Nicola Walker on Annika’s Cliffhanger Season 2 Finale
If you’ve seen Annika‘s shocking Season 2 finale and your jaw is on the floor, you’ll discover you’re in good company: star Nicola Walker’s! Walker opened up to MASTERPIECE about the Season 2 finale and shared insights about her character—you can read it below. And if you haven’t watched the Season 2 finale yet, turn your boat around and speed back to your screen to stream the episode now!
[Warning: Contains significant Season 2 finale (Episode 6) spoilers]
Making the Episode
Early on, I knew the shape of the story. I knew that her father was going to come back into her life and that it was going to turn out that he was actually coming to cover up a crime in his past, which is obviously such a terrible betrayal. But I didn’t know the intricacies of what would happen between them. And when Sven [Henriksen, playing Magnus] arrived, we just got on so well straight away. We text each other now and he sends me pictures of his beautiful garden back home in Norway. I feel like I found a friend. When you’ve sat in a tiny, tiny airplane with each other, with the Scottish sea attacking you and an entire crew having to use ropes to attach you to trees on the shoreline because the small plane is about to float off—we were knee to knee, knees touching in the back of this tiny little plane doing the scene, and I totally fell in love with him. He’s a brilliant actor and he is a wonderful father for Annika—you really believe it.
The Revelation
Oh, it’s just an awful moment where she looks to the audience and asks for your help. I found it really upsetting to shoot, actually, because you really feel for her. It’s like her world totally collapses in the last seconds of that episode. Her world falls apart.
Episode Insights
She was right, though, and this is why I love her—she was right. She tried to be a good daughter, but her instincts about her father… There’s a there’s a heartbreaking to-camera where she’s talking to you and she very matter-of-factly says, “I learned a long time ago, my father never liked me.” And I find that so telling about her personality—she’s not looking for any sympathy. It’s not something she’s in had therapy—I don’t think Annika could ever have therapy, she’d just talk her way out of the room and away from the therapist. And this is why her relationship with her therapist lover is complicated. She says it so simply, she knows her father didn’t love her, and she just got on with her life. But the heartbreaking thing is when he reappears, she gives him a chance because of the sort of woman she is. She’s prepared to let him into her life and her daughter’s life. And the fact that he’s there really to cover up his own crimes—it’s just a perfect end to the season.
This is a bigger surprise [than the cliffhanger at the end of Season 1]. Nick Walker is good at surprises—he’s good at surprises in the last three seconds of seasons. It’s a cliffhanger beyond cliffhangers, really.
