‘Outlander: Blood of My Blood’ Showrunner Breaks Down Episode 8’s Emotional Reunion Ahead of a Tear-Jerker Finale: “You Might Be a Slight Wreck”

[Editor’s note: The following contains major spoilers for Episode 8 of Outlander: Blood of My Blood.]

Summary

Episode 8 of the Starz series ‘Outlander: Blood of My Blood’ forces strong emotions, alongisde tender reunions and brutal period realities.
Ellen MacKenzie’s virtue test is a harrowing, intimate humiliation, reflected in the beauty of Harriet Slater’s performance.
Love wins but pain follows, so be sure to bring Kleenex for the hope, tears, and more conflict of the season finale.

In episode eight of the Starz series Outlander: Blood of My Blood, entitled “A Virtuous Woman,” Ellen (Harriet Slater) was forced to endure a test of her virtue that she had to pass in order to proceed with her marriage to Malcolm Grant (Jhon Lumsden), all while her brothers looked on. Because Julia (Hermione Corfield) was there to ensure Ellen and Brian (Jamie Roy) could survive another day of their forbidden romance, she finally came face to face with her husband Henry (Jeremy Irvine), who believed her to be dead. But danger averted and love reunited doesn’t equal any happy endings yet.

Collider recently got the opportunity to chat with showrunner Matthew B. Roberts about the events of this episode and he discussed the importance of making viewers feel things, the contrasts between the love Julia and Henry share and what Ellen and Brian are fighting for, the rage induced by what Ellen is put through as her virtue is questioned, the beauty of Slater’s performance in the episode, Mrs. Fitz’s (Sally Messham) warning to Brian, the tough conversation that might be coming for Henry and Julia, Malcolm Grant, and how fans will react to what is sure to be a tear-jerker of a finale.

Collider: I am all up in my feelings about episode eight. I wanted to rage for Ellen.

MATTHEW B. ROBERTS: Good. That’s what you’re supposed to feel.

‘Outlander: Blood of My Blood’ Showrunner Matthew B. Roberts Wants Both Franchise Fans and New Viewers to Connect With the Characters

“Telling a good story that makes people feel things is important.”

Image via Starz

How did this episode make you feel? As far as what you put her through, do you feel for these characters yourself, just as much as the audience? Do you use yourself to gauge that?

ROBERTS: I use not just myself, but other people too. I have a lot of very trusted people who work on the show, not only on Blood, but they’ve been on Outlander. So, when we watch cuts and craft the episodes, it’s very important how we all feel about it, but we also have to take ourselves out of it. At the end of the day, and I say this about Outlander, there aren’t things that I personally might like or dislike. That has nothing to do with what’s in Outlander: Blood of My Blood – my personal feelings or my personal likes and dislikes. It’s what works for the show, what works for the characters, and ultimately what works for the audience. I’m not making it for me, I’m making it for them.

With Blood of My Blood, we want the people who have watched Outlander to come to it, but also the people who have never heard of Outlander to come to it. Telling a good story that makes people feel things is important. When I’m watching a cut, and I know that the people who’ve watched thousands and thousands of hours of Outlander are starting to feel things, then you know. That moment when Henry and Julia finally see each other and touch, people who have seen all of Outlander just start bawling and you go, “Yeah, we’ve got something here. This is going to work. I think the fans might like this.”

And then, you know it’s Outlander when you just rip them away from each other again.

ROBERTS: You just rip them apart, that’s how you know. If we gave Outlander fans an episode of all our couples just hanging out, drinking wine and talking about things, they would hate us. But if you look at the contrast of what’s going on in the episode, you’ve got this episode where Brian and Ellen are fighting for their lives, and then you have this pure moment of love that is playing out with Henry finally realizing his wife is alive and the baby is alive. It’s this fantastic moment, and you give them that, whereas Brian and Ellen are showing a different kind of love. They’re fighting to stay alive. Those contrasts balance the episode.

The episode starts with laying out all these tools and implementation devices on the table. Were those all real? Did you have to make any for the show?

