TV

Bodyguard creator Jed Mercurio drops big hint about final episode

Is it a red herring?

This Sunday sees the final episode of Bodyguard play out on BBC One. The drama, from the makers of Line of Duty, has had some 10 million viewers gripped over the past five weeks.

There are multiple mysteries we all need answers to – is David Budd a baddie? Who is his ex’s mystery boyfriend? Is Julia Montague really dead.

What’s the deal with Dave? (Credit: BBC)

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Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby caught up with writer Jed Mercurio on This Morning and, suffice to say, his interview has left us all the more confused… and intrigued. (Job done, well done, Jed!)

He genius scribe told Phil and Holly that the Bodyguard massive are getting a buzz out of the intense interest in the plot.

“We’re all sitting back and enjoying the speculation, it’s great people have their own theories and actually I do look at some of the bigger theories, and it’s interesting as occasionally there’s a grain of truth, but we’re not going to stand by and say, ‘hotter, colder’ as people put forward their theories.”

Jed Mercurio talks about his success on This Morning (Credit: ITV1)

The biggest theory is, of course, that Home Secretary Julia, who was pronounced dead in episode four, is actually alive – no body, private funeral, hmmmm…

Jed was obviously giving nothing away about this… giving a complicated reply to Phil’s question about whether she isn’t brown bread.

“That’s the thing, if you’re a drama writer, you always have to tell the truth, there’s no element of fiction at all, Phillip.

“I think that’s also part of the history [Keeley’s character Lindsay Denton being killed in Line of Duty] that fact it happened before makes people swing before that she must obviously be dead, but there are other things in the drama which make the observant people swing towards that possibly being a ruse.” Riiiiiiiiiight.

Keeley’s character Lindsay was killed off in Line of Duty (Credit: BBC)

Read more: Opening sequence of Bodyguard had to be rewritten

Jed also divulged how they manage to keep pesky paparazzi away from filming… and leaking any secrets.

“We try and film in places where we don’t expose ourselves to people being able to pick up spoilers and we really rely on the cooperation of the media not to release info ahead of time,” he explained.

The writer was also full of praise for Richard Madden, who plays the troubled protection officer.

“Richard has done a fantastic job on this and we’re all so proud of what he’s achieved and so proud of him,” he said.

“It’s great he’s getting the attention he deserves and if that character survives we’ll have to get into a conversation about whether he would want to do another series.”

If. IF? Surely he’s not suggesting that Budd will be bumped off in the finale?

He did drop a few hints about Sunday’s episode.

“I can tell you that the episode returns to some of the very tense action style sequences of the first two, so there’s lots of action in the last episode and lots of answers to questions that have been in people’s minds these last few weeks,” he teased.

“So I’m really very optimistic that people will get a lot out of the episode and will get the answers they’re looking for.”

And – good news – there’s extra time too. 15 minutes, to be precise.

“When we came to put the episode together after we filmed it all we realised we’d have to make some cuts which would actually affect the rounding off of the story so we are really grateful to the BBC for giving us that extra time which allows us to do the conclusion that we want,” he explained.

Are you excited for the final episode? How do you think it will conclude? Leave us a comment on our Facebook page @EntertainmentDailyFix and let us know what you think!

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