Spoiler alert: This story contains major spoilers for 'The Jetty', which is now streaming on iPlayer in the UK.
In the new BBC drama series The Jetty, Jenna Coleman (Doctor Who, The Sandman) plays Detective Inspector Ember Manning, whose investigation into an abused teenager leads her to a cold case involving another missing teenager, Amy Knightley, who disappeared decades earlier. A case that Ember soon realises is inextricably linked to her own.
Over four thrilling episodes, series producer Kat Jones takes viewers on a high-stakes journey through Ember's past and present as an investigative podcaster, and even Ember's family becomes embroiled in the case. (The series is produced by Firebird Pictures, owned by BBC Studios.)
Coleman sat down with diverse After the show ends, we'll talk about Ember's confession, Amy's responsibility, and whether we might see Detective Manning return to solve another mystery.
Let's talk about that shocking ending, where Ember tells the detectives that Arj killed Amy. Was this the ending the series was always going to end with, or was there a chance that Ember would admit that she killed Amy?
Oh my God. Yes, there were. Many. [endings]I mean, it was a really interesting process, because the show was sent to me when the first episode was being written with a treatment. So the conversation [with showrunner Cat Jones and exec producer Liz Kilgarriff] It started there. Talking about the gray areas and asking questions without necessarily trying to answer them and sitting in that uncomfortable space. But the ending was very different. A very different ending. So it was a big twist and then we shot two versions of the prison cell scenes where she confesses or doesn't confess, so it was up to the editor to decide what to do with them. There were two different ways it could have gone.
How was the other version?
She didn't speak at all. It was assumed. [by the detectives] She never corrected it, unlike the words that came out of her mouth. But the version we have on paper was her saying those words. Again, I think it's about sitting in that uncomfortable space and not having easy answers.
Do you remember which version you shot first?
Can I tell you something funny? We weren't actually supposed to shoot this scene when we did but a ceiling fell in where we were. [supposed to be] Shooting. So it was one of those classic shooting days where it was like, “Oh my God, okay, the ceiling's falling in. No, we can't shoot the scenes we were supposed to shoot, so we're going to move on.” [to] “The pivotal scene at the end of the series where we're going to shoot a single tracking shot on your face.”
Oh my god, so you didn't have time to get to that deep place where you were thinking about Ember's fate, you were just thrown into this really crucial scene?
Yeah, in a very vivid way. And I think it was fun to do different versions of that. I don't feel like she ever got to a space where she could feel 100 percent comfortable blaming someone else. But having to broaden the scope and look at justice and morality through a different lens, rather than the classic rule book. It's like localizing that in your moral compass – I don't think she's completely comfortable in that space at all. So yeah, there's definitely two different versions of it.
Ember's discomfort is certainly palpable – you can almost imagine her changing her mind and admitting it later. But as Caitlin tells her, truth and justice aren't always the same thing, so what's the point?
Yeah, there's no perfect solution if you know what I mean. It's not completely resolved or completely stable and comfortable. I'm sure for Ember it's going to be an ongoing process.
The show deals with a lot of male violence and abuse, so casting a woman as the perpetrator seems like an interesting choice. What do you think about Ember being the killer and have you talked to Kat about this decision?
Yeah, I’m trying to remember what the initial premise was. And as I said, the initial ending was different — it was about Caitlin. The part of the show that particularly appealed to me was the theme of trauma and the unconscious and burying the unconscious and bringing it back to life. I mean, everything is read so intensely all the way back, like the water and the drinking and the secrets and then Ember not being able to see herself very clearly, because she was buried so deeply. I think that was a very interesting aspect of the story — what your mind can do, what your memory can do to suppress it. Throughout the series, you can feel Ember’s fog becoming clearer and clearer and her flashbacks becoming stronger and stronger. I think Kat never wanted it to be a simple, you know, “Men are bad and women are good.” I think that would have been a terrible version of the show. I would have been very interested in how the audience responded to that.
This makes sense because Amy is certainly not the perfect victim, and while we do encounter male sexual harassment on the show, it's hard not to conclude that Amy is in fact sexually harassing and even abusing Caitlin. How do you see Amy?
To be honest, I think Amy is the most vulnerable of all. She sits more confidently and more sexually liberated, so to speak, but I don't think any of that is true. I think reading the scripts and also playing Ember, it puts you in a very conflicted space. All these boundaries are blurred.
One reviewer describes the series as a “post-#MeToo” thriller. Do you see it that way?
I feel like it's more like an observation and a study. I think what it reveals is that scenes that were relevant and popular 20-30 years ago still apply today. We're still in a place where we don't have 100% of the answers either. It's full of nuance and complexity. Multiple things can exist at once. That's what I kind of love about Cat. What I found when I read it is that it makes you sit in a place and makes you reflect and ponder things, which I think is a really good thing for a drama. It took me back and hopefully it makes the audience reflect on their own past as well.
Could we see Ember back to investigate another mystery? Will she be back for season 2?
I love her as a character, I feel like she's so well-rounded. I feel like this series has something really interesting to say and present and take into account. So I think like with anything, it's always story-driven. I don't know. Now it's Kat's turn!
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
