Episode 308 - "First Wife"

The Official Outlander Podcast Episode 308 - First Wife

Drink of the week: Old Fashioned with Basil Hayden Bourbon

Toni: Hi everyone. We’re doing this a little differently this year. You won’t be able to hear the episode in the background of the podcast, so in order to sync up the show with what we’re saying, you should pause now and hit play as soon as the main titles start. [0:14]

[0:17] Matt:Hey everyone. Welcome to the Outlanderpodcast. I’m Matt Roberts, executive producer and I’m here with Toni Graphia, also an executive producer.

Toni: Hi everyone

Matt: We’re here to watch episode 308, “First Wife,” written by Joy Blake. This one

Toni: Tell ‘em what we’re drinking

Matt: Oh, what we’re drinking, we’re drinking um, old fashioneds I think made with uh, Basil Hayden Bourbon uh, but it, we, we picked it because uh, it’s got some bitters in it (Toni laughs) and there’s gonna be some bitter moments coming up...

Toni: Oh yeah

Matt: ...in this episode, so uh

Toni: There’s, there’s some bitter folks in this one, that’s for sure

Matt: It’s gonna be some, well, there’s one bitter person, that’s for sure

Toni: Yeah. (laughs) One of my favorite, one of my favorite, favorite cocktails, though

Matt: So cheers, cheers to you

Toni: Cheers! (glasses clink) Here we go

[1:17] Matt: Try not to get drunk for this one

Toni: I’m, I’m trying. Cause like Geordie said, “God’s tooth, it’s not even noon!” (laughs)

Matt: (laughing) That’s the truth

Toni: This is, this is an early one so

Matt: This is an early one for us. Of uh, the title “First Wife” uh, came from uh, suggested by Maril Davis

Toni: Ah

Matt: Um, I’m usually the person who has the uh, uh, you know, the, the, changes titles but uh...

Toni: Yes

Matt: ...this one was, this suggestion came from Maril, so

Toni: Ah. Well it’s off of Willoughby’s saying, “Honorable First Wife.”

Matt: Yeah

Toni: Thank god he says it in Cantonese so Claire doesn’t know what uh, “What do you mean firstwife?” If she would’ve been paying attention or if she knew Chinese it would’ve, she would’ve been uh

Matt: Yeah

Toni: She would’ve been clued in a little earlier than she did

Matt: She’s pretty quick, that Claire.

Toni: Yeah

Matt: Uh, back at uh, Lallybroch, uh, which is, is always a nice place to go, it’s Midhope Castle um, that plays for our Lallybroch.

Toni: Yeah, this is the first time in twenty years Claire’s seen the, the place that she called home and she’s reuniting with Jenny here.

M  mm. Jenny uh, is Laura, Laura Donnelly plays Jenny, she’s a wonderful actress

[2:37] Toni: Ah, we were so excited to have her back

Matt: Yeah. And, of course uh

Toni: Steven Cree

Matt: Steven Cree as uh, Ian. Big Ian. Uh, who you, we also uh, love to have him back

Toni: Right, right. Now we should talk about the fact that this, this episode shot way out of order. It’s episode number eight and because of some scheduling issues we actually shot it in our second block

Matt:We did

Toni: A lot, so we shot, our first block was episode one and three, episode three, Ardsmuir. And then block two was episode two

Matt: Uh, two and eight

Toni: Two and eight and it really, ah, yeah.

Matt: Which if you, if you look it, they both take place at Lallybroch, they both have a lot of the same characters

Toni: Right

Matt: Um, the difference being is there were uh, you know, years in between. So…

Toni: Right

Matt: ...so between hair and makeup and and uh, the hair and makeup department and the costume department, they had to keep track

Toni: Yeah

Matt: Of all the, the, the, the subtle differences um, between the two episodes. Whereas one day we could be filming uh, sce, um, a scene from episode two and then the very next day you’re filming a scene from episode eight and you know, twenty years goes by

Toni: Yeah, we have to give a lot of credit to the actors and to our entire team the, you know, costume, makeup, everyone because uh, it’s a very difficult to shoot out of order it just makes your head spin and, and you’ll have to remember that this means they would’ve shot uh, this episode where they fight over the first wife before we had ever shot the reunion

Matt: Oh, long before this

Toni: So they had, long before, and they haven’t even re, reunited yet. So to play this and have to dredge up those emotions um, completely out of context is a real challenge and then that just shows the talent of, not only our actors, but the whole team, the whole Outlandercrew to be able to pull this off

Matt: And these are the only scenes that uh, Sam and Caitriona played together during the first um...

Toni: Right

Matt: ...during quite a few uh, of the blocks until we get to episode six

Toni: That’s right

Matt: Where they actually re, reunite, so. I think Sam had a little bit of a cold during shooting um, uh, I’m always amazed that, that both Catriona and Sam don’t get sick, uh, more often during the filming because, not only do they, you know, the, the hours that we work, but you know, the around three hundred people uh, who, who get sick from time to time um, but yeah, they, the last year in season two Caitriona had a cold once but as a trooper she fought through it and the, this year, I think Sam had a little bit of a cold um, but I like, I like how we play it for what it is

Toni: Right

Matt: You know?

(silence)

[5:39] Toni: Yeah, Jenny is understandably a little, a little thrown by this, a little suspicious of what, you know, not only is she really angry cause, you know, her son had run away and was with Jamie and he didn’t tell them, didn’t admit that he was with him um, so it’s a little, there's a little tension here

Matt: I think there was a, a little uh, debate in the room, again there’s a, you know, I think the ongoing thing that the fans of the podcast will, will hear is there’s a debate in the room

Toni: Yeah (laughs)

Matt: We don’t, we don’t, we don’t always agree on certain things, for sure. But uh, Ian’s punishment was one of them. I think uh, one of the things in the book that, that I always liked is that Jamie had to dole out or

Toni: Right

Matt: Or met out the punishment and um,

Toni: And in fact he turns and lets Ian uh, whip him as well

Matt:Yes

Toni: Cause we feels responsible but we, we felt

Matt: Which, which I’ve always, which I always liked. I liked that about Jamie and we did that in last season

Toni: It was cool, it was cool. I think it was just well, off of your episode, “The Reckoning,” that Jamie’s kind of maybe changed his attitude a bit about, you know, thrashing people and um, he comes up with a more creative uh, punishment for Young Ian like, and we did a lot of research to try to find, what’s the most awful, you know, chore you could be assigned on the farm and we found this thing where they make uh, for fuel they make uh, these cakes out of dung and straw and so we thought let’s, let’s have him make these patties, you know and uh, it’s a nasty job, so that’s his punishment instead.

