Bree's 'Outlander' Confrontation Could've Been Very Different
Warning: This article features a discussion about sexual abuse. Reader discretion is advised.
After a season fraught with sorrow, trauma, and life-altering decisions, Brianna (Sophie Skelton) gets some much-needed closure in Sunday's Outlander.
After learning Stephen Bonnet (Ed Speleers) awaits execution in a jail in Wilmington, Bree-spurred by a sympathetic letter from Jamie exhorting her to forgive Bonnet "for the sake of your soul"-convinces her faux fiancé, Lord John Grey (David Berry), to accompany her to a visit with her rapist. "Forgiveness won't change what has happened," pregnant Bree tells Lord John. "But it can change what will be."
Skelton tells BAZAAR.com the ensuing confrontation between Bree and Bonnet-she steely; he wry, then sobered-is one of her favorite scenes from the final episodes of Season 4. "Bree is very strong and doesn’t let him see how he's affected her," she says of the moment Brianna offers forgiveness, yet promises a scornful Bonnet her child won't know his name.
Their discourse provides Bree with the peace of mind she needs before becoming a mother, but the scene could've turned out very different. "There was one [take] where I fully broke down and it was really weird. It was like I was this vessel for a victim I'd watched an interview of, and it poured out of me, and I was crying uncontrollably," Skelton reveals."When the take ended, [everyone] was like, 'Are you okay?' And I couldn't stop crying. It was a bit mad."
Skelton told BAZAAR back in December that she did extensive research to prepare for the scene in which Bree is raped and its aftermath: "I watched a lot of interviews of women who'd been raped. I watched a lot of court cases where they confronted their rapist," she said. "I read a lot of interviews, and one that really stuck with me was this girl who said she felt like she wanted to peel her skin off her body, that she didn't belong in her own skin anymore and she wanted out. That's something I always kept in my head when playing Bree."
Though tonight's episode provides some solace for Brianna's grief, it fails to illuminate a conclusion to her storyline. Will Jamie and Claire find Roger? Will any of them return in time for the birth of her child? With only one episode left in the season, time is running out for Season 4's sprawling storylines.
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