Episode 307 - "Creme de Menthe"

The Official Outlander Podcast Episode 307 - Creme de Menthe

Drink of the week: Hiram Walker Creme de Menthe

Matt Roberts: Hello everyone, welcome to the Outlander podcast, I am Matthew B. Roberts, also known as Matt Roberts. Um, here with

Toni: Toni Graphia

Matt: And we’re here to watch um, episode seven, “Creme de Menthe,” written by the talented uh, Karen Campbell

[0:23] Toni: And uh, today’s alcohol, in honor of the episode of course, is creme de menthe. And uh, from Hiram Walker and uh, it says it’s a cocktail mixer but we’re gonna drink it the old fashioned way, straight. Maybe with a cube of ice

Matt: Uh, and it’s straight and green (laughs)

Toni: It’s very green, it’s very green (laughs)

Matt: I’m, I’m, I’m afraid what our teeth are gonna look like after we drink that. So. Thankfully…

Toni: Yeah, I think we can polish off this bottle in one, one podcast, what do you think?

Matt: Yeah. Thankfully this is a podcast and not, you know, on camera, so.

Toni: Yeah, yeah. You can’t watch us, you’re, you’re missing out.

Matt: So, uh, episode seven um, is this one, obviously, this is after the big reunion, Jamie and Claire back together again, we’ve been waiting a whole uh, half a season to, to get them back together and um, I think everybody’s been waiting probably a year and a half to watch this, uh, to watch what happened last episode but this episode was quite, uh, production-wise, a really big um, to-do. Just cause, you know, what’s coming.

Toni: Right. You’ll notice the title card is a, in case you don’t know what that is, it’s an old fashioned fire engine

Matt: It was. It actually worked.

Toni: And it was a working fire engine, it was really cool

Matt: Yeah

Toni: It was a cool idea for a title card. And here, of course, we left off...

Matt: It left off

Toni: ...the, the end of the last episode with Claire being attacked by this guy

Matt: Well at least, yeah, he was in the room and now it’s uh, uh, the, the attack takes place in the opening in this. We, we went round and around about this in the writer’s room, when to end um, episode six, the reunion episode, and then to start, really kind of a new chapter. And uh, we finally ended up uh, pushing the entire, you know, attack into this episode because we felt like it took away from…

Toni: Right

Matt: ...the uh, reunion itself.

Toni: Right. Ah, Claire. She’s only been back

Matt: Well, this, like, twenty four hours, or no, less than

Toni: She’s been back less than twenty four hours and, well, she’s, she’s already gotten herself into a little uh, mess of trouble here

[2:51] Matt: But remember the last time she came back uh, the first time she came back she was in a mess of trouble uh, right off the bat, too. Murtagh had to save her

Toni: Absolutely. I mean, wherever she goes she just causes, causes trouble. This woman’s a menace. But we love

Matt: We do. Well, Jamie loves her.

Toni: Yeah, well, he loves her a lot

Matt: That’s all that matters

Toni: But we all, we all love her

Matt: So we, I think this is uh, Claire flip, uh, switching over into doctor mode. Uh, I, once again, we went, we, we went around about this in the, in the room discussing, you know, how far she would go, what she would do

Toni: Right, and the main idea was to show, you know, well, the last episode, the reunion, was, you know, all, uh, you know, wine and roses. Um, it was all happy and, you know, it’s realistic that they would eventually start running into a few uh, bumps in the road here, and this is, this is the first one because Claire, you know, now that she’s been a doctor for, I think for around fourteen years

Matt: Fourteen years, yeah

Toni: Um, and a surgeon, you know, she took an oath to heal and uh, this is uh, one of the first areas where they start to clash a little bit. Um, just because they’re so different and come from such different places and Claire’s, you know, main objective is to save people and Jamie’s like, “Why do you want to save someone who’s trying to kill you?” So

Matt: It’s pragmatic and it’s, you know, what I like, it’s a really good question that he has

Toni: Yeah

Matt: You know, this is not a person that, you know, was just looking for help, you know.

Toni: Yeah. I mean, uh

Matt: I, I think this is, Jamie and Claire don’t always agree on, on certain things, but…

Toni: Right

Matt: ...they always um, you know, the love is never in question and I think that’s the important thing is, as the stories go and, and as their relationship grows even stronger it’s, it’s, people, there’s, they have strong opinions, they’re, they’re strong-willed people and it’s one reason why we love them. But they certainly, it doesn’t reflect on how much they love each other.