Matt: And as you see the, the kids have grown up and gotten older and grandkids

Toni: Oh there’s grandkids, grandkids

Matt: And grown up and had kids themselves

Toni: Jenny’s a grandma. She looks good for a grandma

Matt: She does.

[7:38] Toni: That kid’s chewing gum. (laughs) That’s not period correct, is it?

Matt: No, I think he’s chewing uh, they stole some cakes, that’s what the, the scene was they, that, that’ll be your dinner cause they stole some cakes

Toni: Ahh, ah.

Matt: So he’s not chewing gum

Toni: Alright, I thought maybe he was gonna blow a bubble there for a second (laughs)

Matt: No.

Toni: We wanted to um, carefully structure, you know, the beats between Claire and Jenny so that, you know, Jenny just doesn’t just welcome her back with open arms. She’s a little, she’s happy to see her, she loves Claire but she thinks this is a little fishy. Like, where’s she been? Where’d she come from? Uh

Matt: And also, you know, family sticks with family so why, where did you go? Why were you gone?

Toni: Yeah, yeah. But we didn’t want it to just, them to clash right off the bat. It had to build like, you know, they’re a little bit uh, tentative around each other and just stepping delicately and it’s awkward, you know, it’s awkward and this is wee Jamie who, remember we saw him uh

Matt: Yeah, he was at the, at the washtub in episode thirteen, I believe in uh, season one

Toni: Gosh, at the washtub at the laundry. Uh, was, “The Watch.”

Matt: “The Watch,” yeah. Written by you

Toni: Yeah.

Matt: Um, this is, if we have anything even resembling a standing set it would be Lallybroch. We, we kept the, the interiors are still on our stages um, right now. Um, and Midhope Castle is we, we, we go back to, to that quite a bit. Um, for the dooryard um, the front door and, and around back, so uh, it’s been really kind to us and it’s now one of our most iconic locations and I think even fans trek to it to uh, to see uh, I know we’ve been on location scouts a few times when you take a new director there and uh, there’s always a few fans milling about. Um, and uh, you know, we have a little chat with them about uh, you know, the filming and stuff

Toni: Yeah, yeah. It is very um, when you stand at the end of the road, at the end of the driveway and look up at it. Because when I’ve, I have to admit when I first saw the location pictures I was a little like, “Uh, it’s a cool building but this isn’t at all how I pictured Lallybroch.” I pictured it a little more, I don't know, less stone and less tall and it, more warm and friendly looking, this, it looks a little imposing and it, just not what I pictured Jamie’s home to look like. Um, but I have to admit when I got to Scotland and I saw it, when I first stood at the end of the drive and looked up at it it just gave me the chills it was like a

Matt: Did you cry?

Toni: Really, well,

Matt: Did you little Toni tear? Did you cry?

Toni: (laughing) I think I didn’t have to cry, it was probably pouring rain so there was probably plenty of water on my face

Matt: Right. Right, right

Toni: But I, I did, it does take your breath away and it has a magical quality to it and suddenly I got it and I was like, “Yep, this is it, this is very, this, this is his home,” and, and um

[10:55] Matt: I think we, we discussed what the story would be because, you know, once again you, in the book, it, it, when you, when you go from Claire’s perspective, some things you don’t have to, you know, and the book doesn’t have to tell everything.

Toni: Right

Matt: And you know, we spend a lot of time with Jamie now, um, for good reason, you know, Sam’s, Sam’s so great at, at playing Jamie, you want to spend time out of, out of, you know, POV

Toni: Right

Matt: Out of Claire’s POV. Um, see and here...

Toni: Jenny, she’s a smart

Matt: ...Jenny’s obviously wise to what’s going on, she’s, she’s smart. Jamie knows she’s smart

Toni: You can’t get much past Jenny and it does make sense that she’s, this is troubling to her, you know, cause she saw her brother, she’s not just being a jerk here. She saw her brother suffer and live in a cave for years, she saw how his life was just a shell without Claire and so now she’s like, “Wait a minute, you were alive all that time? And, and he suffered for nothing?” you know, “Where were you? Why did you get in touch with us?” And it just, she’s not buying it, and I think that’s real, realistic.

[12:07] Matt: And I think um, you know, when we, we filmed episode uh, 303 um, which is the uh, the Ardsmuir episode where Jamie’s in prison, you know, a lot of people had questions about um, a missing scene when Jamie goes to discover or, or to see if the white witch was there

Toni: Oh, right

Matt: And why did we not show that, why did we not see that, and I think their answers, uh, their answer is in this episode

Toni: Yeah.

Matt: Um, in, and the funny thing is, is in the books this happens quite a bit and we run into this as one of our biggest challenges. In the books what, what, what happens is an event will take place, it will be skipped over in the moment and then two characters will discuss it, Diana will describe it in such livid, or uh, vivid detail

Toni: Yeah

Matt: That you feel like you’re there. But it, but it happens way out of time.

Toni: Right

Matt: So but we have to play it in time and this is one of those, this is one moment where we actually did it very similar to the book, I mean in the sense of we told it out of time

Toni: Right, well, you know, it, it was much, it played much better here because he’s telling it to Claire. And we get to see her reaction to it.

Matt: Right.

Toni: In fact a lot of TV shows would play it in both places. They would’ve played it when it happened and then they’d show it as a flashback and you’d see it twice. But it, it definitely has more power here because he’s telling it to her. And that we get to see, you know, the interaction of the couple which is

Matt: I, you know, I mean, there’s arguments, there is arguments both ways. I think because the way people view television now, I know the way I viewed television is different than I did even five, certainly ten years ago. What we’ve, we’ve been doing flashbacks and sometimes you don’t even need to do a flashback because people, people can just go and watch that episode. Or it’s in the “previous on” or they’ve just watched that episode. So, you’ll see this from the main, the main titles um, this is one of our main title shots that we, we used kind of co-opted

Toni: Oh, it’s gorgeous, yeah

Matt: So that island actually isn’t out there with, this is a visual effect that um, that we put in um, it’s actually…

Toni: The water looks cold!

