Want to relive Outlander Season 4 Episode 8? We do a minute-by-minute reaction to “Wilmington.”
[8:00 p.m.] Nudity, violence AND rape? Baby JHRC, it’s two days before Christmas, people! Keep the good stuff, but spare us the trauma.
[8:02 p.m.] Poor Roger’s been zapped through the stones, tossed back in time 200 years, survived a journey across the pond with Capt. Bonnet and still the lad hasn’t found a full-length pair of pants.
[8:03 p.m.] Fergus, meet Roger! Roger, meet Fergus! My yelling at the screen for these two to meet and ride off together to write the next great bromance novel is about as fruitful as when I talk to other drivers in traffic with my windows rolled up as if they can hear me.
[8:04 p.m.] OF COURSE Ian couldn’t make it. He’s off [insert verb-led excuse of the week]. Hardest working man this side of 10,000 acres-on-a-string.
[8:05 p.m.] My heart was so full of love and fit to burst too, Marsali… but over that charcuterie board. Nothing brings people together with joy like a new baby or a plate full of cheeses and cured meats.
[8:05 p.m.] I’m relieved Claire’s memory for details doesn’t have as many holes in it as the Swiss cheese off Marsali’s cheese plate that mine has. Because I’ve lost complete track at this point of who knows what about Claire’s backstory (she knows we know he knows we know she knows… you know?), but she just caught herself mid-emotion from spilling about having a daughter to Marsali. Impressive.
[8:06 p.m.] “…You can’t protect them from everyone and everything.” Um, foreshadow much?
[8:07 p.m.] It’s her, it’s her! He found her! And she finally found a knitted neck shawl and something to warm that bare bosom! An equally exciting endeavor!
[8:08 p.m.] These two have their own particular style of banter that holds so much appeal for me. It’s playful, energetic and cuddly, but also full of stubbornness… oh hell, it’s a Beagle puppy. Their love for each other is like a Beagle puppy who cocks his little head to the side and snuggles in your lap one minute and the next chews up your favorite shoes and stands in the middle of the street howling at oncoming cars.
[8:09 p.m.] Is that a forge? If so, someone on the Outlander team has a thing for the blacksmith trade this season. First, Murtagh is the new Black[smith] and now Roger and Bree are reunited [and it feels so good] in a forge.
[8:10 p.m.] Festival, schmestival. Loved Roger’s disappointed look in hearing that Bree had remembered his rules for play.
[8:11 p.m.]
Roger’s mouth: “Do you know what hand-fasting is?”
Bree’s face: “Um, no… but buy me a drink first?”
[8:12 p.m.] Bree’s all, “Your story has far too many details, Roger. Just lose the culottes already; let’s do this.”
[8:13 p.m.] Not to be outdone, her dad’s all, “My wife’s a healer – now drop your pants.” At least she comes by it honestly.
[8:14 p.m.] Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, that’s George Washington!
[8:15 p.m.] Chopping down cherry trees. LOL! Smooth, Claire.
[8:16 p.m.] And again, I know that Claire’s offering a lot of important context to George Washington’s famous backstory, but all that’s cycling through my head this close to Christmas is “he’ll go down in his-tory… like George Washington!”
[8:17 p.m.] You think you’re supposed to kneel? Well that’s a heck of a way to usher in your first…. oh, sorry – you’re still on that handfasting thing. Go on.
[8:18 p.m.] Brianna Ellen……..sigh.
[8:19 p.m.] My dad: “I know they just got ‘married,’ but are they about to seal the deal in the blacksmith’s shop? That’s like doing it in a Pep Boys.”
[8:20 p.m.] Poor Lizzie. You’d think Bree could have maybe shot a quick text to her new friend to let her know, not to worry – she left the bar with the hot guy, agreed to a quickie wedding and don’t wait up. You guys, we don’t even realize how spoiled we are to live in the digital era during moments like these.
[8:21 p.m.] Dammit, Murtagh, I refuse to place bets and start an egg timer counting down to your demise so soon after laying eyes on your glorious self again. Do us a solid, sit this one out and do your part to stay alive. Mkay?
[8:22 p.m.] Ohhhh, curtain’s up! What are we seeing? Hamilton? Mamma Mia? Either way, Gov. Tryon’s just ruined the show for Jamie. Or as my dad so eloquently offered, “well isn’t that guy just a turd in the punch bowl.”
[8:27 p.m.] Dear Outlander friends, someone let me know if my heart stops. This whole scene. #OutlanderVapors (Side note: ‘Tis the season… I’m watching this with my husband…gulp…and my parents. We all find ourselves super thrilled to be sitting in each other’s company for this extended sequence. As I’ve said before, I have only myself to blame for sucking them all right down the Outlander rabbit hole.)
[8:28 p.m.] Remind me not to ever go see a movie with this bunch of rowdy hecklers. Unless they buy me popcorn, then I’ll reconsider. I love movie popcorn. For the record, I’m referring to the onscreen theater crowd, though this might also apply to the one in my living room at present.
[8:29 p.m.] Anyone else having immediate flashbacks to Jamie asking Claire the very same question after his first time? Like father, like daughter. Also, Bree’s other follow up question to the hairy-chested wonder of a man that is Roger: “Are you by chance related to John Quincy Myers?” Or maybe that’s just mine.
[8:30 p.m.] “Behaving as though you’ve had your spinal column removed is a fair indication of male satisfaction.” That’s an official measurement. Noted.
