Outlander Cast: Wilmington

Posted by Blake Larsen

Outlander Podcast Hosts Mary & Blake discuss Outlander episode 4.08, “Wilmington”.

In this episode we chat the complexities of writing young love, reality being an excuse for storytelling, and Martha Washington being one bad mamma jamma…

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Allison Indaburu
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December 27, 2018 at 1:16 AM

Oh, man. 4.775 Kilts. This episode is something else. I can’t even get my thoughts together…it’s awesome, and all goes really well…until Stephen Bonnet….*sigh*….. I’m just going right into my GBG.
My Good was divided between the Bree/Roger story line, and the Claire/Jamie storyline. With Bree and Roger, we almost see a comparison between the “Kids”, Bree & Roger, and the “Grown Ups”, Claire & Jamie. Roger and Bree are young, they’re obviously deeply in love with each other, but their youth and inexperience show so much compared to the Adults in the room. They just don’t know how to be together yet. Claire and Jamie are such comrades, they work flawlessly together to distract the governor, save the Hernia Bro, and save Murtagh, all in a nights work. They have years of experience together, and have been simpatico since Claire jammed Jamie’s arm back into his shoulder her first day through the stones. They resolve conflict through often gutwrenching honesty, bang it out with some hearty rumpy pumpy, then they move forward afterwards. Bree & Roger have some work to do on that front. Their conflict resolution is left wanting, that’s for sure. They almost seem to have different Love Languages, as Bree is a Teller, and Roger is a Shower. Roger performs acts of Service, and great Deeds for Bree, while she is a much more pragmatic, “I’ll tell you how I love you” kind of girl. Or maybe that’s just how I see them… In any case, they are not on the same page, though I think they may finally at least be in the same chapter of whatever book they find themselves in.
My Bad is also Roger and Bree. They fight, they get their hackles up, and they create a lot of their own False Conflict simply by not talking about things, or withholding information. Whether it’s a fault in the writing, or whether they intend Roger to be this big of a boob, I don’t know, but he could have cleared up all his issues with the timeline, and with Bree, by telling her outright what he knew, when he knew it. Also, I don’t believe for a hot second that he’s actually going to leave and go back across the freaking ocean, on a dank and stanky boat, then walk across Scotland, and shimmy back through the stones just because he got in a fight with Bree. Not on your life. He’s gonna go have a pint, blow off some steam, then go crawling back on his fuzzy wuzzy belly to apologize to Bree, but hot mama ain’t gonna be there. Oh, and when Roger told Bree she should start listening to him cuz he’s her husband now, I honestly said out loud, “You’re done, Buddy.” Even MY hackles pricked up when he said it! Sweety, you can’t bully a Fraser into a dang thing, especially like that. Golly, they have a long way to go, but that’s honestly what a lot of this story is about, so I’m on board.
My GREAT… I don’t have one. The entire episode was pretty good. I think what I have to say here is I appreciate on the one hand not having another rape shoved in my face. On the other hand, the key to any good Horror film, is they keep the monster just in the shadows, so you’re kept on edge because your mind can make a better monster than any special effects team. By having Bree raped off screen, we only hear her. We infer every gruesome, excruciating moment. For those of us who have lived through rape or assault, there isn’t an appropriate word in English to convey it. It is terror, but so much more. We know what is happening, and we cannot do a damned thing about it. We know how she is hurting. We know her panic, her fear, the sense of time and pain extended to infinity, begging for it to stop, until we are at last cast adrift in the empty abyss that she finds herself, shocked and numbed into silence. This episode, more than any other in the series, really shook me. Two days after watching it, my husband asked me why I was upset on Saturday night. I smiled awkwardly, because I knew full well that I suddenly became very unpleasant to be around after watching the episode. I told him something bad happened in my show, and he, having watched the first 2 seasons, hugged me, because he understood. I legitimately got Triggered by this episode. I don’t like to use the cliché of being “Triggered”, but it is actually a thing, and lots of people are honestly set off by things like this. I have rewatched this episode 5 or 6 times, but right at the end, I skip over the last scene. Just typing this, I’ve begun to shake. It hits too close to home for me. I don’t enjoy any of the previous rape scenes, I generally ignore them while they happen, or skip them. But I’ve been able to sit through every other rape scene multiple times…until this one. I can’t. I just can’t. I think that speaks volumes about how well done and visceral this scene is. I can’t call it Great. But I will call it Devastatingly Effective.
Nancy
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December 27, 2018 at 12:07 PM

Hey Mary and Blake, love your podcast, first time commenting here.

My kilt rating is 4.8. I really enjoyed this episode, until the very end, when I realized that every Fraser was raped at some point in the series??!? What’s up with that Diana? WTH? My good is Murtagh and Fergus reunion, it was such a throwback moment for me. And with so much reunions this season, I think Outlander should change the name to Reunions, just puttin’ the idea out there. My bad is Bree and Roger post coitus. I mean, it’s like Ross and Rachel all over again, it was just too much drama, on again off again, and they seemed to behave as some stubborn teenagers. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some drama, but it feels like they take one step forward and two steps back over and over again. Then again, I am curious to see how thing will turn out between them by the end of the season. My great is, and this may come as a surprise, when Jamie hit the Hernia guy and pretended like it was an accident, it was a LOL moment for me, I just enjoyed it so much. We don’t really get much comedic scenes in Outlander but I appreciate these little moments, like when Claire was talking to the coconut (was it a coconut?) back in S3.