Matt: ...Dunure Castle in Dunure, Scotland

Toni: Ah.

Matt: At, this was, this was filmed, so we had people in the water swimming and that’s uh, that’s Sam freezing

Toni: Yeah. He freezes good (laughs)

Matt: Yep, he’s a good freezer. Um, and so, so, this is an actual castle, we just kind of created visual effects around, you know, created the water around it to make it look like an island. But this is an actual structure that um

Toni: Yeah. Wow, this is, so this is going all the way back to Ardsmuir when uh, he escaped and

Matt: So now, now yeah, this is a flashback to that moment

Toni: Yeah, and, and this was in the previews, this is the moment, “Claire!” (chuckles)

Matt: So this is, this is what everybody saw and they wondered that why we cut it but we, you know, sometimes…

Toni: We were saving it

Matt: ...we want to say, “Hey,” you know, we always say, “Be patient,” when we know something’s coming

Toni: This is something wehere uh, also, I believe this is where, is this where he sees the stone that has the...

Matt: Yes

Toni: ...MacKenzie etching on it. We weren’t sure, you know, he, he finds the trea, he finds it under a rock or something in the, in the wall

Matt: No, it’s across from the, you’ll see it across from the thing, there's, there’s a marking there

Toni: Yeah, and we, we had to add that on to the rock because

Matt: Visual effect, yeah

Toni: Because people, when they saw the dailies they were like, “How does he know to go to that rock?” And we’re like, “Well..” So we actually added the, the MacKenzie crest, which you can see, it’s a stag with the horns that’s been etched into the rock and that’s how he knew that the treasure was there.

[16:14] Matt: And by the way, he’s Jamie Fraser, he’s that close to Superman. He has x-ray vision, (Toni laughs) he saw right through.

Toni: (laughing) He saw that. He’s like, “Whew, that’s a nice uh, sapphire in there.” And of course that’s the sapphire that he gave to uh

Matt: Yeah, John Grey in three.

(silence)

[16:49] Matt: Yeah, I like how he, he calculated that in the moment. He’s heartbroken, he didn’t find Claire

Toni: Right

Matt: And, and, when he equates that he’s like, he didn’t have the treasure he was there to find, which was Claire

Toni: Which was her, yeah

Matt: And he’s like, “Okay, well I’ll leave these trinkets and maybe come back another time,” but it’s like

(silence)

[17:18] Toni: And now this goes back to the part, you know, the

Matt: So this goes to season, or to episode one

Toni: Where she saw the bird in the windowsill and, and whenever she would see things like that, you know birds have played a big role in our, our show. The starlings in the witch trial and the blue herons. Birds are kind of, Matt and I both love birds and have, have owned birds and um, I think they’re always symbolic and she would see birds and think of Jamie and that he was speaking to her through these, the animals and so

Matt: Well I, I always thought that, you know, when you’ve, you lose something so dear to you you, you have to replace them, you have to, you have to fill that spot in your heart. So if something like a daily birdsong was Jamie talking to her from another place, I, I think that, that helps fill, it will never really feel, fill the, the uh, the void. Um, this, this, obviously, one of the bigger debates of the season is the reveal of um, of that, of the, uh, she who will, she-who-will-not-be-named, (Toni laughs) I believe that’s how you say it

Toni: Let’s just call her

Matt: Let’s just call her “her.” No, don’t say “her.” Cause, you know, cause then there’s Herself, so we don’t want to say “her.”

Toni: No, she’s not Herself

Matt: So, that girl, but then you think of Marlo Thomas or something like that

Toni: I was gonna say F.W. for First Wife, but Claire’s the first wife…

Matt: Claire’s the first wife

Toni: ...so she’s like, S.W. she’s a second wife (chuckles). The wife-who-shall-not-be-named. “Daddy!”

Matt: Uh oh!

Toni: Ah! It’s a little different from the book here, because in the book I believe uh, they’re making love

Matt: Yes

Toni: And actually only Marsali comes in

Matt: Yeah

Toni: Marsali (pronounced like parsley)

Matt: And there she is.

Toni: And theeeeere.. I, I love how much Laoghaire curses here. It was fun writing. We were like, “Can we have her say the F-word? Can we have her say the C-word? Yes! Let’s give her the C-word!” So she calls Claire the

Matt: I’ll tell you, the first time I read this, many many years ago, when you find out that, that Jamie married Laoghaire, you say, “Wait a minute, how? How the hell did this happen?”

Toni: Oh, yeah. You freak out

Matt: What in the world? And I think one of the things that we’ve always talked about is that, really in the book you never, there’s really never a time after, that she tells, that she, that, that Claire tells Jamie what happened a the witch trial. Because that’s the, the key to this is, is

Toni: That’s right. She didn’t know, Jamie didn’t know, well, we added that she

Matt: Right.

Toni: We added, yeah, that she testified at the witch trial. And that’s not something Jamie knows

Matt: So that’s the biggest switch in, in this, in this series is that Jamie knows that Laoghaire testified against her so we had to backfill in a way um, with the “Fox’s Lair” of, of kind of redeeming Laoghaire because she’s like, why would Jamie ever marry this person?

Toni: That’s right. So she sort of redeemed herself and she said, you know, she did a, she did a good deed and Claire said, “Hey, Laoghaire helped us out, go thank her,” and Jamie’s like, “Thank her for what?” And uh, but then we saw at the end of “Fox’s Lair” when Laoghaire said uh, uh, “I’ll get your forgiveness but I still want your love,” or something whatever she whispers

Matt: Yeah. Dun dun duh! (chuckles)

Toni: And we knew she wasn’t, it wasn’t over for Laoghaire

Matt: Yeah, and, you know, I mean, in, it’s, it’s, it’s a complicated thing. To, to, to have Jamie marry Laoghaire is a very very complicated

Toni: You have to really understand why and that’s coming up but, here’s a scene with, this little girl was amazing and um, she, I don’t know how we found her. She’s a lucky find but she’s wonderful and in the book Jamie doesn’t really have that much interaction with his “daughters” but we wanted, we added this scene, it’s not in the book because we wanted to see that Jamie cares about them, he wasn’t just like, “Oh Claire’s back,” you know, “I don’t care about this other family,” because he did marry her and he did take on these girls and he doesn’t want her, he takes care of her before he takes care of Claire and he could’ve yelled, it always struck me that he could’ve yelled, in the moment when Claire is like, “Daughter?!” He could’ve said, “Wait, wait, wait, this isn’t what it looks like, they’re not my real daughters,” you know. Cause Claire clearly thought that that was his daughter.