ROBERTS: Unfortunately, they are real. What’s funny is that when we were looking at them, I wouldn’t know this, but a lot of people who are in the position said that those tools hadn’t changed a lot. Some of them look very similar to what is still in use today, and that shocked a lot of us. It also told me that we didn’t have to show a lot because a lot of our audience will know what’s happening to Ellen. They’ve experienced some version of this throughout their lives, and they know how uncomfortable and intrusive it is. As a man, that doesn’t happen, and you don’t have to do it. I was like, “Wow, this is going to be really impactful to a lot of our audience.” All we needed was Harriet [Slater]’s face. Even if you don’t know what’s happening below frame, what she’s going through must be horrible. She took it to a new level and a different level where she showed the pain of what her brothers were putting her through, that her brothers didn’t defend her, that her brothers didn’t step in and go, “No, that’s too much, stop.” They let her go all the way through. That, to me, is the most powerful part of that performance.

One of the things that really stood out to me was the line that Ned has in the episode when he says, “If she has sinned, let us hope you’ll find a way to forgive her. And if she’s innocent, that she’ll find it in her heart to forgive you.” Is there any way for something like this to happen without it driving a further wedge among this family?

ROBERTS: That’s part of that relationship. Part of writing the show is that you have to stay in the period of what they would think, not what we would think. We can’t put 2025 perspective on these characters. In 2025, there’s a thousand options that somebody has. In 1714, there aren’t. We get the question, “Why don’t they just leave?” Where are they going to go? It’s not set up for people to just leave. Women have no agency. Ellen is literally her brother’s property until she is given away. They give money to the person taking her. The dowry says, “Please take her off her hands.” That’s the process. Even today, the father gives the bride away. That’s where it comes from. Who pays for the wedding? The father of the bride, or the father and mother of the bride. That’s the dowry, as they’re expected to do, etiquette wise. You’ve got to look at it through the perspective of the character’s eyes. Having a relationship with her brothers, for as long as she has, is extraordinary in that time. She probably would have been married off if Red Jacob didn’t allow her not to. Story wise, technically Jocasta and Janet probably wouldn’t be hanging out at the castle all the time, but we want them in the story.

‘Outlander: Blood of My Blood’ Shows That Jamie Is a Mix of Both of His Future Parents

“I like the balance of these two people.”

Harriet Slater as Ellen leaning her head on the shoulder of Jamie Roy as Brian in Outlander: Blood of My Blood

The physical examination is really horrible to watch because it does feel like such a violation. You can also tell that Ellen is trying so hard not to react and to not show them how she feels. What was it like to just watch her silent tears and her regaining her composure?

ROBERTS: Because of Outlander, you obviously look for parallels. There are moments when you see Jamie go through something with that same strength, and you go, “Maybe that’s where he got it from.” You also see Brian, earlier in the season, take a belt, and he looks at his dad like, “Should I count or should you?” And you go, “Maybe he got it from him.” I like the balance of these two people because Brian is a very kind-hearted person. He has different mannerisms than Jamie. Maybe he got that from Ellen, but there’s also that stubbornness that they’re so famous for. She was stubborn. She’s like, “I’m not letting my brothers see my pain. I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to give them the satisfaction, or anybody else in that room.” So, when she gets up and she stares them down, I love that moment.

That moment really forces them to feel that guilt. They are essentially humiliating her by subjecting her to that, so it’s nice to see them feeling uncomfortable and guilty about it.

ROBERTS: Yeah, there’s that little bit of sheepishness. Mrs. Fitz is like, “Shame on all of you.” Even Ned is like, “I know we shouldn’t be doing this. If Red Jacob were alive, he would have kicked him out, but we’re not in that position anymore and we need this marriage to happen.”

‘Outlander: Blood of My Blood’ Worked to Get All Four Characters Together in a Real and Believable Way

“Coming up, you’ll have a little more of that.”

Hermione Corfield helping Harriet Slater pass her virtue test in Outlander: Blood of My Blood

I actually really love that you were able to bring the storylines together so that we can see Julia helping Ellen, and Brian being the one to get her there, and Julia finally running into Henry. How challenging was it to figure out ways to get them all together?

