The Decameron stars and creator explain why major characters had to die in finale

However, the new Netflix series, which dropped on July 25, proved that sometimes it’s humans that prove more lethal than a deadly illness.

Across the span of the show, we saw multiple deaths, with nearly half the main cast meeting their making before the series end.

This included hunky doctor Dioneo (Amar Chadha-Patel), who was caught by the plague, all the way through to Panfilo (Karan Gill), who went out in a hail of arrow-fire while holding his dead wife’s body.

Pampinea (Zosia Mamet), who proved insufferable and more than a little delusional when it came to her quest to be married and have children, had one of the most brutal fates – being burned alive in a barrel by her long-suffering but loyal servant, Misia (Saoirse-Monica Jackson).

Read more:

• The Decameron's Saoirse-Monica Jackson and Zosia Mamet on characters' unbreakable bond
• The Decameron star talks scenes viewers will "probably never get to see"

But according to the stars and makers of the show, the need for them to die was a necessity.

Speaking exclusively to RadioTimes.com, actress Mamet said: "Saoirse and I talked about that a lot, because, obviously, it's a very... it's a big move, and it felt very extreme, but basically, [...] we sort of came down to the fact that it's a bit of that, like old Western adage, of like, ‘there isn't room enough in this town for the both of us’."

"Misia, if she ever wants to be free, if she ever wants to stand on her own two feet and not live under the shadow of Pampinea, she physically cannot do it without her being gone," she adds.

"It's just not a possibility, because Pampinea will forever be able to sort of just entice her back, and Misia will feel that pull, and so it's really the only option she has if she wants to be free."

"I don't think that Pampinea knows in that moment what's happening,” Mamet adds. "I think she thinks what's happening is what always happens, which is that Misia is going to keep her safe and make sure everything is okay."

Jackson adds: "She thinks of it fast, like she does with everything, that she is exactly what Mamet said. She'll never be free if she's if she's still there, and they'll both end up returning to each other.

"But I also think she's acting from a place of compassion, because it's like, if I don't kill her, someone else will. And I think that Misia would never let that happen."

Show creator Kathleen Jordan, on the other hand, relished the opportunity to kill off the character, telling us Pampinea "had it coming" after causing so much trouble.

Instead, she felt sad at killing off two of the male characters – the previously mentioned Panfilo, and also Tindaro – the misogynistic bumbling noble turned bleeding heart who fell in love with servant Stratilia.

"I found it really hard, just because he comes so far, that I found it quite sad to kill Tindaro," explained Jordan. "But I also think that hit the greatest articulation of his journey, is that he would learn to love, and in learning to love, would love in spite of his own safety. That he would sacrifice himself for love is the most poetic, to me, ending for him."

"Also Panfilo, there's something really dark about his sort of suicide mission, which is just that he recognises that he can't be happy on this side of Earth without his best friend, and so he kind of barrels into the ending," she adds.

"But I think he puts his faith in his wife's faith in God, and sort of like believing that there's something around the corner for him.”

"When you're writing your show, yeah, about the bubonic plague, you gotta kill some folks. We knew that going in, and it kind of was the joy and also the heartbreak of writing this show is that we really intended to write it into the ground,” she added.

"Knowing that it's just one season, kind of we got to take off, and we had a lot of ambitions, but we also really needed to, like, land the plane."

"For the most part, those are the characters that lived and the characters who found themselves stuck, for the most part, are the characters that died,” she added. "That's mostly true. That's like 80% true. Some people had to meet their end because it was the most.. it was the greatest articulation of their journey."

The Decameron is available to stream now on Netflix.

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