Matt: Well, I, I, I think what, I think what’s so important to, for me at least, is that that’s what made it okay for him to marry Laoghaire is he married Laoghaire to help these two girls

Toni: Absolutely

Matt: As opposed to having any genuine love for Laoghaire. Which I, I don't think he ever did. I think he, he wanted to be a father and that’s where, what, what these two girls gave him.

[22:17] Toni: But he’s, he’s such an honorable guy. He didn’t yell out in front of the little girl.

Matt: Yeah

Toni: “She’s not really mine, don’t worry,” he waited and went and talked to the little girl and then came back for Claire, because even though he knows Claire’s upset, she’s an adult, you know, and he can explain it later to her but he didn’t let that little girl run out of there without knowing, you know, without talking to her.

Matt: I like that line, he says, “There are other redheaded,” you know he’s like, “Come on, be real.” (Toni laughs)

(silence)

[22:53] Matt: I think this is, I think this is where, I (chuckles). Every guy says this

Toni: “I said thank her, I didn’t say marry her!” (laughs)

Matt: I know, every guy’s like, “Hey, you told me to go talk to her!” “Yeah, I didn’t tell you to marry her!”

Toni: “Oh, it’s my fault now? Ah.” Yeah. I, I like how this scene really just, you know, builds and explodes because it brings up a lot of things for Jamie too, I mean, he, he sent her back to Frank but it’s gotta be eating at him a little, did, did they sleep together, did she fall back in love with Frank, you know? What were those twenty years like? And he, he’s not a petty guy but he

Matt: Well no, not at all

Toni: But you know, any guy would bother them and, and here’s where we hear, you know, “Why didn’t you, why didn't you tell me this?” Um, and again we had a lot, a lot of, this was probably our biggest uh, debate of the year, I would say, of this season. Whether, you know, where to play this secret about Laoghaire because some people in the room felt strongly that Jamie’s an honorable guy, he would tell her, right? When she came back. Why does he hold it back from her? I think

Matt: But it makes perfect sense not to say it right away…

Toni: Exactly

Matt: ...is because you, this, this, this dream falls out of the, the, the sky and, and you’re not gonna say anything in the first couple minutes, or, or, the first twenty four hours, you’re just getting your footing

Toni: Right

Matt: I, I, I, you know, we always debated whether it should happen in episode seven where he starts to say, “Hey, I have a son,” in episode seven, you know. And then in episode eight, “Hey, oh, by the way, also I’m married to Laoghaire.” And parse it out like that, but, um, it didn’t work out that way. We, we, we did it, we, you know, we went a different way and um

Toni: Well we held this big secret for here because we really felt that, you know, he could not risk losing the woman that had come back to him, his, the love of his life after twenty years by hitting her in the face with this big lie right when she comes back. She, she would’ve overreacted to it so he wanted to just wait and he, you can tell if you watch, and that’s what’s so great about Sam’s performance is it’s very, you can tell something’s troubling him and that he tries a few times to broach the subject. But now it all comes, you know, it all comes bursting out

Matt: Well I think, I think that’s where we need to get to is we have to get to the fact that a couple being away from each other for twenty years gets to this moment where they have to bare their souls. The, you know, episode uh, six...

Toni: Yeah!

Matt:...the print shop, the reunion was all pure emotion and this is logic and emotion being mixed in and intertwined together and being thrown out the window and, and this is what, mixed in with their absolute passion for each other, physical passion, that they need to be together.

Toni: Yeah.

Matt: And I think that people get frustrated when the other person just isn’t understanding what, what they’re feeling. And it’s what, what happens

Toni: Yeah, this is uh

Matt: And, you know, for Jamie and Claire sometimes this is how they resolve things

Toni: Yeah. There’s some fireworks. Until (chuckling) Jenny. Jenny!

(silence)

[26:39] Toni: They get a little caught up and forget where they are. There’s children in the house!

Matt: There are.

Toni: Well I think Claire always knew that there was the possibility that he had married someone else or had, or, you know, had other relationships. But the fact that it was Laoghaire

Matt: I think the fact that it was Laoghaire for everyone

Toni: For everyone! (laughing)

Matt: Not only Claire, but everybody who’s ever read the books

Toni: Did ya, there’s lots of pretty girls in Scotland, did you have to go for that one?

Matt: Why that one? And we’ll, we’ll, we’ll find, you know, obviously, this episode

Toni: “Of allthe castles in allthe land”

Matt: I think that’s uh

Toni: Yeah. A bad Casablancareference. (laughs)

Matt: It really didn’t, didn’t flow like you intended, huh? Yeah. (laughs)

Toni: Didn’t really translate. No. no, I think I need another old fashioned.

Matt: I think so. You need a couple. (Toni laughs)

(glasses clink)

[27:42] Toni: I like ke, kebbie lebbie

Matt: There’s your kebbie lebbie.

Toni: I love, we love these Scottish words that we get to throw in here

Matt: Well, we, you say “we,” you mean you (both laugh)

Toni: Kebbie lebbie.