Toni: No, they, they very much respect uh, one another. Jamie doesn’t understand this but he’s gonna back her up and we always like to say, you know, one of our main tenets of the show is that it, you know, this isn’t a, a normal TV show where the lead couple just bickers over nothing. When they do fight it, it’s got a lot of substance to it and they’re not, you know the show is not about them fighting and the push/pull between them. It’s, it’s them against the world. They’re the team. So the conflict comes from outside the relationship and they team up and that’s what we love about them and every episode we don’t have to guess. Are they gonna, you know, will they, won’t they, are they gonna stay together or are they not? They certainly face uh, you know, some realistic troubles that couples face but they, they get through it, they face it together and they respect each other ultimately and the differences of from where they come from and uh, that’s what makes them a great team.

[6:04] Matt: And it, and I think this was a way of trying to show um, it, once again in a, we have to truncate a lot of story because of how much time we have to tell our story. Um, you know, she’s been away for twenty years and he’s uh, you know, they’re slightly different people now but their, their, their love isn’t different, just who they are is slightly different

Toni: Right

Matt: So they just have to get to know each other again

(silence)

Toni: Yeah, she needs to

Matt: And that’s the line, that’s really the line that explains it to her is, “Hey, I know you’ve been gone a long time so maybe you forgot, but this is how it works in this time...

Toni: Exactly

Matt: ...and it doesn’t work the way you want it to just because you want it to.” And, and I love that line from Jamie’s is, you know, “I don’t, I want you here, I, I love ya, I want you to be here but remember you’re in a different time now.”

Toni: Yeah, it is dangerous to not remember because, basically, you know, in her time this guy would, they would’ve saved him and, you know, brought him, arrested him and brought him to court, you know, and did it, did justice the right way but Jamie’s like, “Look, you call, call the cops in this era you’regonna get hauled away,” and it’s very dangerous for her to not remember, you know

Matt: Well that’s why, you know, in episode, uh, or in uh, the first season when he spanked her, it wasn’t because he was malicious, it was, it was a practical thing, in his mind, that he’s saying, “Hey, you, you need to know how it works in this time and I’m gonna, I’m gonna, I’m gonna show you.” Well actually, it wasn’t the time cause what he said is, “I don’t know where you come from, and you may have an easier life where you come from,” and we all knew that it was, you know, the twentieth century but he was just trying to teach her a lesson.

Toni: That’s right. He didn’t even know at the time that she was a time traveler

Matt: No, no. Not at that moment. Oh, thank you Kevin. (chuckles)

Kevin: Sure

[8:19] Toni: Great shot of, of Edinburgh.

Matt: Now this street was created in the backlot um, in our parking lot, actually

Toni: Yeah, it looks great

Matt: And we built the facades and then that’s a visual effects all done with computers and it looks as real as if we were there.

Toni: This is where we first meet Archie Campbell.

Matt: Archie, uh, yes. Played by Mark Hadfield who is a very very talented actor. He brings so many small little, just the small little choices he makes uh, I can’t, I, I can’t usually stop watching him, that’s how good he is

Toni: Yeah, he, he’s such a little slippery guy, you know, he comes off very charming but he’s slippery, he’s out for, you know, he’s out for himself. He likes money. And um

(silence)

[9:22] Matt: I like how he’s, see how he’s, he’s present in the scene, even though he’s not

Toni: He’s looking at, he’s looking at her wallet

Matt: Yeah

Toni: “How much, yeah, that’s a lot of coins you got in there.”

(silence)

[9:39] Matt: Now we uh, we decided to, to go away from a couple things in the book uh, that the Archie, that the Campbell’s involved with but uh, um, it just, it’s more of a time thing

Toni: Now this, this is an interesting scene because actually we had cut this scene out of their original draft of the script um, when, what, back when it was long, I believe. And then when we chopped the script it actually came out…

Matt: Short

Toni: ...a little short, which rarely happens because, you know

Matt: (coughs) Well what happened with this one is that it, it was, there’s a lot more action in this particular uh, script than, than most of our, I mean, you know, most of our…

Toni: Right, yeah

Matt: ...our, our, our shows. And this was actually filmed in South Africa

Toni: Right, we were like, “Oh, you know, the, the, the episode was short, we needed to go back and add a scene and, hey, instead of writing a new one let’s go pick up that, that scene that we all loved with uh, Fergus and, and um, Young Ian selling the, the liquor to…

Matt: And we had al..

Toni: ...this man and all we needed was a, an alley like, “Can we find an alley in South Africa?” And of course you found one and...

Matt: I did find one.

Toni: ...made it happen

Matt: Well what we, what we did is um, we didn’t know the episode was short until after we had moved to South Africa.

