Note: Contains spoilers for episode four of Baptiste.
BBC One served up another brutal and surprising Baptiste with episode four – shortly after revealing the truth about her past to boyfriend Greg (Trystan Gravelle), Kim (Talisa Garcia) had her throat slit by the Brigada Serbilu, then Edward Stratton (Tom Hollander) betrayed Julien (Tchéky Karyo) and ran off with the Brigada's stolen cash.
In an exclusive interview with Digital Spy, Baptiste creators/writers Harry and Jack Williams unpack the events of episode four and reveal one major plot twist that they planned, then scrapped.
Episode four feels as though it's bringing the story of the stolen cash to a close, only for Edward to betray Julien. Will the last two episodes take Baptiste in a totally new direction?
HARRY: "We never want to spin our wheels and lengthen the story out just for the sake of it. I think the story naturally led us there, and we definitely knew that the last two episodes had their own shape.
"Certainly, the hunt for that money has been going on for a little while. So it sort of came naturally as we were writing it."
JACK: "Episode four is one of those episodes where you have to move pieces on a chess board but not make it feel like that. Because by the end, when you’re done with the episode, you realise it’s not really about the money – it’s what this money represents. It represents the buying and selling of women and, for Edward, what that means to him personally.
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"We always knew we wanted to get beyond a treasure hunt. "Treasure hunt" movies or TV shows are fun, but they’re not emotionally engaging. The goal, really, here, was to ask: how do we really drive home that the money is an object that represents something far more important and emotional?
"There were lots of ways of doing that. At one point, for quite a long time, Edward was going to die – either in this episode or the next one. And actually, in a lot of the early outlines, he did. And then it just felt a little unsatisfying. Because the whole thing, by now, it’s like: there’s a very powerful gang that’s buying and selling women. How do you stop them?
"This episode is trying to coalesce all these disparate storylines into one, and I think what’s good about a lot of episode four is that people will probably be thinking, 'Where is this going?' as it’s coming to an end. I’m hoping by the last scene, they'll say, 'Oh, I see that these first four episodes have been leading us to a specific point'."
Had you thought ahead as to how the series might have played out if Edward had died?
HARRY: "Yeah, we looked at it, and we stopped because, by that point... in episodes one and two, the audience is trying to figure out who this guy is. In episode three, we learn exactly who he is, and why he’s doing what he’s doing. And I think we start to care about him, and we feel for him.
"So when we talked about the version where he died, I think we felt, 'That’s so tragic'. He’s been on this massive journey, questioning him, then trusting him – then for him to die? There’s no redemption, and that arc wasn’t as interesting as, 'Let’s see what happens when he tries to actually stand up and be the mouse that roared and do something about all this'."
Edward survives, but Kim does not. Why kill her off, and did you ever consider letting her live?
JACK: "Again, she was going to live longer. I think we were really excited to play out that scene with her and Greg when he finds out the truth, because it’s one of my favourite scenes in the series. It’s so emotional. Both actors did a great job. It’s such a heartbreaking scene.
"Again, we just sort of felt, as we broke the story, that [killing Kim] felt like a more interesting way to go, because then Greg has to go on this journey to come to terms with what happens.
"And yet she’s not even there to come to terms with. And that just felt more heartbreaking than the other version, where they sort of went off on their own little journey, and it didn’t quite connect with the main story."
HARRY: "We always knew that Kim would have to have a big thing to do with the ending, given that she was in Brigada Serbilu, and therefore knew some secrets. But narratively, [killing her] was the most interesting thing to do at that point, for what it gave us going forward."
Did you always know that Kim would tell Greg the truth about her past before she died? And was that a very important scene to get right?
HARRY: "Yes. When we first started to write the characters, that was the scene we talked about the most. It was the main focal point of it: revealing to your other half who you really are, and what that does to them, and how that person feels when you’re suddenly gone from their life.
"What that then does to that person... there’s certainly an emotional arc, and in this very dark and messy thriller, that was one of the things we were most excited about. And in writing the episode, we tried to be truthful and careful, and all those things. Hopefully it was."
JACK: "Yeah, and the actress, Talisa, said that it was very close to how she felt, and close to her story. That was the interest for us: emotionally, what’s it like to tell the truth to your other half? There’s a lot of backstory about her relations to Brigada Serbilu that you could unpack, but it wasn’t as interesting as how she’s feeling emotionally at that point."
Also this week, Martha (Barbara Sarafian) and Julien quarrel over whether to tell Niels the truth about who his father is. Given that Julien's a top detective with sharp instincts, was there any part of Martha that wanted him to find out the truth?
JACK: "I definitely think that the moment he arrived, there’s no way that she entirely expected it wouldn’t come up. I think if you have big secrets that you hold for years, often it’s not: "I hope that no one finds out" – it’s more like, 'When are they going to?'
"The shoe's going to drop at some point, and now here is the guy who she knows is his father. Absolutely, there’s a part of her that, whether she wanted it or not, was prepared for it to happen at some point."
Baptiste is obviously telling a dark story, but there's moments of real humour in this episode, especially Julien's interactions with 'peeping tom' Bram (Tom Audenart). Were you looking to lighten the mood?
HARRY: "Absolutely. I think we’d fallen in love instantly with Bram, down to him buying large packets of Cheetos, going back for more and storing hundreds in his cupboard. I think we felt like, it’s been so dark, and we’re in the world of sex trafficking, and all that...
"So it’s a bit of… it’s not comedy, but Fargo-esque absurdity in there. And Julien's reaction to being told Bram's 'not a pervert' is one of my favourite things about the series."
JACK: "We talk a lot about expectations... In this show, you see a man go to a door and unlock it, people think, 'Oh my God, what’s he got in there?'. In the end, we just thought the really interesting way to confound expectations was to have it be something completely bizarre.
"We were quite nervous about it, because we always knew that this episode would be quite funny in places – Bram is kind of a funny character. As Harry said, it’s a touch of the absurd that makes it so specific and interesting.
"It’s a bit of an experiment, tonally, and it’s something we didn’t do in The Missing because there was so much grief and tragedy. So the idea was, if we could find moments that were actually funny, it could give a bit of relief from what was going on. We really hope people enjoy it, because it was a lot of fun to do."
Baptiste continues next Sunday at 9pm on BBC One.
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