Trigger Point writer explains villain twist after dramatic finale
Daniel Brierley tells us who has been hounding London's expo officers. *SPOILER WARNING*
After six weeks of speculation, the Trigger Point season finale has revealed the culprit behind a series of co-ordinated terrorist attacks that have taken a terrible toll on explosives officer Lana Washington (Vicky McClure).
Since her initial callout to a bomb scare at fictional London council estate Westhaven, the retired soldier has lost her best friend Joel Nutkins (Adrian Lester) and brother Billy (Ewan Mitchell) to targeted strikes by a far-right extremist group.
That only made her more driven to root out those responsible, but even she was taken by surprise when the perpetrator finally made themselves known in a nail-biting scene.
Trigger Point writer Daniel Brierley gave RadioTimes.com an exclusive insight into the big twist in episode 6, but be warned our conversation was completely spoiler-filled.
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Trigger Point ending explained
In the series finale, none other than Karl Maguire (Warren Brown) is revealed to have been orchestrating the terror attacks on London from the start, which sends Lana reeling.
The two had first crossed paths in episode 2 at a boozy wake held for Lana's ill-fated partner Joel Nutkins and quickly formed a connection, but many viewers were instantly suspicious over his true intentions.
Brierley expected as much, telling RadioTimes.com: "Something we worried about a lot in the process was that it’s clear when Karl turns up that he's the villain. He turns up and you're like, ‘OK, we know that actor... it seems too good to be true’.
"[So] then I think we wanted to set up this kind of duplicity," he continued. "We wanted it almost to look like he was so obviously the villain that he couldn't possibly be the villain, if that makes sense."
Some viewers – myself included – eventually dropped their guard around Karl, as he and Lana shared tender moments over pool games and pints, bonding over their time spent in the armed forces.
Brierley revealed: "I've always thought of Karl and Lana as kind of different sides of the same coin. That Lana could easily become the person Karl became in terms of their experiences of conflict, their experiences of war.
"It's only because Lana had the strength and the courage to fight against this instinct that she was able to survive and thrive. And that's the reason why… they genuinely do have this connection. They have gone through the same things."
A pivotal moment in Trigger Point's finale comes as Karl approaches Lana at the police cordon around Deptford Assembly Hall, where the results of a hotly contested by-election are to be announced.
He once again professes his love for her, but she turns him down, not ready to get involved in a new relationship after the deaths of Joel and Billy, as well as a messy break-up with colleague Thom Youngblood (Mark Stanley).
According to Brierley, things may not have ended the same way if Lana had reciprocated Karl's feelings.
"I do think that if she turned around and said, ‘Yes, let's make our life together’, then yes, he probably would have certainly had second thoughts, if not completely abandoned the plan and let John take all the blame for it," he added.
"At that moment, he's still thinking, 'There's hope'. But then, once that hope is gone, there's nothing really left for him. Lana was giving him a reason to keep on going in the world and then once she said, ‘This is not for me, our relationship is ending here’, he really had nowhere else to go.
"And so the actions that he has in the final act are those of a desperate man in every sense."
In an intense monologue, Karl reveals he had targeted parliamentary candidate Ayesha Campbell-Khan (Salima Saxton) as she was involved in covering up the deaths of British soldiers transporting chemical weapons in Afghanistan.
Karl had left the calling card '1912' at the scene of more than one attack, which is revealed to be the element numbers of Potassium and Magnesium, with the corresponding chemical symbols spelling: K Mg (his initials).
Previously, expo officer John Hudson (Kris Hitchen) was thought to have been the main culprit, but while he was implicated in the far-right plot, it emerges that he had been used as a pawn by Karl.
Trigger Point is available to stream on BritBox. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide to see what's on tonight.
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Authors
David Craig is the Senior Drama Writer for Radio Times, covering the latest and greatest scripted drama and comedy across television and streaming. Previously, he worked at Starburst Magazine, presented The Winter King Podcast for ITVX and studied Journalism at the University of Sheffield.