Toni: Right

Matt: So, whatever we were gonna do, it had to be there and, and it wasn’t raining in South Africa so we made it rain in South Africa because of…

Toni: Yeah

Matt: ...of uh, that, that’s one way to tie it in to Scotland. Hey, look, it’s raining!

Toni: Right. And we love Young Ian so much, and Fergus. They’re great together, they’re very, they’re very funny and, just great, look at, it’s just a great face. (Matt chuckles) And um, I like that he’s asking about, you know, Claire, like, “Do you remember her?” And Fergus is like, “She’s a badass. You don’t even know what a badass she is.” And, of course it’s juxtaposed with like, she’s just had this fight with this guy back at the uh, at the brothel

[11:44] Matt: That’s a great line. If Auntie Claire, you know, had to kill someone they deserved it, yeah, so I liked that

Toni: Yeah

(silence)

[12:00] (Matt chuckles)

[12:06] Matt: (chuckles) I just, I like Jamie’s frustration here. He’s like, “Uh, you know what would solve this problem? Le, letting him die.”

Toni: Yeah. I’m sure Madame Jeanne is not too thrilled with Claire right now either. She was a little miffed when uh, this Englishwoman showed up out of nowhere and now, not only is she shacking up with Jamie, who I think Madame Jeanne might have had a little crush on. And who doesna? Um, but now, you know, she’s got this guy and there’s, they’re in a, they’re in a little trouble here.

Matt: Claire brought her little kit from uh, America. Um, the twentieth century, actually

Toni: Yeah. Here’s the first time it comes in handy, right?

Matt: Yeah. This is uh, this is a different kind of a brothel than we, than we saw in France. This is a, a, that was  more of a gentleman’s salon in, in France and this is more of a brothel brothel.

Toni: Yeah, she’s a little, a little, a little rougher here. Uh, Jamie revealed to Claire in the last episode that he did a little smuggling on the side and um, here’s the guy that he’s paying off.

Matt: Sir Percival. This is Gary Young, uh, obviously met last episode um, who plays Mr. Willoughby and uh, Gary did a really nice job. He’s uh, it’s a tough character to uh, cause there’s so many book readers have, have their, their image of him and uh, it’s tough to do when you have to step in and, and personify someone that, that, that, twenty six or,  more, twenty six million but it’s probably thirty million now that have read the books, um.

Toni: Right, right. I like in this scene how he has to watch Claire uh, do this, this crazy, I mean, he’s a, he’s a, he’s a healer himself, he’s, he carries herbs around, he does acupuncture, uh, but he’s never seen anything like this. (laughs) He’s like, “Hold on, lady, you’re gonna kill him!” We did a lot of medical research um, to make this happen. You might recognize this shot from the main title, it was so cool we put it in the main title. Um, it’s an old, old fashioned trephine where um, you know, you drill into the skull to release the, the blood that’s built up and it’s, it’s very risky um, but this is the kind of confidence that Claire has. She did a lot of healing, a lot more, you know than she had studied about when she was here before but now, you know, having gone to Harvard Med she, she knows a lot more and she’s upped her game and it’s fun to see her do uh, this medical stuff this season, I think, is pretty cool.

[15:12] Matt: We uh, we actually created a portion of, of the, of the head and um, it’s a prosthetic so that’s, that's’ how that was done. We drilled in

Toni: They didn’t really drill into the guy?!

Matt: Not the guy. (Toni laughs) Um, yes

Toni: You paid the, I thought we paid him extra so we could ac, actually drill into his head

Matt: We paid him extra to shave his head but uh, anyway there was, it was only part, half of the, half of the head that we, we used. That’s why it was such a tight shot

Toni: Yeah. But it looks really real and we have fantastic department that does all of this, this kind of stuff.

Matt: These are all um, all sets that uh, Gary Steele and the art department built for this episode. They repurposed this, this was actually um, at one point, um, from, from season two, this would have been uh, the interior of the museum that uh, Claire goes to in episode 213.

Toni: Ahh, oh.

Matt: And this upstairs was built um, this is a directly over the brothel so it’s actually connected by the stairs. So normally in, in um, a lot of uh, our sets, when they go upstairs the stair’s dead, you know, they dead and we create the upstairs on another stage. Well this one actually connects so when you go up the stairs you go through that door and it, and it is right there. So this, this, this is the

Toni: Realistic that it’s the exact way it would have been

Matt: It, exactly, and it is higher up and, and what happens when, when you elevate a set, um, heat rises so…

Toni: It’s very hot

Matt: ...with the lights and, then you add, uh, you add the crew members so,  there’s three people in this scene but there’s really more than that in the room, there’s probably six other people or seven other people standing there filming this so um, it, it, it gets hot.

Toni: Right.