[8:31 p.m.] Ahem, like MOTHER, like daughter.
[8:32 p.m.] These fancy folks are like, now this is a show. We’re finally getting our money’s worth.
[8:33 p.m.] “I need you to take a long drink, and hope that it knocks you unconscious.” – Claire to Mr. Fanning. Also, me to myself on any given Friday night after a long work week.
[8:34 p.m.] George Washington famously said, “It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.” I was really hoping he’d slide that in here in reply to Jamie’s half-baked surgical tools rationale to an early departure from the drama.
[8:35 p.m.] I love that these theater-goers are still just slurping down on their show cocktails all casual while Claire guts open a man like a fish and tickles his insides with two fingers in front of them.
[8:36 p.m.] What hath hell wrought? Apparently tobacco smoke up through the rear as a default form of treatment, that’s what.
[8:37 p.m.] FEET UP, MURTAGH – I WASN’T KIDDING. Stop doing you, please. I need you and your silver locks to stay whole for a bit.
[8:38 p.m.] Quick query – did one of these fancy pants ticket holders have one of those loose button sewing kits that come with new pants in their clutch? How fortunate for Claire that someone produced a needle and thread in a pinch.
[8:40 p.m.] Murtagh and Fergus! I thought I’d seen all the Murtagh reunions that mattered, but totally forgot about this one! Quick, Fergus – haul him off, plop his busy-body arse in a chair, pour him a dram and teach him more about the ways of women. That’s a safe place for him.
[8:42 p.m.] Oh hell, y’all, fair warning: the Beagle puppy’s about to eat your slipper and piddle on the new carpet. Again.
[8:44 p.m.] These two and their inability to argue competently make me want to bang my head against a standing stone.
[8:45 p.m.] Correction, Roger – you’re both acting like children.
[8:46 p.m.] Never trust a Virginian? Now that’s just silly – Virginia is for lovers!
[8:47 p.m.] My mom says this is Bree’s walk of shame. I beg to differ. It’s more like a walk of disbelief. Confusion. Sadness. D, all of the above.
[8:48 p.m.] I find it no coincidence that we still haven’t met our rape quota of this episode, we have eight min to go and boom – heeeeere’s Bonnet!
[8:49 p.m.] Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into his. And my stomach is turning in a way that I can’t blame on the continued holiday overeating. Commence fetal position rocking and thumb-sucking.
[8:50 p.m.] The physical mannerisms Ed Speleers uses to bring the monstrous Bonnet to life (notably, the twitch and continual smoothing back of his hair) are the stuff of which night terrors are born.
[8:51 p.m.] No one does anything?!? They’re laughing?!? Pouring more drinks?!? I don’t care what era we’re in, f**ckers! If you have never seen Jodie Foster’s Oscar-winning turn in The Accused, you pretty much just did. This is brutal.
[8:52 p.m.] I just… I can’t seem to… Words. I have none. All I can think is that to have experienced the extreme high of love and pleasure followed by the adverse bottom of violation and trauma all in the span of a single night, please find your mother soon, Bree. A mom hug can’t fix it, but it sure as heck can help on the very long road to comforting a brutalized body and heart.
Closing Thoughts:
Remember when I expressed my gratitude for the easy breezy episodes of the past three weeks and said we’d look back on them with longing? THIS EPISODE IS EXACTLY WHY I SAID THAT. Never get too comfortable, settled or content in your squishy Outlander glow. There’s always something menacing lurking around the corner just ready to extinguish that brilliant light. Yes, Roger and Bree finally found each other… and I mean, FOUND EACH OTHER. But it was short-lived and met on the other side by the greatest violation a woman (or man, as this show has reminded us as well) can endure, in my opinion. While I appreciated the decision to avoid showing Bree’s rape in its totality, I found the soundtrack of her panicked and pained screams for help alongside the jovial banter of a barroom full of bystanders who did absolutely nothing to be equally, if not more, hauntingly effective.
Somewhere in between there was also a cute baby, a delicious cheese plate, Jamie attempting diversionary theatrics, a bosomed Claire operating like a boss, Fergus and Murtagh emoting pleasantries in the dark woods and, who can forget, a spry George Washington!
But when I look back on this episode later, or even in the coming days, it’ll be hard for my brain and heart not to dismiss all of that and remember solely that this was the episode where Bree was promised a sweet forever just before losing it – and her innocence – for the same lengthy amount of time. And ho ho ho-ly hell, I’m not sure I needed that particular blend of episode dumped on me two days before Christmas. Yes, I read the books. Yes, I know that’s what was coming next. But still…
Thankfully, it looks as though we’ll get another tearful reunion, this time with Jamie and Bree, and that’s got me as giddy and maniac as an over-sugared, under-slept child waiting for Santa on Christmas Eve. Until next week, friends…
P.S., my dad’s closing thought: “This isn’t going very well for her. Maybe she should’ve stayed in Boston, don’t you think?” Astute, that father o mine.
If you’ve missed any of our Season 4 episode recaps, you can catch up with them here:
Episode 4.01: “God Bless America”
Episode 4.02: “Do No Harm”
Episode 4.03: “The False Bride”
Episode 4.04: “Common Ground”
Episode 4.05: “Savages”
Episode 4.06: “Blood of My Blood”
Episode 4.07: “Down the Rabbit Hole”
A complete library of recaps from Seasons 2-3 is also available here.
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