[Warning: The below and video above contain MAJOR spoilers for Outlander: Blood of My Blood, Season 1 Episode 9 “Braemar.”]
A fraught reunion for Julia and Henry Beauchamp (Hermione Corfield and Jeremy Irvine) and a devastating breakup for Ellen MacKenzie (Harriet Slater) and Brian Fraser (Jamie Roy) fueled the penultimate episode of Blood of My Blood‘s first season and made us eager for the finale. TV Insider talked to the actors who portray both couples, and they shared behind-the-scenes details about the shoot and reflected on their characters. Watch the video above for the full Outlander: Blood of My Blood Aftershow.
“Henry’s not necessarily a violent man, but he’s definitely got the propensity for violence. And I don’t think it would’ve taken much more for him to lash out and kill anyone who has touched his true love and his wife,” Irvine said of the world-shattering moment when Henry first sees his and Julia’s baby, William, and then almost immediately afterwards learns that Julia has married Lord Lovat (Tony Curran.) Corfield told us, “For Julia, it’s a horrible moment. She wants this even less than Henry does, maybe. She hopes that Henry understands she’s had to survive.”
The 20th Century couple — who became separated when they fell through time in this Outlander prequel and are the parents of Claire (Caitriona Balfe), the original series’ heroine — make plans to escape together. It’s a daring move that puts them, their child, and the allies they’ve made in the 18th Century, at risk.
Life-threatening danger was what led Ellen to turn what was planned as a passionate secret rendezvous with Brian into a good-bye. She did it because she knew he could be killed for being with her but played it off to him as having fallen out of love. “We shot it in a couple of different ways,” Slater revealed. “We did a version where Ellen was really genuinely upset and was really struggling to say what she was saying, and she was showing him her true feelings. But then we did a version where she was brutal and cutthroat and really convincing. That’s the version that made the edit, which I’m actually really glad about because she had to be convincing in order to save him, she had to break his heart in order to keep him alive.” Watch the video to hear from Roy on Brian’s side of the story.
Ellen can handle the pain. Slater told us that her character is fiercer than she’s ever been after the eighth episode’s virginity test, to which she was subjected after Lovat sent a letter to the Grant clan, into which Ellen is supposed to marry, insinuating that she was “impure.” “It’s a horrible thing to have happened to her. I’m glad that it’s in there. It shines a light on how women were treated back then,” Slater shared. “It was tough, but I think she is tough, and it only strengthens her in the end. It makes things clearer. It shows her where her brother’s loyalties actually lie, the way that they react when they find out that the Grants have requested the test and Dougal says, ‘You’ve made your bed. Let’s hope you don’t die in it.’”
The final moments of the episode revealed that despite Ellen’s attempt to protect Brian, someone still had it in for the bastard son of Lord Lovat, who was pursued by hired assassins. “An arrow gets fired at him, and then he kind of goes into his training and his warrior mode like it’s fight or flight, which is cool,” Roy said. “We haven’t really seen that set of Brian at all yet. We’ve seen him as the pacifist, a thinker, the considerate one, but he can definitely hold his own.” The October 10 season finale promises to be bloody good.
Outlander: Blood of My Blood, Season 1 Finale, Friday, October 10, 8/7c, Starz