he’s his personal complicated man who has his personal motivations which are selfless however he additionally has his personal wants.”

Claire and Lord John’s relationship isn’t magically strengthened by one evening within the sheets, although. Even within the second, her questions on his relationship with a cook dinner at his Mount Josiah plantation in Virginia exposes a few of Claire’s personal biases of understanding the struggles for folks outdoors of her personal body of reference.

“I believe Claire can come throughout as a bit too progressive for her time,” Berry says. “And I believe her personal biases and presumptions about what it means to be a homosexual man are actually examined right here. She thinks he should function this a method, however then she asks him, ‘Does this different man care as deeply about you?’ Lord John is amused by the query. He simply says, ‘No,’ and she or he has an actual chasm of understanding there. The best way they shut this chasm is by connecting over this and the person grief over shedding Jamie.”

Later within the episode, as Claire settles into her new life as Woman John Gray, the brand new couple discover themselves diametrically opposed over his nephew Henry’s intention to abdicate his obligation in England and marry Mercy Woodcock (Gloria Obianyo), a freed Black lady who has been nursing him again to well being after Claire carried out surgical procedure to take away a musket ball from his abdomen. Lord John instantly rebukes the connection, and Claire later calls him a bigot for it. However Lord John reasonably successfully reminds Claire that her marriage to Jamie has at all times been accepted it doesn’t matter what continent they step on. She doesn’t know what it’s wish to be in a relationship or need one which society will reject with prejudice or, worse, violence.

“A extra central bias of John is understanding what it’s wish to stay in concern of your love,” Berry says. “That’s one thing Claire has by no means skilled, and that may be a lesson that Lord John is ready to educate Claire. I believe that she comes to know a lot of who Lord John is, is motivated by concern and a necessity to guard the issues round him that he treasures and loves.”

His forthright response to her progressive angle finally reveals Claire she must play the a part of Woman John Gray, and settle for the security her new husband has risked an amazing deal to supply her. However simply as the 2 appear to discover a comfortable medium, an alive-and-well Jamie storms into their house. Most followers received’t be shocked by this resurrection, as it might have been unprecedented to kill off one in all TV’s long-standing romantic leads in a random episode. However Balfe says that’s precisely what posed the best problem for her, since Claire experiences a grief so deep and totally different than she’s even identified that she contemplates suicide. 

“For the viewers, I don’t assume anybody goes to consider that Jamie Fraser is actually useless,” Balfe says. “So that you type of should, for the character of Claire and to see her journey, make it really feel actually visceral and that she believes this her life now. I don’t know. It was a troublesome week of labor, I’m not going to lie. I’d get up within the morning and assume, ‘Oh, we’re going to have to do that once more.’”

As Jamie and Claire reunite, William Ransom (Charles Vandervaart), who was raised as Lord John’s son despite the fact that Jamie is his organic father, occurs to listen to the reunion and a reference to his true parentage. On the similar second, Redcoats barge into the house to arrest Jamie, who takes Lord John hostage with a view to escape, leaving Claire in a state of comfortable shock. The episode ends as a smile creeps throughout her face, which is a far cry from the expressionless bride on the high of the hour.

Transferring ahead, Heughan warns followers that Jamie’s response to Claire and Lord John’s actions in his absence might be stunning and unkind.

“I used to be stunned by his response to Claire and John,” he says. “His brutality. However I assume that’s what makes him human, and I believe the repercussions or the fracture of their relationship is actually one thing Jamie and Claire haven’t handled in a very long time.”

Heughan teases “a robust scene that’s form of a typical Jamie and Claire second the place they actually hash it out” in subsequent week’s episode. However notes the fallout will carry via “a lot of the season, and into Season 8.”

Nevertheless, essentially the most quick sufferer of this chapter within the “Outlander” story is Lord John, who must course of the violence dedicated in opposition to him by the person he has liked in secret for many of his life. “It unleashes loads of anger and resentment in Lord John,” Berry says of what’s to return. “It damages their relationship in a elementary approach.”