Author: Alicia Lutes

April 25, 2015 7:00pm PT by Alicia Lutes

 Courtesy of Starz

“You need to know what happened to [Jenny] and it gives you another picture of Black Jack,” writer Anne Kenney tells THR.

[Warning: This story contains spoilers from the April 25 episode of Outlander, “Lallybroch”]

After the emotional turbulence of last week’s episode of Outlander, it was time for more information on the clan Fraser and Jamie’s past.

Returning to his homestead after four years away dredged up a lot of turmoil for Jamie (Sam Heughan), who tried to navigate the waters of being the laird and deal with his own guilt over the death of his father, all while trying to assimilate his new life with his old. With the introduction of his sister Jenny (Laura Donnelly), Jamie came face-to-face with the emotional toll Black Jack Randall (Tobias Menzies) has had on his family.

The Hollywood Reporter spoke with writer Anne Kenney to break down Jenny’s strength, what it says about Jamie, and those shockingly revealing details about Black Jack Randall.

This episode answered a lot of questions the audience had regarding Jamie leaving Lallybroch and staying away. It’s a nice complement to Claire’s (Caitriona Balfe) own honesty last week.

It’s interesting because we started out thinking there’d be a lot more about Jamie and his father in the episode. In the first draft there was a whole thing in the beginning with a flashback to Jamie and Ian as boys with his father. But it became something different even though his father is in it. It evolved and evolved.

What was it like to introduce Jenny Fraser to the story?

As always, we start with the book and Jenny gets a great introduction there —in fact that’s very much how we played it. We thought of this as the family episode where you get a look at a different side of Jamie: Where he came from and, throughout the course of the story, how he’s going to fit back in there. I love the character of Jenny. She’s really fun to write. She’s such a strong character.

You see that when Jenny reveals what happened between her and Black Jack. It’s intense but also subversive in a lot of ways.

A lot of the stuff that’s so creepy with Tobias, where he was touching her mouth and all that stuff, wasn’t scripted. They just did that on the day. It’s very intense, but you need to know what happened to her and it gives you another picture of Black Jack. But we were a little concerned about that scene because we wanted to make sure at the end that you believed he had not done anything, that he did not rape her but left her alone. A lot of that happened on the set in the moment, and it is a really intense scene. I’m curious by what you mean by subversive though. In what way do you think it’s subversive?

A lot of times you see women in these situations where it’s immediately victimizing. But here Jenny laughs and — to a certain extent — it empowers her.

I agree completely. Because that is the kind of person that Jenny is and I love that she said, “I don’t know why I did it, I just did.”

The power of both of the women in Jamie’s life says a lot about him.

With Claire, you attribute that to her being from the 1940s; although we always have to remind ourselves that she’s not from 2015—she’s from 1945, so they weren’t exactly the most feminist of people, either. But we wanted to portray almost all of our women characters with a lot of muscle. They’re not trying to make a statement. This is who they are. And it makes sense. Imagine Jenny having to live that life and keep that place together. How could you not be strong?

So Black Jack’s sexual propositioning of Jamie really colors your understanding of who Black Jack is in a way you didn’t expect but makes a lot of sense.

Yes and that plays out as we go forward, so the audience needed to get a sense of that relationship. I like the way we used that to impart how he felt both about that and feeling guilty about his father, which then pays off in the scene with Jenny at the graveyard at the end, which is my favorite in the episode. She’s having the same feeling, that she’s responsible for their father’s death, and they both have to come to a place where they realize that no, the person responsible for all of their problems is Jack Randall.

It’s a very human moment.

In the book, Jamie and Jenny are fairly congenial—they have the fight at the beginning and there’s friction between them, but we laid in this notion of there being this underlying tension between them. I was struggling [though] with why she was being so bitchy to him. But when something really bad happens, we all look for someone to blame. So the fact that when her father died and she says that the dark little part of our heart blamed Jamie, that made it work for me. That’s when I was like, “Oh I get it, I understand why she’s acting the way she is.” But after she sees his scars and realizes that it wasn’t him shooting his mouth off, that this was some horrible thing that happened, she feels terrible about it. Which is why I love that moment in the graveyard—and that was something we came up with.

It’s heartbreaking to see Jenny in that moment at the mill where she sees his scars and has that realization.

It’s the first time she’s really seeing what’s happened to her brother and it’s horrifying.

Overall there’s not a heck of a lot of Claire in this episode.