Matt: Which is uh, you know, this, you know, really good commentary on our uh, hair and makeup team um, who, you know, have to keep them looking fresh during the whole scene…

Toni: Right

Matt: ...rather than breaking into sweat, you know, in, in cold uh, would have been considered cold Edinburgh at the time

Toni: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I love that Claire is actually kind of really devastated that this guy, that she couldn’t save this guy.

[18:01] Matt: Well at least there’s not gonna be a malpractice lawsuit.

Toni: (laughs) That’s true. Well, I think she, you know, when she thought about coming back, obviously her main, you know, main thought was, “I’ll get to be with Jamie again,” and that, that was really all that mattered and now, I think, now that she’s here she’s kind of remembering slowly like, “Oh yeah, there’s, there’s a few hitches with being here.” It’s very different and, you know, it costs her a little something in her own principles and in, you know, having to live this different way, um, it chips away at you a little and she’s gonna have, have a readjustment period um, now that she’s back.

Matt: Well that’s really, really what it is, is, you know, she has to readjust to the time. Now we, there, what’s not on camera is the travel to Edinburgh that would have been last episode but she’s, she's been there a little bit of time but not enough to acclimate, I don’t think. Because the first, you know, week would have been thinking soley about that first moment with Jamie. Um, she probably blocked out a lot of things, even this is, this is how I reconcile it in my head is, “Wait, what would I have been doing?” Well, I would have just been thinking about that moment of  meeting, meeting the person I loved and then all the day to days, I wouldn’t even have thought about. It’s the, it's creating that fantasy and now once you have that meeting and, and he’s here in front of you, well now the day to days have to come up.

Toni: Right. And no more hot showers

Matt: Right.

Toni: (chuckles) But Jamie’s worth it.

Matt: I love that Jamie’s always worrying about her too, you know. He’s, he can't help himself.

Toni: He’s protective, he’s a very protective guy

Matt: Yeah

[19:55] Toni: Yeah, he’s like, “You can’t walk to the, you know, by yourself.” She’s like, “I just came uh, two hundred years so I think I can make it across Edinburgh by myself.”

Matt: That moment (coughs) this is the moment, I think, is the, is my favorite in the actual episode, is…

Toni: Oh, that’s nice

Matt: ...because he, he, you know, Jamie’s a pretty self assured guy but in that moment he was slightly unsure and...

Toni: Yeah, like, yeah, “Are you coming back?”

Matt: ...yeah, and, and that’s enough for him, you know? That’s enough for him

Toni: He could've, she could’ve freaked  out and left, you know, and I like that he feels bad,  kind of like, “Wow, I, I hope this isn’t too much for you, I hope you’re not too bummed.” and she’s like worried later, I think she says to him, “I’m sorry all the trouble I caused you by coming back,” but none of that matters cause they’re, they’re together.

Matt: I didn’t think he was thinking, “Oh, you don’t love me anymore.”

Toni: No

Matt: I think it was more that he was saying, “I  know this time is, is more than, than, than what you have to deal with, you know, in the twentieth century so you will come back?” And and, you know, he knew she was gonna say yes but I think it’s, sometimes you like to hear things.

Toni: Exactly. This is uh, this is a fun little scene. We  just thought it would be a really fun pairing to have Fergus and Young Ian together and...give them a little flirtation at the tavern. Fergus, you know, he grew up in a brothel, he knows, he’s a very,he knows his way around the ladies, he’s uh

Matt: You know, we always say that, everybody says that in the room  and, and, he was ten. And Jamie took him. He didn’t really grow, Jamie schooled him, Jamie's his teacher.

Toni: True, true

Matt: So most of the time

Toni: But he’s comfortable around them, I think we just mean he’s comfortable around women, he likes, he likes women...

Matt: No, I, I, I know, I just, I just…

Toni: ...and kind of knows what makes them tick. Remember he gave Murtagh that little uh, lesson about uh, ladies uh, back at the, at the hospital in Paris?

Matt: Anybody could give Murtagh a lesson about ladies

Toni: (laughing) That’s true, he’s not, Murtagh, is not well versed

Matt: Yeah, yeah.

(silence)

[22:43] Toni: Yeah, this was one of my favorite scenes in the script and I remember telling Karen after I read this that that was a really great job she did on this scene because it’s just funny. It’s just, they’re both adorable.

Matt: They are, they really, we, I, I think um, they play off each other so well which reminds me, you know, in a lot of ways of the way Jamie and uh, Murtagh played off each other in the first couple seasons

Toni: Yeah

Matt: And you wanna, you wanna keep that, that kind of spirit going  in the, in the show.