Matt: I do like it

Toni: That one, I think that was Joy uh, that did, did some research and found some of these words to throw in. I don’t think that’s in the book, but

Matt: I think, you know, people always question whether we’ve read the books or not because um, not only have we read them, we’ve read them multiple times, but we also read, you know, draft after draft after draft of scripts. So, when you, when you’ve read a script fifteen different times and then you’re, you’re, sometimes you get lost of what is actually happened in the book and what happens in the script because we’ve, we’ve, we’ve done it so many, you know, we’ve found that. But yes, everybody reads the books

Toni: Oh, absolutely

Matt: Some, some of us have, have read all the books. Some haven’t. Um, for the, the staff right now I think um, uh, there’s only, there’s only, actually, I think, in the writer’s staff, I’ve read all the books but um, Toni doesn’t, you know

Toni: I, I don’t read ahead. I

Matt: It gives us a good balance

Toni: Yeah, I, there are plenty of people here that have read thm all that will jump up and say, “Hey, you can’t do that because it messes up something later on.” And that happens quite a lot but I have to keep my head, for me, that’s just the way I write, I have to keep my head in the book we’re in. If I knew too much and had three books in my head, I, it would just uh

Matt: Well, you don’t want to be in Toni’s head, so there’s that

Toni: (laughing) No, you don’t wanna be, no

Matt: But if it, it, it keeps us

Toni: But I do read the book, I do read the book, I make charts, I, I, you should see my copy of the book, it’s very, I highlight, I have colored pens for each different thing I wanna, you know, certain things I wanna keep, certain things I wanna change

Matt: Absolutely. What I’m, what I’m saying is there’s a nice balance between

Toni: Yeah

Matt: You know, the, the, we know what happens because we have a good sense of, you know, from, from reading all the books what happens and then you have to be grounded in the book you’re in and tell that story and that’s where, you know, you can focus directly on that and not get weighed down in what happens three, four books from now

Toni: Exactly

Matt: Because if we can’t tell the story now what does it matter in 2021 when, you know, you have another character? You know, where you have a character doing something.

Toni: We’re, I just thought of something. We’re really gonna run out of whiskeys and scotches by 2021.

Matt: Yeah, well,

Toni: What are we gonna?

Matt: I’m gonna run out of a liver too (Toni laughs)

[30:23] Toni: I think uh, on one of these we’re gonna have to do um, maybe like smoothies, some sort of juice, protein smoothie like, like, have a healthy

Matt: Well, you know, we could, we could change to food. We could change to food

Toni: We’ll pick an episode that

Matt: We could have a haggis day

Toni: Maybe, yeah! How about haggis?

Matt: Why not that? He could do, you could do uh, uh, steak pie? With chips?

Toni: Ahh, Matt loves a good steak pie

Matt: Fish and chips.

Toni: Oh yeah

Matt: You know

Toni: Fish and chips, oh, I like that idea. Fish and chips

Matt: We can go a lot of ways, we don’t have to just power drink every time we do these. (Toni laughs) We could do a drinking game while we do it

Toni: Well

Matt: So every time um, uh, you know, they, we’ll, we’ll have to figure, I mean, obviously season two was easy with, “Mark me.”

Toni: “Mark me!” I was just gonna say

Matt: We would’ve been, we would’ve been hammered after...

Toni: It’s true. “Mark me.”

Matt: ...the first five minutes of every episode. Um, you know what, I think the fans could come up with a really good reason uh, uh, drinking game that we could do for the rest of the season.

Toni: Yeah. Maybe we’ll have a contest and whoever suggest the, the best drinking game.

Matt: Uh, not

Toni: Now Claire’s running, she’s like, “I’m out of here.” Uh, of course, and this is a, a bit of a change from the book because uh, miss blondie’s about to show up with her gun, she’s toting a, she’s toting a piece um, and in the book I believe uh, she just, it’s just between her and Jamie and Claire's not, not there.

Matt: I don’t, I’m not, I’m not entirely sure we, you know we think that she’s leaving but, I think she’s

Toni: She just needs some space and she’s probably

Matt: Yeah, I think that’s what it is. She just needs a couple

Toni: She’s going to gather herbs. That would be, that would be a drinking game. Every time Claire goes to gather herbs (laughs)

Matt: Well no, I, that, that line there was one of the things we added to this. I’ve always wanted to say that line and it’s, it, it’s just one of those iconic moments and I think that’s what we try to do. People often will say, “Hey, you didn’t say this line,” or, “You didn’t say that line,” and we try to fit them in and, and, we all have our, everybody has their favorite line. We can’t do them all but we do try to find spots for them when we can

Toni: We try to, we try to get them all in. Yeah, we do. Tell them about the gun here, because I remember there was some discussion, didn’t we have, first it was a pistol and was a rifle then, then Nell couldn’t hold it the, the gun we, cause it was so heavy and

Matt: Well we, we, we had a musket where, we, we have a few issues with this particular scene and the practicality of it

Toni: It’s a fowling, a fowling piece they called it, right?

Matt: Well that, that, yeah. But this is a pistol we, she, we imagined  she just loaded it with anything she found which would be kind of buckshot, in the modern day version, or the period version of buckshot. Because, if she shot Jamie with a musket from that close a ball would’ve ripped his arm off

Toni: Yeah

Matt: And we don’t want Jamie with one arm. So, it, it, it became an issue of what we could visually show. And then we needed something that wouldn’t, wouldn’t have Jamie scarred for the next four episodes.

Toni: Right. He’s got enough scars

Matt: You know, out of commission for the next four episodes. So, but we also gave Nell a musket to hold and, and she’s just not a very, you know she’s a petite

Toni: She’s a small woman, yeah

Matt: And, and the musket was taller than she was, it was really huge (Toni laughs) So it just, it looked, it looked comical in that sense. So we gave her something that she could handle. We imagine that Laoghaire, in haste loaded it with whatever she could find and then shoots Jamie what the, where the, where the danger comes from is one of these comes close to his brachial artery and Claire has to do something to, to save him. Once again, we always wanted to show that um, you know, Claire’s a proficient surgeon she, she uh, and also reminding, reminding her in the moment that, that, you know, life is, is, in any period life is, is precious, but in this, it could be, you know, in this period it could be taken so quickly.

Toni: Right

Matt: From so many things. Whether it’s infection or, you know, a crazed blonde lady coming from the next, you know, the next castle

Toni: Right.

