***The following contains spoilers for the season finale***

In the season finale of Outlander: Blood of My Blood, Ellen (Harriet Slater) prepares to marry Malcolm Grant (Jhon Lumsden) until she discovers that her brother Colum (Seamus McLean Ross) lied and sent someone to kill Brian (Jamie Roy). The betrayal causes her to break her own promise to him and escape with her beloved. In order to secure the clan alliance promised by the wedding between the MacKenzies and Grants, Ellen’s brother, Dougal (Sam Retford), marries Malcolm’s sister, Maura (Bobby Rainsbury), instead.

Recently, Retford and Rainsbury spoke to SciFi Vision about the season finale, including filming the wedding (and how Retford ate a real eyeball!) and much more.

Read the transcript below.

SCIFI VISION:   So, the first thing I want to ask you is, did they give the both of you more, I guess, than we got backstory as in like how you guys met when you were younger? Because it definitely seems they knew each other, but we really didn't get to know much. I'm just curious if they gave you more, or if you made up more in your head to play it. Just, yeah, for both of you.

BOBBY RAINSBURY:   Well, I originally was supposed to have a scene with Jhon [Lumsden], who plays Malcolm. And in that scene, they speak about how they holidayed together as kids. Holidayed, I say that very loosely, but that's kind of it. So, I think most of it we've just had to create.

SAM RETFORD:   That's wild. Yeah, I'm trying to think back. It was so long ago now when we were sort of prepping for episode ten, whether we did make something up. They definitely have some sort of familiarity, and it was definitely when they were younger. So, I think, yeah, we did agree that they just sort of holidayed, but to a degree that you wouldn't necessarily recognize that person immediately when you see them.

BOBBY RAINSBURY:   Yeah, or it's like, “Oh, you were the boy that used to do that. Ah, I see.” Like that kind of memory.

SAM RETFORD:   Must have been when they were like six or seven.

BOBBY RAINSBURY:   Yeah, surely.

SCIFI VISION:   All right, so you didn't need too much then. That works. So, Sam, I wanted to ask you, I'm trying to think of the right way to frame this, but do you kind of feel like Dougal getting into this - although he seems to be okay with it now, but having to get married to her, that he sort of brought it on himself by telling on Ellen and, you know, they never would have made the agreement. Colum (Seamus McLeanRoss) wouldn't have made the promise not to hurt Brian, and all the kind of stuff that went down. It sort of started from that. So, yeah, did he kind of cause it himself, do you think?

SAM RETFORD:   I think so. I think so. And what I really enjoyed about reading it was that he didn't really resist it. He didn't really shy away from it. I think there was something quite lovely about that. And it was quite difficult, because I'd spent the whole season prepping to hate anyone with the second name Grant. And then you had old Bobby come along here, and then they were like, “You're resistant at first,” but he goes through with it. He doesn't put up a fight to it. He knows it's the only way out for the clan. And I really do think Dougal is sometimes misrepresented as someone who's quite selfish and self-driven, but actually I think his morals are entirely representative of his thoughts to the betterment of Scotland and the betterment of the clan. He believes that this decision, this compromise, even though it goes against everything that his father taught him, is one that will serve his clan better in the future.

SCIFI VISION:   Right. Bobby, do you think Maura ever really thought about saying no? I mean, I guess as women, they don't really have as much of a choice, but she didn't, she just was like going with the flow.

BOBBY RAINSBURY:   Yeah, I think she's quite like that though. I think, as you said, women at the time didn't really have a choice, and I think she would probably have expected it to maybe have been like, they get married, and then they don't really see one another, have anything to do with one another. And I think that's quite nice about what happens in season two as you start to see the kind of makings of something. But yeah, she just says yes. I think she's actually a little bit bored of how long it takes Dougal to say yes at the altar, and he finally gets there, and that's why she's just like, “Yeah, get over it.”

SAM RETFORD:   I didn't take that long on the day. That was some very clever editing from As; he dragged the tension there for the audience.

SCIFI VISION:   All right, talk about filming for both of you, the wedding, because it's such a lavish affair. I'm just kind of curious what that was like filming that.

SAM RETFORD:   So, it was a long; it was a couple of days, I think, for prep. So, it was such an amazingly vast gathering of people, and you had a hundred essays and all of the crew in there, and you had that fantastic feast. I actually remember something that didn't make it into the cut, which was quite disappointing, was there's this long slow push that the camera does down the aisle, and you sort of see us at the head of the table. Everyone's having a great time and Maura and Dougal are having a mildly terrible time. And I think at that point, As had told me to the director to just to do something, have a drink or eat some food. And there was a pig's head, like a boar's head on the table, and I had a fork, and I ate the eyeball of the pig. And Philippe, our chef actually brought a couple of, I think I ate like six of them, but it never made it in.

SCIFI VISION:   I'm hoping it wasn't a real eyeball. I'm guessing it wasn't.

SAM RETFORD:   No, it was real. It was a real eyeball.

SCIFI VISION:   Oh wow, I figured you meant they made it out of cake or something.

SAM RETFORD:   No, it was an absolute waste of my stomach bug for the next three weeks.