Toni: Yeah, I, I’d watch a show just about them. That’s why I love this show so much. There’s so many characters where I’m like, “You know, I’d watch a whole show about Geillis. I’d watch a whole show, you know, about..”

Matt: Black Jack?

Toni: Black Jack. I’d watch the Frank and Claire in the ‘40s and ‘50s show, they’re just

Matt: Yeah. I think there’s plenty of spinoffs if we wanted to go

Toni: There, there's not, there's just too many spinoffs

Matt: Yeah. So once again, this was, this was filmed uh, not on the Royal Mile but in the parking lot behind uh, our studios and created…

Toni: There’s a lot of filming in the parking lot, I notice we say that all the time, “This was built in our parking lot.”

Matt: We do and, yeah.

Toni: We don’t wanna like, blow everybody's uh, image of

Matt: No but we like, you know, I, I, definitely like to, to give shoutouts to our construction crew our visual effects supervisor…

Toni: Yeah, abso, absolutely. They’re making magic.

Matt: ... Richard Briscoe who does a magnificent job of creating these works for us and it seamlessly ties into our practical sets and, and that’s what uh, that’s what makes Outlanderso special

Toni: Right, right. Here’s where we first meet Margaret Campbell. As she’s played by uh, Alison Pargeter. Hope I said that right. Pargeter. She did a, a fantastic job with Margaret. Margaret’s uh..

Matt: Not only a, amazing talent but just a lovely person.

Toni: And she’s a seer uh, who of course says this strange word to Claire upon first meeting her and uh, turns out to mean something later.

Matt: Maybe.

Toni: Or not. (Matt chuckles) Yeah, Claire, the interesting thing, Claire recognizes that this woman obviously has some, you know, the brother’s giving her laudanum to keep her calm and Claire’s like, “Uh, that’s not a good idea,” it’s, you know

(silence)

[25:55] Toni: I think Claire is happy in a way to have a patient again

Matt: I think so

Toni: Um, this is kind of her first official patient, even though she worked on the guy that attacked her, but, that was an accidental patient. But she, she kind of likes this, like, you know, taking her medical bag and going to visit someone that needs her uh, makes her feel like herself again, it gives her kind of a purpose, you know, she loves Jamie but she didn’t just come back here to tag around with a, with a guy, you know she, she’s a very strong woman and she needs to do her thing and so, I think here’s where she first starts thinking um, and that’s what the, the heartbreak of this episode is, I think they, they’re starting to try to be a couple again and think about their future and this is where, you know, we wanted a scene like this to portray that she starts thinking, “Hey, maybe, maybe I could, you know, hang out a shingle here and have a, a, an office and see patients and do some healing.” Cause she’s gotta figure out what's her purpose and what she’s gonna do now that she’s back in the past, you know, Jamie and Jamie wants her to he’s not a guy that is like, “Just hang out with me.” He respects who she is and her talents and he’s very supportive of that um, in some ways more than Frank who was a modern man, cause I think Frank, as we talked about in an earlier podcast might have even been a little threatened by, because he was the breadwinner and he was the, the professor, and when she went to medical school maybe it, you know, I think he was proud of her but it threw him a little because in his era it also was like, you know

Matt: Well I definitely, I definitely think Frank resented it, he, can you imagine going to work every day and every single one of, of your colleagues, their wives are probably at home uh, raising a child and, and not…

Toni: Yeah, it's the ‘50s

Matt: ...and, and your wife is one of the first doctors, you know, first women at med school and will essentially usurp you in, in bread, in, in earings and, it had to take a hit to his male ego in that era, um, so.

Toni: Right, right

Matt: And look what he was doing, he was taking care uh, taking care of Brianna, kind of as a Mister Mom type of situation so that’s even, even more of a hit that, that your colleagues all, which are all male

Toni: Right

Matt: Jamie doesn’t have that to, to contend with, you know, Jamie is the, the man

Toni: Yeah, ironically Jamie’s really cool about it and… But, you know, they’re in Edinburgh so it’s not like she's coming back to Lallybroch and thinking I’m gonna be a wife on a, you know, an estate, a farm wife. She’s, she’s in the city and I think there’s some excitement maybe even about that for her.

