Hey, please read this note.

Julie and I (Allison) screwed up. This is a funny episode, we think — god, we hope so — and we had not one but TWO amazing guests, and we got to talk about Lotte Verbeek a lot, so, win. But we were vaguely dissatisfied with the show's handling of slavery, and talked about it as such, wrapped the episode, and went home happy. Then we woke up the next morning, thought about it some more, and realized that yeah, we screwed up.

The thing about white privilege is that it's based on the idea that white people are always centered in the narrative, and you can be "woke" and still be totally ignorant of the constant, insidious ways that society and culture sideline people of color in favor of whiteness, even in stories about people of color. So we sat our white asses down, accepted that somehow this story was about how Claire felt about buying a slave, thought for about five minutes afterward, and totally failed you all  — both of us as people failed, and I in particular as a critic failed. And so I'll say quickly here what we ignorantly and damagingly didn't say then: Outlander failed, too, and they failed hard.

No modifications to this episode, no additions. Just two white women who think they've got it figured out proving how far they have to go. 

We're sorry. If you're a person of color, we're especially sorry. If you have any thoughts you want to share — about the show, about our handling of it, about anything – please send them to [email protected], or reach out on Twitter, or whatever you like. If you want to come on the show, we'll shut our foolish mouths and let you speak. And if we lose you here, well, we can't blame you.

So here it is, and a special thanks to guests Ruth McCormack and Catie Kirschner, as well as to Helena, who came to visit us just beforehand, and to Molly Mullen, who provided some truly delicious Colorado beers.

And last, here are some great pieces of writing from women who didn't totally fuck this one up:

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya at The AV Club

Jonita Davis at Black Girl Nerds

Kayti Burke at Den of Geeks

If you know of others, please share them below. We'll update this post and share on Twitter. And this post is and will remain public.

So, um.... enjoy the episode?

Love,

Allison, Julie, and Janine (and Catie and Ruth!)