ROBERTS: It’s episode eight when Henry and Julia get back together, but getting the four characters in a room together was very challenging, story-wise. We could have easily got, “All right, let’s put them in the room.” But I don’t think the audience would have enjoyed it as much because it would have felt manufactured or written. You don’t want to see the writer in the show, you just want to see the characters in the show. You don’t want to see the director in the show, you just want to see the characters in the show. So, to have this moment where you go, “Oh, wait, we can get them all in the same area?” was a challenge. To tease you, coming up, you’ll have a little more of that.

At first, Mrs. Fitz thinks Ellen’s was with Murtagh, and then she realizes by the end that it was Brian. She gives him back the handfast fabric and tells him to say away if he truly loves Ellen. How much more difficult things are going to get for them in the last couple of episodes?

ROBERTS: The title is still Outlander: Blood of My Blood. We were doing the opening of Season 5 of Outlander, and Bree and Roger were getting married. We were 40 minutes into the show and people were feeling great about life. They were doing their wine parties and having a good time, but you knew something bad was coming. You knew we were going to do it. Whether you think it’s bad or traumatic, it’s up to the audience to determine that. There are going to be conflicts in their future, and we’re going to see how they deal with them. Love does have a tendency of winning out on Outlander, though. Once you battle through, at the end of the day, that love element is always there and I think you can see it throughout Blood of My Blood, in that moment when Henry and Julia touch, or when Brian and Julia save Ellen. That moment when she says, “If you love her, you’ll stay away from her,” it makes him wonder, “Is she better off without me? Loving me could kill her.” That’s something that we have to see.

Henry has tremendous guilt over having been with another woman when he thought his wife was dead, and Julia has had to deal with Lord Lovat. It feels like that will be quite the conversation at some point.

ROBERTS: It will be. That’s going to be a tough one. They may have that conversation. You’ve got to remember how it happened and how it broke down for him and the mental trauma that was a part of it for him. And for Julia, it’s survival. It’s like that moment when the king forces himself on Claire, and she gives in. But does she? If she doesn’t, Jamie dies, so that’s not a choice. There’s zero choice there. That’s what I mean. Julia has that same kind of pressure. Brian was right, you can go out onto the moors and walk the walk alone, but as a woman, you’re not going to make it. You’re going to die out there, one way or another. That’s the jail they’re both in.

I really appreciate how you’ve made me care about Malcolm Grant. He could have been something of a villain, but there’s something almost sweet about him in some ways.

ROBERTS: Jhon Lumsden, who plays Malcolm, brought something different to the character. As it started to play out, it wasn’t exactly the way I’d always seen it, but it was playing in a different way, and it was lovely. It created this fantastic dynamic of, if not for Brian Fraser, maybe Malcolm’s the guy. If Malcolm was just a dirt bag, and he was just a horrible person, and he was just crappy to everybody and her, then who cares if Brian’s the guy. Of course. But if she didn’t meet Brian and Malcolm got to her first, who knows? I don’t think it would have worked out that way, but he’s a viable guy and he’s a good guy. There’s a lot to it. I don’t think we’ve seen everything of him yet. There’s more character there to develop in Malcolm. A lot more will come out.

‘Outlander: Blood of My Blood’ Showrunner Matthew B. Roberts Wants You to Brace Yourself for the Finale

“Always have a box of Kleenex.”

What emotions do you think fans are going to have by the end of the season finale? Will there be a sense of hope for what’s to come? Should we have a box of Kleenex? What should we be prepared for?

ROBERTS: I think a little of both. Always have a box of Kleenex, that’s for sure. I do think there’s a sense of hope in all these episodes, in a weird way. If you look for it, it’s there. At the end of the season, I’m not going to tell you how to feel, but I want there to be the desire to go, “Oh, my God, I cannot wait to see what happens next.” I think we’ve crafted a really nice ending to the season. There are a lot of emotions in the finale. I think you’ll be all over the place. After it ends, you might be a slight wreck, which is what I want. There are so many emotions flying around, but at the end, when you finally see those credits roll, I when you to go, “Oh, my God, I can’t wait for Season 2!”