(silence)

[29:02] Toni: (chuckles) Have to agree. Not a singer

Matt: John, John sings like a bird. We told him to act like he couldn’t sing. (Toni laughs) You owe me for that one, John

Toni: Yep, yeah, we had to pay him a little extra to sing badly (Matt chuckles). And now this is back at the print shop

Matt: Yes, we’re in the print shop. Um, where Ian uh, normally keeps a cot. I love that little look on his face

Toni: Oh he’s, he’s in heaven. This is gonna be his first time

Matt: He’s heard about this

Toini: Oh yeah, he’s, he’s… (laughs)

Matt: Like, like Jamie, he’s seen uh, you know, seen it on the farm

Toni: Yeah. The old, “Let’s, let’s do it like horses.” (chuckles) I just love the word kittle hoosie

Matt: I know you do. (Toni laughs) Toni’s very famous for trying to throw in any Scottish uh, slang word that she can possibly find

Toni: They have great words, you gotta admit they have such great words

Matt: I, I agree, but when it comes out of nowhere makes no, you know, when somebody has to make sense of it

Toni: Well this makes sense

Matt: Well that one made sense. Uh, hey this is a title I didn’t change, by the way. Actually I did.

Toni: You wanted, you wanted to

Matt: No, no, actually I did change it to“Creme de Menthe.” It was something else

Toni: You did not!

Matt: I did.

Toni: You did not. You did not want “Creme de Menthe,” you thought it might be a spoiler.

Matt: No that, that…

Toni: Remember?

Matt: ...no that’s not true

Toni: And we were like, “Come on.”

Matt: No, that’s not true

Toni: In fact, what did we discover?

Matt: Well, yeah it’s, it is a spoiler because it doesn’t take, creme de menthe wasn’t invented until

Toni: Yeah it’s, we did discover creme de menthe didn’t actually exist in this era. But we loved it so much we, we couldn’t change that. What would we change it to? What, I don’t know, kahlua?

Matt: But that, I think this was uh, I think this was something else that..

Toni: Bailey’s Irish Creme? (laughs)

Matt: Well, that wasn’t invented either.

Toni: Well we loved creme de menthe and it was just so visual uh, the green uh, we kept it. Um

[31:16] Matt: You’re right, you didn’t because it wasn’t around.

Toni: That’s right (laughs)

Matt: But um, uh, I think this is where Claire is in, in the moment of like, “Hey, maybe we can make a life here.”

Toni: Yeah. I love that they’re so full of hope, you know, in the beginning of this. You know they

Matt: Like, “Leave the brothel?!”

Toni: (laughing) Yeah

Matt: I love that. This was, this is another great line. “What are you talking about? The brothel works out great.” (chuckles)

Toni: (laughing) That’s right. He’s like, “Well, the rent is free, I mean, what else do you need?” (laughs) Who says Jamie’s not a romantic?

Matt: Yeah, and who says Outlanderisn’t for men, I mean, that’s a, every guy in the world would be like, “Hey..”

Toni: Outmanders, they totally get it, they’re like, “Yeah, hey dude, let’s, just, let’s live in a brothel.”

Matt: If Jamie Fraser wants to live in a brothel why can’t I?

Toni: Absolutely, uh

Matt: That’s a good T-shirt.

(Toni laughs)

(silence)

[32:35] Toni: Ah, this was a big, a big debate in the writer’s room. Um

Matt: What to say to Ian Murray?

Toni: Well, whether Jamie should uh, basically whether Jamie should, should lie to, to Ian, his brother-in-law and cover for Young Ian. Um

Matt: He does that in the book, though. I mean, he covers for him in the book

Toni: He covers for him, I mean, our, we, you know, he’s taking good care of Young Ian he, he knows the boy is safe uh, he was young once and he gets it and he knows that even, even Big Ian, the, the two of them when they were Ian’s age, Young Ian’s age, they were already in France in the army. They were already galavanting around and having adventures and Jamie believes they’re being a bit overprotective of the boy and Jamie knows that the, the, the tighter they hold onto him the more they’re gonna risk losing him and Jamie’s justification is he believes that better for Ian to be with him and be safe in Edinburgh than to be, if he wasn’t there, he might have run away to Aberdeen or some other town that’s a lot rougher and, you know

Matt: Without family there

Toni: Without family, I mean, and it was dangerous for boys in those age, in this age because um there were press gangs that went around and, and would pick him up off the streets and put them to work on ships, that was a real, a real danger and fear um, and so in his mind he’s protecting Young Ian. But it’s gonna cause a little bit of a tiff with Claire who’s, who’s like, “Hold on,” you know, “why aren’t, why aren't you telling him, he’s a worried parent.” Uh, she knows what it’s like to be a parent and thinks that’s one of the worst things you can do is make a parent, you know, be worried about their kid and

(silence)

[34:43] Toni: This is the first time we see uh, Ian, this season

Matt: Ian, yes, Ian, Steven Cree

Toni: Steven Cree

Matt: Uh, no, we saw him in uh, episode uh, two.

Toni: Did we?