[34:59] Matt: Now we asked Sam, “Hey, could we really cut into your arm, cause you know you’re such a, a method actor.” And he said, “No.” No, I’m teasing. (Toni chuckles) We made a prosthetic here. And I’m just kidding, that was a joke. Um, and uh, we, we, our, our team that creates these are so good that

Toni: Oh, that looks so real, it does

Matt: Yeah. And uh, and also Caitriona, we have a, a doctor, Doctor Claire

Toni: Right

Matt: She’s an expert, she’s a, a, um, an ER doctor in Glasgow. She’s really good. And she takes Caitriona through everything and they practice and um, and, and, yeah, actually Cait’s, Cait’s getting pretty good

Toni: I think she could probably take out real bullets by now

Matt: Yeah, if I accidentally got shot on set I would, I would definitely

Toni: (laughing) And it could happen

Matt: You never know, you never know

Toni: There’s days, there’s days

Matt: I mean, I am, I am that kind of guy that somebody might “accidentally” shoot (Toni laughs) Oh, John Bell

Toni: He’s so good

Matt: He really did just come in and own the character of Young Ian and, and, if I was in Vegas or some other place where you place bets, I’m gonna bet that the fans are gonna fall in love with him. Over the course of this season they’re really gonna fall in love with him

Toni: Oh, for sure. For sure. I like his special relationship with Claire and I know Joy, one of the early things from the original draft is that she says that he’s the only one uh, that calls her “auntie” and it means a lot to her because everyone else is kind of rejecting her and keeping her at arm’s lengths but he, because he’s more like Jamie and because he left home and was living in the city um, he’s more open to her, he’s not as, as wary of her and he, he admires her and he’s fascinated by her because he’s kind of the one that is the, you know, the, the rogue of the family.

Matt: Well he’s Jamie.

Toni: He’s Jamie, yeah

Matt: He’s a, you know, he’s an adventurer

Toni: And Claire likes him for that reason. She probaby’s like

Matt: There's a lot of Jamie in Young Ian

Toni: Yeah. Claire gets a glimpse of maybe what Jamie was like as a young, young kid

Matt: Well I think that, you know, if you think of Jamie as a, as a young, you know, he was this little trouble maker

Toni: Yeah

Matt: He got into trouble but nothing malicious, it was just, you know, he liked to

Toni: No, he just wanted adventure and he wanted, he wanted to get out and see the world

Matt: He was a boy, he was a boy who wasn't meant to be on a farm

Toni: Right

Matt: And I think that’s the same thing with Ian. And um, that’s why Jamie

Toni: He loves the farm but he, he can’t, he can’t live his whole life there

[37:33] Matt: I, I think that’s why Jamie sees so much of himself in, in Young Ian is that, and that’s why they have a special uh, bond as well

Toni: Yeah. Yeah. You know, she’s pissed at him here, but

Matt: (chuckling) Yeah, she is, but I love that, I love that Jamie’s using his sense of humor…

Toni: Yeah

Matt: ...to deflect and to disarm cause that’s what he’s…

Toni: That’s what he does

Matt: ...that’s what he’s known for, you know, and…

Toni: The swiss cheese line

Matt: ...and I thought that was really played well with um, Sam really played that well as, you know, whisky’s so, a liquid, I love that.

Toni: Hmm. Well, here he’s gonna get a little chance to explain maybe about Laoghaire and what happened, how the heck this could’ve ever happened.

[38:31] Matt: And I think you have to, you know I know there’s, there's people that don’t understand why Claire is so angry at Jamie and I think you, you have to put yourself in her shoes for a minute. How, and ask yourself how you feel about Laoghaire anyway? And most people don’t like Laoghaire very much and now imagine that the man that you love dearly married that person

Toni: Right

Matt: I think, I think almost everybody would be, hell

Toni: What?! Yeah.

Matt: You know. I’m, I’m actually a Laoghaire defender because in the sense of

Toni: Well

Matt: I’m a, I’m a defender of her because she was a young girl who fell in love with James Fraser.

Toni: Yeah. Of course! Who wouldn’t?

Matt: Who wouldn’t fall in love with James Fraser.

Toni: That’s right

Matt: So you can’t condemn her for htat.

Toni: No.

Matt: What you can condemn her for is trying to kill Claire

Toni: Yeah. But to her Claire must’ve, you know, Claire was English. And at the time they were so oppressed by the English so it was especially upsetting that this woman showed up out of nowhere and, you know in her mind stole, stole this man. But here’s where I, and I love this, this is probably all of our favorite parts of the, part of this episode is we all loved um, getting to see Hogmanay um, the set design and all was great here how they show the holiday and how Jamie who had just come back, what? Come back from Helwater I believe and he’d let, had to leave his son Willie behind um, you know, the guy’s lived in a cave, he’s been in prison he’s, and here he is feeling really lonely and displaced and these girls, these beautiful sweet uh, girls come up. I mean, I love her, “Would you like some figs?” (chuckles) Um, you know, they’re irresistible and they, they can sense that he’s got a sadness about him and they pull him, they pull him out of this dark place

Matt: Well once, once again we, we talked earlier about why Jamie would marry Laoghaire and I think the two reasons he would marry Laoghaire are right here, right now

Toni: Are Joan and Marsali

Matt: It’s the first time he’s laughed, the first time he’s laughed, the first time he’s done anything.

Toni: And Jenny sees it. Jenny is like, oh, I love how they go to slow motion here, too. Jenny sees him and her heart just warms because this is the first time she’s seen Jamie be happy at all and he’s missed raising Brianna, he’s missed raising Willie and it’s a chance to be a father and be part of a family. At this point he has no idea who the girls even belong to. Yeah, you can see Jenny getting an idea there

Matt: No, that’s what I’m saying. He, he fall, he fell in love with these two girls in this moment and then the, the happenstance of who they belonged to, you know?

Toni: Yeah. He had no idea

Matt: And, he had no idea.

Toni: And um

[41:25] Matt: And I think this is what, in the story that he’s telling Claire is where she becomes aware of his, the massive hole in his heart. It wasn’t just that she was gone, it was the life that he wanted for himself was gone. You know, the life that he probably imagined a million times over when he was with Claire

Toni: Yeah

Matt: That, that just went away and, and that he needed to fill a void and, and of course she’s going to respond to that.

