‘Outlander’ Author Diana Gabaldon Criticizes Latest Series Love Scene

Meaghan Darwish March 23, 2020, 10:45 am

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Season 5, Episode 6 of Outlander, “Better to Marry Than Burn.”]

While many tune in for Starz’s Outlander each week, many of those viewers are also fans of Diana Gabaldon‘s books which serve as the show’s source material. As with most adaptations, there are things die-hard fans will absolutely love about the series, while often there are moments that don’t go over as well.

And in the show’s latest installment, “Better to Marry Than Burn,” Gabaldon herself took issue with one of the episode’s brief scenes — a scene that many fans seemed bothered by, as well.

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The moment in question occurred in the stables at River Run after Jamie (Sam Heughan) had risked Claire’s (Caitriona Balfe) wedding rings in a card game against the shady Mr. Wylie (Chris Donald). As he presented Claire with the rings, she was still upset with her husband, even if he won her jewelry back in the end. But eventually their spat turned into a literal roll in the hay.

Needless to say, some viewers weren’t loving this moment as much as Outlander‘s many previous Jamie-Claire love scenes. “The stables scene was such a disappointment… what has happened to their chemistry? Everything looked so forced and unnatural,” one fan tweeted.

(Credit: Starz)

Gabaldon followed up this tweet with her own disappointment, tweeting, “Bad dialogue, bad direction, bad lighting, awkward set. Actors did their level best with what they were given to work with.”

But don’t take that as an admonishment for the entire episode, as Gabaldon made it clear that she wasn’t displeased with Balfe or Heughan’s efforts, nor the installment as a whole.

When one viewer chimed in to say they loved the episode, Gabaldon defended her initial statement, writing, “I was referring explicitly to one 45-second scene.” She then defended the episode on a whole when one fan criticized the entire installment, responding, “Most of it was pretty good.”

Outlander, Sundays, 8/7c, Starz