Matt: At Lallybroch

Toni: Oh, you’re right. (Matt laughs) Actually we saw him in episode one because they’re there when Jamie, at the very end

Matt: Well at the very, at the very end of one, and then he’s in all of episode two

Toni: You’re right

Matt: You know, he has a big long scene with him, remember?

Toni: Duh…(Matt chuckles) I drank too much creme de menthe. (laughs)

Matt: Yep. Um

Toni: The creme de menthe is kicking in

Matt: Yep, it is kicking in. Maybe that’s why they say mix it.

Toni: Oh, I should've, that’s the problem. Drinking it straight.

Matt: You should’ve put it in um

Toni: With some ice cream. It’s very good on vanilla ice cream

Matt: Oh wow. I like the fact that you’ve tried (chuckles)

Toni: Absolutely. We had a creme de menthe party, remember? After this episode was done.

Matt: Um, I was

Toni: You were probably in Scotland.

Matt: I was most definitely in Scotland

Toni: Anyway, just there, just before this scene we notice that uh, Ian says, intimates that there’s a little secret Jamie’s keeping

Matt: Yeah, yeah

Toni: Like, “Have you told her?” He’s like, “Eh, not yet.”

Matt: Yeah, once again…

Toni: So there is, there is a little something that

Matt: ...you know, he’s, he’s holding something back it’s just, you know

Toni: Yeah. And here’s where we see uh, our milky eyed guy. We keep calling him Milky Eye. Uh, played by Ian Reddington. Snooping around. Trying to get the goods on Jamie. Had the rudeness to interrupt Young Ian’s first time. Ian’s pretty pissed about it. I think anyone would be.

(silence)

[37:10] Toni: He’s looking for liquor but what he finds behind uh, the secret panel, and this was built into the print shop right? We had to…

Matt: Yeah, we had different uh, secret lettle pantels, panels built in all around this print shop for Jamie’s um…

Toni: Seditious

Matt: ...seditious pamphlets. Um, you know, Jamie’s a clever guy, he just wouldn’t leave it out so, I think that’s

(silence)

[37:48] Toni: And the fire, you can talk about

Matt: Now all these, this is all real prac, practical fire that we did um, in the print shop. It was all done safely, of course, but uh, we, we really uh, want to talk about a print shop fire. We really did it. Both inside and out.

Toni: You found a real building and

Matt: We built it

Toni: You built this one

Matt: We built the facade um, once again, on the backlot and uh, so, it was, we, we went to a place off the Royal Mile to do um, the exterior scenes of the print shop but we couldn’t actually do a practical burn there because it’s, you know, hundreds of years old, it’s a museum, you know, there's a lot of reasons why you can’t do it. So we built the facade on the backlot and uh, we burned that.

Toni: Right

Matt: So. And we did a progression. We’ll, we’ll see it when it comes up later.

Toni: Again, we wanted to build in, you know, some moments of conflict for Claire and Jamie without it being some ridiculous bickersome argument. This is a, a very real, you know, Claire, Claire has feelings as a parent because she’s, she’s raised a, a child. She would be worried sick about Brianna if Brianna had, uh, you know, run off with, you know, and, as a teenager and, and she didn’t know where she was and she’s kind of unleashing that little here and Jamie and, you know, not on purpose but she ends up kind of hitting him where it hurts because she’s basically like, “If you were a parent you would know what a, you know, big deal this is.” And it hurts him cause he’s like, “Uh, well, I wanted to be a parent and I didn’t get to be a parent so uh, thanks for bringing that up,” you know, and then she realizes he’s a little wounded over that, she didn’t mean to. But it is a difference between them that Jamie hasn’t so far been a father to his own child um, and you know, perhaps that’s why he’s tried to parent, you know, Young Ian and Fergus. He’s, he’s had kids in his life that he loved and cared about very very much um, but it’s a, it’s a wound on his heart that he didn't get to raise, not only Brianna, but also Willie.

[40:35] Matt: I, I think what’s nice about the argument is they're both right

Toni: Yeah

Matt: They’re, you know, she’s right and he’s 100% right. So, you know, what his motivations are, I think, are, exactly what you just said is that, you know, he wants to be a father. He wants to feel like he’s raising someone but the reasons that he, that he gave out are, “Hey, the kid keeps running away, he’s gonna do it again, why, why not be in a safe place?”

Toni: Yeah. Right.

(silence)

[41:20] Toni: Yeah, well here’s, here’s, we see a little bit of Jamie, you know, she, she really grilled him in the, you know, in the last episode, obviously she said, “Did you ever fall in love with anyone else,” and, you know, she asked all the questions she wanted to ask. He didn’t ask a whole lot but obviously he has a little bit of wanting to know what happened with her and Frank when she went back, did she get back, did she love him? You know, did she sleep with him? And we see a little, a little glimpse of that here, which I thought was interesting. This is the facade there

Matt: That was the facade. So it, it goes back and forth. Like, this stuff with uh, so that’s, that’s the facade again. This is actually on location. You know, so we cut back and forth seamlessly um, to create this, this real fire.