Toni: They needed a father and he needed to be a father. Um, and you, you kind of, you understand it, you know. I hope

(silence)

[42:31] Matt: I saw there was a little debate about, you know, Jamie cares more for Willie than he does Brianna. I don’t think that’s even remotely true. What I think it is is that Jamie and the way Sam played it was that, that he actually sawWillie and he had, and, and that he probably was heart, so heartbroken over Brianna for twenty years that it hit him so hard that he didn’t, you know

Toni: Yeah. And I think he, it was more of a sharing, you know, it, it was, he loved Claire so much it was, when they reunited it was like, “Here’s something that’s important to me and you’re so important to me, how can I not…

Matt: “How can I not share with you?” Yeah

Toni: ...share this with you?” And I think Claire, clearly from her reaction she took it as a, “Well this is surprising but, you know, if it’s your son it's part of me too, you know, even if it’s from another woman.” Um, and he explained that he didn’t love the mother

Matt: Well and, and I think one of the biggest debates, it, it was, you know, it, pushing at maybe episode seven, you know, the guilt, he needed to share some secret with her, like, this is one of them. Might, might’ve worked, you know, you never know. You know? That’s the, hindsight’s 20/20

Toni: Yeah, we, you know, we make a lot of these decisions as a group. We have to, we have to stand by our decisions um, and

Matt: We can stand next to our decisions

Toni: We can stand next to them. (chuckles) We, we always have the best interest of the show, we always try to, to, to do it, portray it the best we can and

Matt: We also, you know, there's, protect the, we protect the characters that you see. We understand that there’s a book, we understand that they, that you can envision scenes, you, you, you, you see them in your head a million times as you read. But, you know, Jamie Fraser, from book one has always been an honorable guy that says, you know, “We can have secrets but not lies.” And a lie, an omission is a lie. And, so we debate that. We debate it often, so.

Toni: Yeah. This one, this one, the, the wife, Claire might have left him over if he had said it too soon. Um, the Willie one was just something, it wasn’t gonna make her, it wasn’t gonna send her flying out the door

Matt: That would never send her anywhere, right

Toni: So it was harder to imagine why he would hold that. And, and we just thought a series of lies is a, is a little harder to take than just this one where he could tell, tell, you know, he could justify it and I think he does with the, this Hogmanay scene and this episode is very important so that you understand all those things. And here comes her penicillin, which came in handy.

Matt: Yeah, very smart of her to bring that

Toni: Uh, thanks Terry for the bat, bat dress and uh, that she’s got that. Somewhere back in Boston some lab tech is going, “Hey, what happened, I thought this cabinet had, (laughing) had a bunch of penicillin?”

[45:38] Matt: And uh, but I bet no one cares that Claire’s a thief

Toni: Right (laughs) She’s a wanted woman back in Boston

Matt: She’s wanted, yeah, there’s posters all over

Toni: She’s a drug smuggler

Matt: Yep.

Toni: Now I love this scene because we purposefully wanted to set it on the steps outside, the front steps where they once sat um, when they, in the episode where they go to search for Jamie

Matt: No it’s the, “The Watch,” where they’re waiting

Toni: Is that the, oh, that’s another one

Matt: The end of “The Watch” where they’re waiting for him to come back

Toni: Right. They’re waiting for Jamie to come back and they’re both, and in fact uh, you know, yeah, when Jenny references that earlier like, “I remember waiting for you to come home and that we would’ve never stopped looking for you.” Um, she’s finally coming around to like, “Okay, you’re never really gonna tell me this whole story, I’m not gonna ever understand it but,” cause, cause she’s always known Claire’s different. There’s been a, something odd about this woman

Matt: She’s telling her that right now, yeah. She’s like, you know, “I know you, I know you’re a freak, but I’m never gonna question that,” cause Jenny’s kind of a freak too

Toni: Yeah. “And my brother loved you so that’s good enough for me,” but she’s protective of her brother and that’s why we love Jenny. And that’s why, you know, we can understand Jen, Jenny giving Claire shit for, like, and Claire’s like, “I wish I could tell you, but..” There was some debate, too, in the writer’s room about maybe we should just have them tell Jenny. I mean, they told Murtagh, but then we ultimately decided that Jenny is not someone with as open of a mind as Murtagh. She would, she’s literally never been off of, off of this, of Lallybroch. She hasn’t traveled the way Murtagh has or seen the world. She just, there’s no way she would have believed that, um

Matt: And also, but it’s, every person they tell believes. And I think that’s one of the issues is that, you know, this is a pretty far fetched idea, in the sense of reality, you know

Toni: Yeah, very

Matt: Our, our, our one by in this story is that she travels through time. Everything else is based in reality except for that, for that one particular thing

Toni: Yeah. But um, I love that they are like sisters. They do love each other and they, they do come to sort of a truce in this episode

Matt: Okay, hold on, hold the phone

Toni: Ned!

Matt: Ned Gowan. Bill Patterson

Toni: Who does know on the scene, Ned Gowan

Matt: Oh my god. And I think that, that, you know, I’m sure Caitriona was genuinely happy to see him in that hallway too, so

Toni: Oh yeah

Matt: I, I love how genuine this moment plays

Toni: We all love Ned

Matt: We, there’s just such a great compliment to our show. We’re so happy to always have him back

Toni: Now in the book, as we know, Ned represents Laoghaire

Matt: Yeah. So we couldn’t do that to, we couldn’t do that to Ned Gowan

Toni: No! (laughs) No.

Matt: Sorry Diana but we had to flip it, we had to keep

Toni: Yeah, we had to flip it

Matt: We had to keep Ned on team uh, Claire and team Jamie

Toni: Yeah. I understand because Ned, he’s a lawyer, he’s a businessman. He probably takes whoever uh, whoever can pay. But we, we did flip it so that he could represent Claire and Jamie here. And, and we did a lot of research, too, uh Emily and Dani, our researchers looked, looked a lot into the laws of the time, which were very interesting. Um, the fact that Laoghaire shot Jamie actually has nothing to do with their, you know, their legal case on the divorce and um, Claire’s just, you know, she’s pissed. She’s like, “Wait, she shot us but we, you know, have to pay her?” Um

Matt: What I, what I like about this scene is when Jamie, Jamie is, you know, he gets shot, he’s the victim, but he’s still an honorable guy in the sense that he says, he, you know, “I don’t want, look, they’re gonna,” he knows the kids are gonna lose a father, “because I’m gonna be with Claire.”

Toni: Right

Matt: “I don’t want them to lose a mother too, and have her go to jail.” So this is what he asks

Toni: Right.

