Full Marks to the Outlander Production Team in Dealing with a Difficult Scene So Well. If Nothing Else, the Wilmington Episode Makes Clear the Stark Difference between Sex and Rape
This week’s episode is a tale of two halves – Jamie (Sam Heughan) and Claire (Caitriona Balfe) are in Wilmington, summoned by Governor Tryon (Tim Downie) to meet the Governor’s right-hand man, Edmund Fanning (Samuel Collings), and using their visit to call in and see their first grandchild. Unaware that their daughter Brianna (Sophie Skelton) is in town as well as Roger (Richard Rankin) who has tracked Brie down to Wilmington but has still to find her.
It’s nice to see Fergus (César Domboy) and Marsali (Lauren Lyle), however briefly. Both have been woefully underused in this series so far. Marsali is blooming, flushed with love over her and Fergus’s first child, Germain. Given Jamie’s sense of family, you can only imagine how important this grandchild is to him while at the same time it must bring home to Claire the opportunities and obligations she’s chosen to forego with her own daughter for Jamie’s sake.
While discussing motherhood with Marsali, Claire points out that when it comes to children “you can’t protect them from everyone and everything”. By the end of this episode we’ll soon discover how true that statement is because one thing you know with Outlander, that is if the Frasers are this happy, some disaster is surely waiting around the corner.
Once at the theatre it doesn’t take super-doc Claire long to realise that Mr Fanning is suffering from a hernia but this being the 18th century and Claire being a woman, everyone, apart from Jamie, dismisses her medical know-how, with the Governor passing Claire over to his wife’s care so she can meet all the other wives, an occupation he no doubt considers more ladylike. However, even our usually unflappable heroine is gobsmacked when Tyron’s wife (Melanie Gray) points out Colonel George Washington (Simon Harrison) is in the audience.
To add to the drama, it turns out that the Governor is aware of a planned attack by the regulators on one of his carriages carrying taxes, and thanks to a spy among their number he even knows who their leader is, none other than Murtagh Fitzgibbons (Duncan Lacroix), and has a troop of redcoats ready to arrest them. Jamie needs to warn Murtagh and to get out of watching the play (and given how dreadful it is I suspect Jamie might have done this anyway) he “accidently, on purpose” hits Fanning’s hernia and calls out for a surgeon by which he means Claire and uses the kerfuffle to leave the theatre and hitch a lift with Washington, who seems to hold the play in the same contempt as most of the rest of the audience.
This being the 18th century people look askance at the idea of Clare operating; she’s in a white ball gown for starters and in the lobby of the theatre so they may have a point. Claire goes in full matron mode, meaning she bosses people about, including the governor, and refuses to accept anyone disobeying her. As a technique, it’s quite effective. Given her surgical acumen, Claire manages to operate and successfully deal with the hernia without getting one drop of blood on her outfit. No wonder the governor is impressed. So much so, he hasn’t noticed Jamie’s absence, who, as luck would have it, returns to the theatre in the nick of time. It turns out he’s sent Fergus to warn Murtagh though it does raise the question as to how did Fergus know the exact spot where Murtagh and his men would be hiding in the woods and don’t these guys post sentries? But quibbles aside, the planned ambush of Murtagh and co is thwarted much to the annoyance of the Governor.
Meanwhile Roger finally has some luck (although sadly still not with the wardrobe department) and overhears Brianna’s dulcet tones in a tavern and the two would-be lovers are finally reunited. For someone who’s gone back in time 200 years, has been prepared to dress up in one of the most unflattering historical costumes ever seen on TV and gone from working as an Oxford don to slaving away as crew on an 18th century ship, captained by a murderous pirate, Roger does seem rather pissed off despite having finally found the object of his affection, while simultaneously having developed a penchant for manhandling Brianna in a rather brusque matter: a trait not overlooked by Brianna’s new maid, Lizzie (Caitlin O’Ryan).
Luckily for both Brianna and Roger, they find a nearby shed which for some reason no one else seems to know about where Brianna finally agrees to marry Roger, whereupon both Brianna and Roger are handfasted, a Highland custom whereby a couple is temporarily married for a year and a day after which you can decide whether to stay married or go your separate ways, a quaint tradition which nowadays has been replaced by the more common notion of “living together” which generally tends to be just as effective.