When you’re reading the books you see it all from Claire’s point of view, so even when the story isn’t her story, she is involved. When you try to dramatize it, though, [you realize] she’s mostly an observer. Sometimes Claire feels so active, but she’s really just actively telling you something rather than having a story of her own. The arc between he and Claire —where she’s trying to fit in and is frustrated about who he’s trying to be —is something that we put in there that’s not from the books.

Outlande rairs Saturdays at 9 p.m. on Starz.

April 25, 2015 10:30am PT by Alicia Lutes

 Courtesy of FOX

Loren Bouchard talks with THR about why animation and music make such a perfect match.

Ask any fan of Bob’s Burgers why the Fox animated series is so special and its musical moments are sure to come up — as is its sweetly comedic bravado.

Ahead of its midseason return Sunday, The Hollywood Reporter caught up with series creator Loren Bouchard to discuss the show’s collaborative process, the magical combination of music and animation and why John Roberts’ improvisations are so integral to the show.Plus check out an exclusive clip from Sunday’s episode.

What do you think it is about the show’s music that makes people respond so fervently?

It’s partly just our sweet little characters. I would think, secondarily though, that animation and music go together really well. I think back to The Muppet Show a lot, and to some extent even Sesame Streetand Schoolhouse Rock, all the Disney movies; these things are really bonded together in a really fundamental way. I’ll go a step further — this is a theory that I’ve actually never said out loud and I hope it doesn’t sound ridiculous; I don’t have any science to back this up, but — there’s a lot of research out there that proves music enters our brain in a different way. They’re doing MRIs on people listening to Bach and they’re showing that it lights up your brain in a very specific way. My theory, is that I think animation my enter your brain in a different way, too.

Interesting.

Obviously my experience is limited, I have never worked in live action, but I do get to interact with fans of the show and I’ve worked on other shows, and I’m starting to suspect that when you like a character that’s animated, it goes in a little deeper and might light up some of the same parts of your brain that music does. So in a way I think we’re doubling the potency of our formula. Maybe unconsciously without really thinking about it. When we started adding music to Bob’s — which we pretty much wanted to do from the beginning — we were figuring out ways to make this chemical compound stronger, if that makes sense.

Can you talk to me a little bit about how the music on the show gets made?

John Dylan Keith is a composer in L.A., and we have another team of composers who are out of New York — John and the Elegant Too — whose names are Chris Maxwell and Phil Hernandez. They’re what I like to call real composers and real musicians. They have to do all the underscores, the bumpers and all the cues and transitions that fill up the show. And on top of that, we often ask them to do the end credits song or montage music, so they are the real heroes of the story. What I’ve done is save little plum assignments for myself. So I saved the theme song for myself and here and there I’ve composed songs.

See more Broadcast TV’s Returning Shows 2015-16

I’ve also extended the same offer to the writers. They’ve turned out to be fantastic composers, too, either writing the lyrics to the song and somebody else writes the music, or they come with songs fully formed and all we have to do is execute. One of the writers in particular, Nora Smith, has co-composed a lot of music I’ve worked on. Recently we added another team member, Tim Dacey, who has been instrumental. In Sunday’s “Itty Bitty Ditty Committee,” Gene plays keyboard and his sisters play straws sticking out of the lids of to-go cups. You know that sort of squeaky sound? Tim built me a little instrument, of digitally sampled to-go cups from the Taco Bell across the street and we were able to create this little vibe.

John Roberts’ improvisation of Linda’s lyrics on the show — how does that all happen?

He doesn’t just improvised the lyrics, John Roberts often improvises the lyrics and the melody. He is a musician in his own right, but he’s also just an old-fashioned musical person. He thinks in song chunks. Music just comes out of him and he has another fantastic ability to do it in character. So he can be Linda, and be singing the silly songs that we will often give him lyrics to, but he’ll improvise the melody. When we were working on the Valentines’ Day episode two years ago, I don’t think we wrote a single word down for the songs. They probably indicated in the script, “Linda sings a song” or something like that. And he just sang, “Two people together forever, security in life and someone to love you, instead of being all alone, such a lonely existence I’d kill myself.”

And he improvised that whole thing?

Yeah — almost in one take. And all we had to do for the end credits with figure out what key it was in and what chords sounded nice underneath and, bam, you’ve got a song. It’s so her. And it’s a great gift John has that he’s able to give it to us again and again and again.

Bob’s Burgers airs Sundays on Fox.

April 18, 2015 7:00pm PT by Alicia Lutes

 STARZ

“That’s the beginning of their relationship then developing into something else,” Sam Heughan says about Saturday’s big reveal.

[WARNING: Spoilers ahead from Saturday’s episode of Outlander, “The Devil’s Mark.”]