[50:03] Matt: Claire would love to get her out of her hair

Toni: But Claire’s like, could lock her up and throw away the key (laughs)

Matt: And this is

Toni: But Jamie, well, he’s honorable and he’s like, “I won’t do that to her because it will hurt the kids,” you know. And he, look, he got what he wanted. Claire came back. So there’s a part of him that feels probably sorry for her. And I don’t, they didn’t have a happy relationship, he and Laoghaire. I mean, it’s in the book and um, in the show the, you know, she, she had been in two marriages I believe before, with, with men who weren’t kind to her. So even when she got the man of her dreams she wasn’t able to enjoy him because by that time she was so damaged so, um, I know, I, I feel a little bad for Laoghaire

Matt: Um, you’re not winning over any fans there, Toni

Toni: I know, I’m gonna get hate mail (chuckles)

Matt: Yeah. Please send the hate mail directly to Toni (chuckles)

Toni: (laughs) Well, she

Matt: No, no, I, look, in the beginning I think, uh, like I said earlier is that I felt like this was a teenage girl who fell in love who, who, who misrepresented Jamie’s affections and, and, and uh, you know, I understand that. But when she went a bridge too far and tried to have uh, um, Claire killed to get her out of the picture so she could have Jamie

Toni: Yeah, that was

Matt: That’s, that’s not, you know, that’s not a normal move

Toni: That was not, not a girl scout, no. but you know, when she married Jamie um, and when they both thought Claire was, was gone, dead and gone and never. Jamie thought he’d never see Claire again when he married Laoghaire. Just to defend Jamie’s decision. And Laoghaire thought Claire was dead and out of the picture. So, you know. I just can’t ever blame anyone for falling in love with Jamie because, and the audience shouldn’t either because they are all in love with him. So.

Matt: Yeah, there’s a, we don’t, we don’t ever, you know, have trouble finding people who are in love with Jamie Fraser

Toni: Yeah.

Matt: They fall out of trees, so. Um

Toni: And we don't want Jamie to hate Laoghaire or try to hurt her or we wouldn’t, we wouldn’t admire him for that. You know he, he’s just not that kind of a vengeful uh, he’s not the bitter one um

Matt: Yeah, the bitters aren’t for, for him, the bitters are for Laoghaire

Toni: The bitters are not, are not for Jamie and, and that, I think that makes us love him even more that he is kind even to someone that, you know, is, is, is a questionable person because he’s not a hater, you know, he’s

[52:49] Matt: So, back to, we filmed all these scenes kind of at the same time. This was act, actually the first day of the block, so if that’s even crazier out of time, you know, out of uh, sequence is this was the first day of block two that uh, we filmed this moment

Toni: Did Ian get in the? Get in the water?

Matt: Uh, no. No, they, we, we had stunt, you know, one thing that we try to avoid is killing the actors (Toni laughs) So uh, uh, you know, no actor was harmed in, in the filming of this

Toni: No actor was harmed in the making

Matt: So we had stunt, uh, stunt people, and this was all done from Jamie and Claire’s perspective so we didn’t really have to have John Bell out there, so um, and we have some, uh, amazing uh, stunt team that, that does so many of these um, terrible things that uh, we, we force them to do

Toni: Right, right.

Matt: I, I think in this moment, you know, we, we, we’ve went back and forth about it. It’s, I don’t think it’s Claire’s ever thinking, “I’m gonna go away, I’m gonna go back.” It’s, it’s, she’s just, she’s just questioning things out loud. She wants to hear something from him, I think, in, in a, once again

Toni: And she does, because here comes the line that people, again we asking last week, “Where’s the line, where’s the line that he says, ‘Will you risk the man that I am for the man I once was,’” and here is where, you know, we, we chose that this was a good place for it because this is where it’s really relevant. Um, it’s natural that she has these questions and some doubts and some ambivalence. Not about her love for Jamie, but just about the fact that when these two get together there’s always chaos, you know, their life has been this, this crazy adventure and she's been back less than, you know, a few days or whatever it is and um, there’s alwa, already been a murder and a fire and a criminal charges and, and now Laoghaire and all of this and it just does, she wouldn’t be human if, if she wasn’t saying, “Wow.” It’s a lot, a lot, a lot of weight to carry in any relationship and so um, it’s, they’re, they’re both just saying, “It’s harder than we thought.” But they’re, you know, we know they’re gonna get through it.

[55:21] Matt: This is a moment, this is a moment where Jamie says, “Enough’s enough. Enough of the, enough is enough. I apologized. Am I the man that you think I am? Here it is.” And in a sense he’s saying, and, and rightfully so, “Shit or get off the pot.” You know?

Toni: Yeah.

Matt: And I hate to use that term, I’m sorry mom for using that term (Toni laughs) but it’s the truth, you know? And, and I think she in that moment realized, “Yes, I’m not gonna go back. I’m, I’m with you a hundred percent.” And of course there’s always a monkey wrench thrown into anything that they do and this is it

Toni: Yeah. Yeah they, they, in fact what, you know, the sad thing is he had just promised Jenny...

Matt: Yep

Toni: ...that he would, she...

Matt: Trust us

Toni: ...you would take care, “Trust us, we’ll take care of your son.” Because Jamie had said, “Give him his freedom while it’s still yours to give,” and, and Jenny took his advice and she has a callback in this earlier scene where she says, “I’m gonna give him his freedom and I’m gonna let him go with you,” and now, oh my god, you know, five minutes later they lose him to pirates and so that uh, you know, this is an important scene because it will propel us into the rest of our season, the second half of our season.

(silence)

[57:01] Matt: That we, that’s a real rowboat

Toni: Yeah, that’s pretty cool

Matt: With, with real stunt guys rolling out there but then we combine it with um, visual effect uh, the, the Bruja, which is out there. Um, and we see the flag come out. Now this shot, this last shot was, so that’s all visual effects uh, that ship we placed out there and debated what the sails would be doing a million times over and, and now they know he’s lost. And this was done by a drone. We actually flew the drone out over the sea

Toni: Oh wow, yeah, that’s cool

Matt: And we did it two ways, we did it going out and we did it pulled back

Toni: This is great, yeah

Matt: And we wanted to show this is, “Well, we’re leaving Scotland,” because there’s no way they’re letting Ian on that ship and not going to do something so

Toni: Yeah

Matt: Um. Well thanks, everyone. I hope you uh, enjoyed uh, episode eight

Toni: Yeah, it’s a good one

Matt: “The First Wife,” or just “First Wife.” Um, we had fun uh, talking to you and drinking and doing all the things that we do. So, until next time, right Toni?

Toni: And we’ll see you next time. Thanks, yeah, thanks for hanging with us.

Transcribed 1/2/18 by Shelsy J.