Besides having the advantage of no one knowing about this rather roomy shed, it also has, unusually when it comes to your basic shed construction, a rather large fire. This proves very practical because no sooner are our star-crossed lovers handfasted, then smooching commences and they soon get naked.
It’s hard not to draw comparisons with Jamie and Claire’s first night together which is, admittedly, slightly unfair as those two had a whole episode devoted to their wedding night. Secondly, the romance between Brianna and Roger is not a patch on the will-they-won’t-they romance between Claire and Jamie in Season One. Whose is? Moreover, it was the very fact that the romantic trope was turned on its head with Jamie being the virgin and Claire the more experienced lover which made the whole episode all the more intriguing. And lastly, Rankin is no Sam Heughan. Who is?
However, given that these two are usually at loggerheads, I thought it was a sweet scene. Given the scripts and the role he’s been asked to play, Rankin is having a hard time making his character likeable but he is trying his best. As an actor, he has natural charm and wit but he’s been dealt a bad hand so not surprisingly he makes the most of the few scenes, as here, where he’s not coming across as a dick. It may be a sign of the times but I suspect 20 odd years ago when the book, upon which the series is based, was first published I don’t think people would have found Roger’s character so problematic, post #MeToo some of his character traits are proving challenging to say the least. Whereas for society such a change in attitudes is a good thing, it’s sure not making Rankin’s job any easier.
But as usual with these two it doesn’t take long for them to be at cross purposes again, when Roger lets slip that he knew all the time about the fire that will kill Brie’s parents. Brie is angry he didn’t say anything and refuses to even countenance Roger’s explanation that he didn’t tell her because he didn’t want to hurt her, having just made her so happy by letting her know that her parents had found each other. Roger then makes things worse by admitting he confided in another woman i.e. Fiona about it all. Brianna argues back that he didn’t tell her because he wanted her to stay in the 20th century and be his wife. Roger admits the truth of that statement, and it’s an understandable viewpoint to have. If you love someone, you do tend to want them to be living in the same century as you as a bare minimum.
When Roger suggests that as he’s now her husband she should maybe listen to him, Brianna accuses him of believing that now she’s his wife she should do what he says. To be fair to Roger, he didn’t exactly say that. Brianna is being petulant but she’s young, she’s just had sex for the first time with a man she loves, just found out he’s been confiding in another woman, and was willing to do nothing to save her parents, and, after all, Roger is supposed to be the adult in the room but he’s behaving just as badly. The short of it is that Roger leaves; a situation that neither want but both are too proud and too immature to back down: so much for their first night together.
But for Brianna the night is to get so much worse. In the tavern she walks past Stephen Bonnet (Ed Speleers) playing cards. He asks Brianna to blow on the sliver ring he’s putting up as a stake for good luck. Brianna recognises the ring as that of her mother’s. Desperate to get it back, she follows Bonnet into a room thinking he’ll sell the ring to her. Unfortunately, Bonnet rapes her instead.
For once, I had read the novel before I watched the TV series and when I came to the chapter dealing with Brianna’s rape I was perturbed that yet another character was the victim of sexual violence. Almost every character in Outlander seems to be such a victim, and reading the rather graphic rape scene made me angry, first by the content and secondly, because I’m personally fed up about the number of women in books, TV and films that are victims of sexual violence as some kind of plot point in order to move the story forward.
Given how graphic the scene is depicted in the book, I wasn’t looking forward to watching this scene. So full marks to the writer (Luke Schelhaas) and director (Jennifer Getzinger) who decided less is more and Brianna’s rape is not depicted in detail; we see the initial attack and then hear her struggle behind closed doors while everyone else in the tavern ignores her screams for help. This scene chills your bones, leaving your imagination to picture what Brianna is going through while you become all the more angry at the indifference of those in the tavern to her fate.
With the contrast of those scenes with Brianna and Roger with that of Brianna and Bonnet, if nothing else, this episode makes clear the stark difference between sex and rape and again full marks to the production team in dealing with the rape scene with such tact. It will be interesting to see how the writers, directors and producers deal with the aftermath of what has happened to Brianna, and the consequences that this night will have for Brianna, Roger and the rest of the Fraser clan.
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