If Claire and Jocasta’s interactions in the last couple of Outlander episodes felt sharper than you remember from the book, well, executive producer Matthew B. Roberts says, that’s because they were.
“You always want to put two people in a scene where there’s something going on. And in the book, they’re there at River Run for such a long time,” the EP tells TVLine. “You can get to know somebody over the course of three or four months… for us, they’re only there for what feels like a few days. So we had to hit it a little harder.”
Exhibit A: The scene in the most recent hour, in which Claire’s farewell to her husband’s aunt turned into a standoff over which woman knew what was better for Jamie.
“What I like about the scene, and why it cuts to the chase, is that they’re both kind of right,” Roberts says. “They’re both kind of right, and they’re both kind of wrong.”
Viewers of the Starz drama will recall that Jocasta believed that Jamie’s refusal of her offer to be master of the North Carolina plantation was Claire’s doing. Meanwhile, Claire’s staunch hatred of slavery meant there was no way that she and Jamie would ever take Jocasta up on her offer.
Still, Roberts points out, the older woman’s words aren’t that easy for the sassenach to shake.
“Later in the episode, she asks Jamie, ‘Are you going to be OK being a printer?’ So whatever Jocasta says resonated with Claire.”
But, he adds, the feeling goes both ways.
“I also think that what Claire says to Jocasta resonates with Jocasta,” Roberts says, “in a sense that ‘Wow, this woman is special to him, and that’s something that I have to contend with.’”
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