For fans of Outlander, Saturday’s episode was a one-two punch of major plot development and character reveals. After being accused of witchcraft alongside Geillis Duncan (Lotte Verbeek), Claire (Caitriona Balfe) is put on trial, where her good deeds were used against her to prove the case. It is only when Geillis cops to being a witch to save her that Claire realizes she was not the only time traveler in town.

But she’s not given much time to process it all before she and Jamie (Sam Heughan) must flee to Lallybroch. It is during their travels that Claire finally comes clean, revealing her past in the 1940s and explaining her origins as a woman fallen through time.

When Jamie gives her the option to return to Craigh na Dun and go back through the rocks to Frank (Tobias Menzies), Claire turns against her past and towards her new future.

“He says he trusts her word. Whether or not he can quite even grasp what exactly it means to be from the future is another story,” says Heughan. “But he knows her soul and he knows her as a person, and that makes it easier for him to accept what she says. In that moment, in a way, it makes sense. And that’s the beginning of their relationship then developing into something else.”

The Hollywood Reporter spoke with the episode’s writer, Toni Graphia, about the major moments of the night.

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Why do you think Geillis sacrificed herself for Claire?

Geillis has been focused all along on saving her country. That’s why she traveled back through time. She is uppermost a patriot. However, when Claire refuses to renounce her in court, it stuns and moves her. Geillis doesn’t connect to anyone on an individual level — even her relationship with Dougal is bound up with their mutual goals for Scotland. We think of patriotism as involving nations, but the word patriot comes from a French word that means “fellow countryman.” And what Geillis saw was that Claire’s decision in that moment amounted to a personal patriotism. That’s why Geillis, in turn, made the decision to save Claire.

What drew you to this part of the story in particular?

I fell in love with this section of the book. I would’ve wrestled to the ground any [other] writer that wanted to do it. I would have had a sword fight for it. Geillis was always my favorite character besides Claire.

Geillis’ reveal itself also opens up the whole universe of the show itself.

Right. Geillis has always been a little different then other people in the town, and she and Claire were always drawn to each other. You got the feeling that Geillis was always trying to ferret out information. I don’t think she knew the truth about Claire, but she suspected it. It wasn’t crystallized until the scene when Claire says that Nathaniel Hale quote, “I only regret I have but one life to lose for my country,” and Geillis says, “Nicely put!” That for me was the moment she knew for sure that Claire was from the future.

It’s interesting that even though they spend two nights in the hole, they never outright say it to each other.

We had a lot of discussion in the writers’ room about whether or not Claire should say she’s from the future and vice versa, and we didn’t want to do it because we didn’t want to step on the Jamie reveal later on. Once we see [Geillis’] vaccination scar we know for sure. We also added a little nugget: The scene in the back of the church where she mentions the “f—ing barbeque.” (Laughs) That’s something that was not in the book. I have to credit Ron Moore with that line though. I love it. It’s my favorite in the episode.

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What brought the addition about?

We added it because we thought it was crazy to have these two women in the thieves’ hole for two whole nights and bare their souls the way they do without the future coming up.

And it paves the way, ultimately, for Claire’s outpouring of the truth to Jamie in the next scene.

It’s such a big thing in the book when Claire reveals to Jamie that she’s from the future. To fit that in with the witch trial and do justice to both things, it’s almost like two disparate stories. There was talk in the beginning about mak[ing] it two separate stories. But of course I didn’t want that because I love both parts and I wanted them to work. She and Geillis baring their souls in the thieves’ hole to one another is [the] bridge to the scene with Jamie. Claire realizes it’s a shame for two people that love each other — or that are close especially in times of crisis — to not be who they really are with one another.

Claire’s reveal to Jamie feel like such a release, to hear her finally speak her truth out loud.

Ron has always said that even though Claire does all the talking, it’s Jamie’s scene. It’s all about his reaction.

How and why do you think Claire decided to stay?

We wanted to show the passage of time because it wasn’t an easy decision for Claire. She sat there thinking all day long, and we wanted to make it clear that he wasn’t waiting for her. And that’s why he’s so surprised when he wakes up. My interpretation is that the rocks are magnets and both sides of the rocks have a pull. For me, the pull of Jamie and this time was just stronger at that point. I think she does love Frank and was very tempted to go back, but in the end the pull of Jamie won out. Not to say that choice doesn’t have repercussions down the line. You’ll see — without giving away too much —that decision cost her something. She is very aware that she abandoned someone she loves, and that’s going to lay on her and have some repercussions and cause some drama down the road.

Outlander airs Saturdays at 9 p.m. on Starz.