Toni: Yeah, this looks amazing. I mean, this looks so real, I… I remember just watching this, even in some of the early cuts and just holding my breath through the whole sequence because it looked very real. That’s Jamie jumping down because there were two levels to the print shop

Matt: Yeah. You come in on the upper floor and then you come down

Toni: Yeah. Now I remember that in the book uh, it said that Jamie and several guys carried the printing press out and rescued the printing press. I remember we wanted to do that but then you called up and I was like, “Can we carry him out?” And you’re like, “These things weigh like, ten tons!”

Matt: And how, you’re not getting it out….

Toni: There’s no way

Matt: ...you’re not, it wouldn’t fit out the door

Toni: No, they you can’t get it out a door or a window

Matt: You would’ve had to take it apart and then take it out, it’s just too big.

Toni: So the compromise here

Matt: So the compromise that he uses it to help escape it, you know

Toni: He pushes it under the window and uses it

Matt: Yeah. And normally they’re attached to the ceiling, you know, the printing presses are attached to the ceiling with a big um, uh, steel bar and that’s where we were going to do it but we decided uh, well he couldn’t have done anything with it if we did that, so, he, he remembered to get his portrait of Willie, cause that was important to him. Um, and that’s a departure from the book is when, when we talk about Willie, um. This was all done, we were, there’s really uh, flames, our special effects team created this, these layers of flame, flames uh, Sam was always safe but um, but these are, this is all real fire here, we’re really burning the place

Toni: Yeah, that looks great

Matt: Yep

(silence)

[44:58] Matt: Now that

Toni: Oh, the sign!

Matt: Yeah, that sign, yeah, the sign is now hanging in my office, by the way

Toni: Oh, yeah, and you designed, designed that, right?

Matt: Uh, I added uh, people, if people look carefully…

Toni: You put a little easter egg in that sign

Matt: ….yeah, gary, Gary, Gary’s team designed the, the actual sign but I had them add just a little J and a C um, within the art, within the uh, ironwork um, for, obviously, for uh, Jamie and Claire.

Toni: Yeah. Nice.

(silence)

[45:41] Matt: So this was a, this was filmed on location, right off the Royal Mile um, we spent two nights there filming a lot of this sequence um, and uh, I’m sure this’ll get added to the Outlandertour uh…

Toni: Right, right

Matt: ...for folks who wanna go and actually walk through the Close there

Toni: Is there really a Close called Carfax Close?

Matt: No it’s, called, it’s Bakehouse Close

Toni: Bakehouse Close

Matt: Yeah, Carfax is uh, Diana’s invention

Toni: Oh she made, she made that particular one up

Matt: Yeah.

Toni: Cause there really is a Carrubbers, is that how you say it? Carrubbers Close where the apothecary, I think, we took that from a real Close where the Archie Campbell goes

Matt: Well The World’s End, The World’s End is also there too

Toni: Ah, The World’s End is a real pub

Matt: And this, this particular Close is right down the street from it, so

Toni: Ah. Yeah that’s cool. I remember walking through the Royal Mile and those little tiny, those little tiny alleys that are just really super cool. Very slippery in the rain, though. I don’t know how all those people got around. It’s a magical, a magical city, Edinburgh. Just gorgeous. Um.

(silence)

[47:22] Toni: Ooh. (laughs)

Matt: Well, secret’s out.

Toni: The, the cat’s out of the bag, at least uh, to the audience

Matt: Yeah, let’s see how Jamie puts the cat back in the bag

Toni: Yeah, it’s a pretty, pretty big cat with some pretty big claws

Matt: This was something, something we went round and round and round about on when does he reveal this particular... We burned it.

Toni:  Yep, that’s a nice shot there.

Matt: Yep. What we did there is, that was, Jamie, in the real location, but the burn takes place, and then we put it together um, using visual effects

Toni: It’s great cause we wanted to end on the heartbreak of like, everything, literally everything he has is up in flames and the life that he thought he was gonna have with Claire now that she’s back it, it’s over and he’s gotta, he’s gotta get out of town.

Matt: Well thanks everybody for joining, uh, joining Toni and I on the podcast here for episode uh, seven, “Creme de Menthe.” We’ll talk to you next week um, have a good uh, have a good night

Toni: Cheers!

Transcribed 12/7/17 by Shelsy J.