BOBBY RAINSBURY:   Turned around and Sam's tucking into an eye.

SAM RETFORD:   Into an eyeball.

SCIFI VISION:   Yeah, would have liked to have seen that! What was it like for you filming that whole scene, the feast and the actual wedding?

BOBBY RAINSBURY:   Yeah, it was a lot of fun. The dress was really beautiful, but it was very uncomfortable, and I kept falling over the cobbles of like the flags of the stone flags. But it was a lot of fun, and it was really nice kind of seeing everybody in their characters like on a night out almost. Just being like Conor [MacNeill] who plays Ned was just having like an absolute blast, and it was just really nice to see everyone enjoying themselves. So, it was really fun to shoot.

And I think that's something that As really is a particular bit, I don't know, but like he always kind of makes sure everybody's having a good time and is having fun. And I think you can really see that in that particular scene.

SAM RETFORD:   None of the characters' experiences of those events get lost. Like quite amazing. Definitely quite a skill to take, you know, eight characters and put them all in a room together with, you know, 90, 100 supporting artists and still be able to allow the audience to enjoy everyone's micro story in that.

Yeah, it was really good fun. I mean, the big crowd is, they are a lot. It's a lot of waiting around, and it's a lot of the camera being nowhere near you, and you're just sort of sat there at a table, and the food starting to smell. But, yeah, it was very good fun.

SCIFI VISION:   Yeah. Yeah, I was going to ask you, doing a scene like that with a whole bunch of people, like from an acting standpoint, is that more difficult than doing like a really personal, like one-on-one scene with somebody, or is it really just not matter?

BOBBY RAINSBURY:   I think it just changes the energy slightly. You're just not competing, but you're having to lift it more than you would do if it was just like Sam and I just now talking with one another. So, I think you have to have an energy shift to make sure that you're delivering the right sort of energy that's required for the scene in that moment. I think that's all it is. And also, just to make sure you never kind of clock off, because sometimes you don't ever know where the camera is. So, you kind of have to give it welly every time somebody shouts, “rolling,” don't you?

SAM RETFORD:   Yeah, yeah, and I think you have to have a little bit more patience, because they always take a lot longer. So, there's always a hell of a load of shots that you're having to sort of repeat everything but are not necessarily being filmed. So, I'd say just a tad more patience.

SCIFI VISION:   Now, Bobby, I know I asked Sam this at the press conference at the beginning of the season, but I'll ask you, talk more about the costumes and kind of how that changes the decisions that you make for a character and how it affects your performance.

BOBBY RAINSBURY:   Yeah, well, Trisha [Biggar] and Kat [Tart], who Trish is the costume designer, Kat is her…assistant. I think they do a really beautiful job of creating everybody's identity in the clothes that they wear.

And from the point of view with Maura, she's just like very direct and very practical. And I just think everything that they've made for her is incredibly chic, and I think you really see that in season two. She's got this simplicity to her, which is really beautiful. And in terms of character, it does absolutely inform physicality. Yeah, I mean, it's quite restricting, which was probably done on purpose, do you think, at the time? Restrict those women, they're not allowed to move.

SAM RETFORD:   Make it harder for them to talk.

BOBBY RAINSBURY:   Make it harder for them to talk. Yeah, like getting on and off a horse is quite difficult with it on.

SAM RETFORD:   I think you look great getting off that horse the other day.

BOBBY RAINSBURY:   Yeah, I don’t know.

SCIFI VISION:   I was going to say, Sam, you kind of have the opposite, because you're wearing a kilt, so you're probably more comfortable than you normally are.

SAM RETFORD:   Yeah, very, very flexible. Though they are heavy. You find yourself - we did a lot of these - that was nearly a spoiler. I've done a lot of long days of standing, wearing the plaid, and when you wear the full gear, I mean, it is about probably 10, 15 kilos worth of kit when you've got the sword and the dirk and the plaid and the kilt. And you find yourself stooping. I shrink about half a foot by the time it's finished.

SCIFI VISION:   Wow, so at the beginning, were you guys daunted by the fact that this was such a huge franchise? And how is it different, I guess, than what you expected the experience to be?

BOBBY RAINSBURY:   I wasn't daunted, but sometimes I don't really look at it that way. I just kind of look at the character, do you know what I mean? And turn up on set, and try and do the best job that I can do on the day and do my work prior to. So, I don't think I was thinking about the franchise.

SAM RETFORD:   I think we're so lucky at shooting over here, because it's such a bubble that is so far removed from the people who consume the show. When I go back down south to England, or when we came over, and we met you guys over in America, the reception for the show is so vastly different. So, when we're shooting it up in our studio in Cumbernauld, it just feels so far removed from the weight and size of the show.

BOBBY RAINSBURY:   Yeah, the actual reality.

SAM RETFORD:   Yeah, the actual reality of the show, that you really don't think about it until you see it.

SCIFI VISION:   You might feel it more now that you're done, I would think, probably, than you did back then.

SAM RETFORD:   Maybe, yeah. But yeah, it's just like Bobby says, you just can't really let that cloud your vision too much. You just come to work and do the work like you would any other job.