Outlander: Wilmington Books Included

December 25, 2018 7:57 AM - Season 4, Episode 8

Roger's diligent search for Brianna pays off when he finds her in Wilmington, but their romantic reunion comes to an abrupt halt when she discovers pertinent information that he intentionally kept from her.

Vulture Recap: Operating Theater

Vulture - Outlander Drew a Line Between Rape and Sex. Does It Need So Much Rape, Though?

AV Club - Roger and Brianna fall into old patterns in a punitive, gratuitously violent Outlander

Den of Geek - Bree and Roger reunite, but the honeymoon period is short-lived when Roger's controlling behavior rears its ugly head.

posted by oh yeah! (6 comments total)

Eh, Roger and Brianna as written and acted are two fundamentally incompatible people. Now the inevitable rape and some heavy foreshadowing with the new servant (has she even spoken yet?) observing Roger and Brianna through the window. Is this going to be one of those situations where she gets the wrong idea and it only needs for Brianna to speak up to clear up the misunderstanding but she doesn't for #PlotReasons so Roger gets blamed? At least Brianna packed her birth control pills so we don't have the soap opera pregnancy and WHICH ONE IS THE FATHER plot, right?
posted by TWinbrook8 at 1:46 AM on December 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

Since this is the 'Books Included' thread, your questions are not rhetorical, Twinbrook8, but I'll just pretend they are instead of actually answering them, and just nod knowingly.

I feel like they left out an important bit from the book as far as Brianna's reasoning for leaving Roger behind when she went through the stones. Hadn't she believed that having someone who loved you waiting on the other end was important for being able to survive the crossing? So when book-Brianna sees Roger for the first time in the past, she actually shrieks out loud (which Lizzie witnesses) because she thinks now they're going to be stuck there. Like, she didn't leave him behind because she 'wasn't sure where they stood now', she left him behind because she believed in their love despite the failed proposal. It's a minor change, but I feel like it was kinda significant for their relationship. But show Brianna/Roger is such a mess of a plot device masquerading as a relationship, I guess it wouldn't have made much difference.
posted by oh yeah! at 6:14 AM on December 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

Outlander is a remarkable show in that I can be in the next room from where my wife is watching it and it has given me enough practice that I can now reliably tell the difference between her someone was just raped groan and her someone was just nearly raped groan.

I remember when the first season was wrapping up and Jezebel published a piece about how the rape in Outlander wasn't gratuitous in the same way that it is in, say, Game of Thrones. That has, uh, not panned out.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 8:15 AM on December 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

I remember when the first season was wrapping up and Jezebel published a piece about how the rape in Outlander wasn't gratuitous in the same way that it is in, say, Game of Thrones. That has, uh, not panned out.

The second Vulture piece linked has an interesting take on this...that the show tries to draw a hard distinction between Brianna's two sexual experiences - consensual and non-consensual - by deliberately not showing the rape, but instead the non-reaction to it by the tavern patrons. In a way, it ends up being even more brutal for that, but I'm not sure it could be classified as gratuitous in the same way similar scenes have been played in Game of Thrones and shows of the like.

While there are a lot of times when the show could have avoided a rape/near-rape episode , this doesn't seem like it is one of them. If they are going to remain somewhat close to the book plot, so much depends on this particular rape and its consequences. They could, however, easily dispense with at least one rape plot I'm thinking of in a future book, with no major injury to the overall story. I hope they do, but I expect they won't, if we get that far.
posted by Preserver at 10:53 AM on December 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

Also...speculation, not a spoiler, since even book readers don't know what is going to happen here....

They're going to kill off Murtagh, aren't they? In a manner designed to wring the most emotion out of it, right?

I feel like the showrunners will see this as the one place where they can truly surprise book readers. I was holding my breath waiting for Murtagh to show up ever since the Frasers arrived in North Carolina, and now I'm going to be holding my breath waiting for him to be killed. It's just too juicy an opportunity for them to pass up, and inserting him into the Regulator plot line seems to be setting this up.
posted by Preserver at 11:04 AM on December 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

Roger does not come off well in this episode at all, even when they're in the ostensibly romantic part still.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 8:38 AM on January 6, 2019