Jed Mercurio breaks down creating Trigger Point and teases Season 2

Trigger Point follows Lana Washington, a military veteran who has turned to bomb disposal. Throughout the first season, we watched as she uncovered a terrorist plot that claimed the lives of people close to her. Lana is back for Season 2, and she has a new conspiracy to uncover.

We talked with Jed Mercurio, who is one of the executive producers on the series, to discuss that dramatic first season and look at ahead at some of the things to come in Trigger Point Season 2.

Jed Mercurio talks writing for Warren Brown in Trigger Point Season 1

Precinct TV: Warren Brown always plays such a great villain, and we know that if he’s in a show, he’s likely to play the bad guy. How did you go about in Trigger Point Season 1 to make us question whether he was the villain so well?

Jed Mercurio: Some of the audience might think he’s a villain, but some might not. I don’t think it was a unanimous view, and the audience reacts so well to what is in front of them. They may have had a sneaking suspicion about a character, but, ultimately, what’s dramatized and how the characters on screen interact, gives people something to judge. We kind of played a game throughout Season 1.

PTV: I loved Kyle’s calling card throughout the first season. I felt like I should have seen it coming, but it was just so genius. Who came up with that?

JM: I’ve got to give credit to the creator, Daniel Brierley, for that. It was then deployed across the six hours so that we could get something out of it for each episode. The whole production team worked together to make each episode as twisty and turny as possible to keep everyone guessing.

Avoiding the issues of a Mary Sue character and predictability

PTV: There is always the risk of a female lead becoming a bit of a Mary Sue character, especially in the past. That has to change now, and you’ve done it with Lana. She has these weaknesses to play with. What was the process like to make sure she was someone we could relate to.

JM: I think when you’re portraying an emergency services professional, you want to have a show that’s grounded in reality. Those people aren’t 100% heroic in their work. We paid tribute to the courage of bomb disposal officers, but they’d be the first to admit themselves that they’re human beings and they have moments of doubt and moments of fear when they need to rely on their instincts and their colleagues as well.

I think all these things give a TV protagonist opportunities to do about turns, to consider their own values and, at times, make the wrong decisions for the right reasons and have to double back and fix things.

PTV: There were so many losses in Trigger Point Season 1, and you kept us on our toes. How did you go about honoring the losses but moving forward in Season 2?

JM: I think with a second season that’s always the big question. How do you reward the loyalty of the viewers who are coming ack to the show, and make it as accessible as possible for new people who haven’t seen the first season?

The way that we approached it was that we wanted it to feel like a brand new story was starting in the first episode, so that you didn’t need to watch the preceding season to follow and understand the threat Lana and her team were confronted by. Some of the legacy then plays out.

PTV: I do love how you make us question if anyone is going to make it. We can’t get too comfortable.

JM: That’s part of the jeopardy of the show. It’s such an important component of thrillers to be able to deliver jeopardy to the characters and for the audience to appreciate that things may go wrong. There are a lot of long-running TV shows where the audience enjoys the thrills but they never sincerely believe that something bad is going to happen to one of the lead characters.

One of the things that I think modern TV thrillers do now is have the courage to kill off major characters. That creates so much more credible jeopardy across the whole cast of characters.

Why Trigger Point and other crime shows are so much fun to create

PTV: You’ve done so many other shows within the crime genre. What is it that you love about it?

JM: These kinds of professional roles throw up a lot of dramatic opportunity for creators. There’s natural jeopardy the characters will encounter, and that’s the most powerful storytelling tool if you’re doing action thrillers.

In terms of creating that type of show, we have to find characters who occupy frontline roles where they’re confronted by threats where bad things can happen and they have to use all their resources to stay safe. It also allows you to explore how characters behave under extreme stress, but bring out their truest values.

PTV: You’ve got to dramatize at the same time. So how do you keep as much as possible grounded in reality?

JM: We certainly look for technical accuracy, so we have advisors who help us within all the aspects of production. They help with the details of bomb making, bomb disposal procedures, the way in which counterterrorism operations take placy, and how the deployment of bomb disposal units takes place in the real world.

I think realism comes from something more than that, though, which is the ways the characters behave in believable ways. These are characters who you perceive to be real people making real decisions.

PTV: Trigger Point Season 2 jumps ahead a bit, but Lana is still going to be dealing with a lot of emotions and trauma from the first season. Did you have people to help ensure PTSD and trauma were shown in a real way?

JM: Yes, it’s very important that those things are dramatized in the right way; that they’re dramatized in a constructive way. You see characters seeking help and receiving help, which is something we had in Season 1 and we’ve looked at again in Season 2. We have a lot of people who are contributing to the technical accuracy of the show, and they’re also able to tell us about the procedures that the real-life professionals will go through if there are concerns about their mental health.

Trigger Point Season 2 premieres on BritBox on Thursday, Sept. 5.