Ellen MacKenzie leads the women of her clan in a bloody defense of Castle Leoch in the third episode of Outlander: Blood of My Blood’s second season. Star Harriet Slater says the hour reveals a side of the character viewers have never seen.
The episode, “Rabbits Don’t Swim,” was written by Toni Graphia and directed by Azhur Saleem. The invader MacKinney dismisses the castle’s women as rabbits who will bolt for their burrows. Ellen refuses to hide. She plots to pick off the captors one by one, finishing with MacKinney himself, and at one point strides into the Great Hall with blood on her face and a bow aimed at him. The writers pitched the sequence as “Home Alone, but with knives,” Slater told The Hollywood Reporter.
Slater prepared with archery lessons and rehearsed the larger fights with the stunt department. Instructors kept urging the cast to commit harder because the actors feared hurting one another, she said. She had long wanted to learn the bow, and the skill links Ellen to later Outlander history: Slater pointed out that Ellen is the grandmother of Young Ian, who handles a bow with similar talent.
The victory carries a cost. Ellen’s younger sister Janet takes a fatal slash in the fray. As Janet dies in her arms, Ellen reveals she is pregnant with Brian’s child and promises to name a daughter Janet. Longtime fans know where that leads. Brian and Ellen eventually raise Jamie Fraser’s sister Jenny, whose full name is Janet. “That scene killed me,” Slater said.
The battle also deepens Ellen’s break with her brother Colum, the clan’s leader. Slater welcomed the return to Leoch because it meant more scenes with him, no matter how tense. Flashbacks to their late father, Red Jacob, show the lessons that shaped her. He believed Ellen would have been his successor had the limits placed on women in the 18th century allowed it.
Ellen and Brian get little time to enjoy the fight’s aftermath. Slater told TVLine the couple spent all of Season 1 working toward being together, and their reunion lasts only minutes before events pull them apart again, in a season set against the 1715 Jacobite Rebellion.