Anyway, thanks for making this podcast, I’ve enjoyed every single episode of the Outlander podcast. I will impatiently be waiting for Monday and for the next episode to be available on Netflix, more reunions are yet to come. Lots of love from East Europe and happy holidays Outlander fam.
broughps
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December 28, 2018 at 3:37 PM

This is the argument Roger and Bree have in the books, but they resolve it before Roger leaves.

Bree getting raped was the same day as the handfasting.
broughps
· Reply

December 28, 2018 at 3:41 PM

For some reason all the posts whether it’s the podcasts or reading the live recaps can’t be seen until two or three days later than the dates posted. And believe me I’m checking things as soon as I know they’re suppose to be up. Not sure what’s happening.
Dawn
· Reply

December 28, 2018 at 4:13 PM

Hi Mary and Blake, Happy Holidays to you!

Thanks so much for the great belly laughs! You guys are so much fun.

Loved seeing Fergus and Marsali. After last week with Leghaire and Joanie mentioning how much they missed Marsali, I really wanted to see them, it feels like it’s been way too long since we have.

Poor Ian, absent again! Boy, it’s starting to remind me of “Where’s Waldo,” it’s a longstanding joke that we never see wee Ian anymore. And I really want to.

Bree and Roger: The handfasting was lovely, as was their sex scene. But honestly, Roger–as much as I love him, couldn’t he curb that male-chauvinist pig attitude that he inherited from Dougal?

I feel like that whole argument was a soap opera convenience, just something
to have the quote unquote “woman in peril” storyline to come.

After seeing such great character development and exploration of Bree’s character last week, I thought that the argument did a disservice to both characters.

Roger wasn’t doing himself any favors with Bree by coping that attitude with her.

Of course she’d be upset with him–own it Roger!

As heartwarming as the scene with Claire and Marsali was talking about motherhood, Damn, they were way too heavy on the foreshadowing: Any idiot could have forseen that Bree was going to be raped just by that dialogue alone.

Now, on the one hand I have to say that the first real sex scene of season 4 has to be marred by that old Outlander go-t0: rape.

But, wow, I have to say it was very powerfully done. In its way it was even more disturbing than many of the others, simply with the way it was done.

It reminded me very much of The Accused, where the bar patrons didn’t do anything to stop what was happening.

They ignored Bree’s cries for help, by going about their drinking and gambling.

They were not just turning the rape out as a defense mechanism: They were callous. They had an acceptance that made them hardened to the brutality. I got the chills when that guy lined up Bree’s boots outside of the closed doors where the rape was occurring.

I had a thought about this: I wonder if the writers were making another point about how brutal and wild America was (how it was built on violence).

I keep reflecting on “The Garrison Commander,“ and the young soldier Corp. Hawkins who guarded the door for Black Jack.

It was obvious that this young kid knew what Black Jack was like. The soldier most likely saw him terrorize many men and women, but it was also obvious that he was appalled by Black Jack’s soullessness.

Hawkins even apologized to Claire in that episode. You really had the feeling that if the young kid could stop Black Jack, he would have.

But in this episode with Bree’s rape, the gamblers and bar patrons did absolutely nothing to help. To them it might has well have been Marti Gras.

To Bonnet, the rape was a kind of business deal he made–even though he did strike Bree until she bled–and the patrons just accepted this.

Scary stuff.

Poor Bree, she was such a fragile waif in that scene.

The only person who seemed concerned for Bree and what might happen to her was Lizzie, and we saw that early in the episode when Bree was aruging with Roger.

By the way, in the Murtah plot, was anyone else reminded about Jamie and Murtah’s plot to fool the Comte in Paris?
Julie White
· Reply

December 31, 2018 at 12:25 PM

Blake and Mary, enjoy your podcasts of the show and I’m usually agreeing or disagreeing with your analysis non verbally, as I listen on my morning walks.
This time though I felt the need to address something to you Blake in terms of your desire for Outlander to stop using rape as a plot point in driving a story forward. Mary was right, women both in the 18c and still in the 21c do not have the same priviledge as a white male in going about their business free of any harassment. If Outlander use rape as a plot point it’s because it happened and continues to happen. We do not like it happening to us so please do not say, “oh rape, that ole nugget again” (paraphrase). It demeans us and does not place value on what women experience around the world on a daily basis. Outlander have exposed the vulnerabilities of people not in a position of power and the continuing trauma they have to live with and I’m totally onboard with that.
Choose your words carefully Blake, they have impact.
Charlotte Marks
· Reply

January 2, 2019 at 9:39 AM

Thank you, Mary, for pointing out that rape is not a “device” but a historically accurate part of the dangers of human society that continues to this day. I read non-fiction much more than fiction and I get beyond annoyed at people who accuse Gabaldon of sensationalism. Not to mention that the rapes in her books are life-shattering events with consequences that reverberate for the rest of the story, all the way into her current book and no doubt beyond.