Shared grief for Jamie (Sam Heughan) – who later turned out to be very much alive – drove his “widow” Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and his good friend Lord John Grey (David Berry) into each other’s arms in the December 6 episode of Outlander. But you could hardly describe their night together as tender and loving.
“There is a lot of aggression in the way that they express their intimacy, especially Claire,” says Berry, who breaks down the episode in our aftershow, Inside Outlander (click on the video for the full interview). “Claire processes her grief through a lot of rage and directs it at Lord John. Lord John is looking to find comfort. And he will persist through that rage to break down this wall of rage that Claire puts up. That’s the essence of their passion.”
Berry tells us that at first not everyone working on the series was on the same page about how to depict the scene between Claire and Lord John. “There were a lot of discussions about to what extent do we show the intimacy, competing ideas about how far do we take it. I think in the original script it went a lot further. Then there was a negotiation about, ‘Well, do we take it that far?’ I was happy to explore that, but I think that through this process of negotiation, it was pared down a lot. There was improvisation that Cait and I did, and a lot of rehearsal of the non-speaking elements. I think a lot of that ended up on the cutting room floor. This could have been shot in so many different ways. It is such a weird and confusing thing, and I guess we just gave it our best shot. There was a lot of improvisation leading up to a moment where there was a red line on how far the intimacy could go — and then they kind of stopped there.”
When Jamie returns towards the end of the episode, Berry says, “[Lord John is] shocked. He’s relieved, he’s fearful, he’s confused. He’s just a flood of emotions. He doesn’t get time to process any of that because he’s thrown immediately into another big dramatic moment where William finds out that Jamie is his real father.”
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William’s rage is devastating to Lord John, who has raised the young man like his own child. “His relationship with his son is perhaps just as important and profound as his relationship with Jamie,” Berry says. “And to lose that and to have those things in opposition, one coming in, one going out at the same time, just throws him. He now must fight to get back his son and to repair that relationship and to be the father that he believes he is to William.”
But that’s not the only problem Lord John will face. Although he and Claire only spent one night together, the act will fill Jamie with rage towards his friend. In the December 13 episode, Berry says, “It’s going to have really profound consequences for their relationship. He doesn’t expect that Jamie’s going to react in the brutal way he does.”
Outlander, Season 7, Part 2, Fridays, 8/7c, Starz (Midnight on the Starz App and On Demand)
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