‘Down Cemetery Road’ Author Explains Why Zoe & Amos Sequence Wouldn’t Work in Book
Spoiler Alert
What To Know
- The Apple TV adaptation of Down Cemetery Road introduces a suspenseful sequence between Zoë and Amos on a train, which is not present in Mick Herron’s original book.
- Author Mick Herron praises this addition, crediting Morwenna Banks with it.
- Herron explains that such a sequence works better on screen than in a book, as visual media can convey the action and emotions more effectively without extensive descriptive text.
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Down Cemetery Road Season 1 Episode 6 “Neglected Waters.”]
Quite a bit of Down Cemetery Road is similar to the pages from Mick Herron‘s book on which the Apple TV series starring Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson is based. But with the end of Episode 5 and the events of Episode 6, there’s something new for the show: Zoë Boehm (Thompson) and Amos (Fehinti Balogun) are involved in a cat-and-mouse game on a train. It’s an addition that Herron applauds.
Zoë’s investigation into the case that led to her husband’s death (staged as a suicide) — Sarah (Wilson) looking into a missing kid following an explosion in her neighborhood — has led to her being on the same train as Amos, part of the group responsible for it all. Once on the train, they get eyes on one another and pose as regular passengers in front of others, but as soon as Zoë gets the chance, she makes her escape and hides from Amos. But while she gets away, he steals a cab, kills the passengers (whom he and Zoë had encountered on the train), and calls it in as an innocent bystander who saw someone fitting the PI’s description fleeing the scene.
“It is beautifully done,” Herron raves to TV Insider of that addition to his story. “This is all Morwenna [Banks, who developed the series based on his book]. It’s not from the book at all, but that way that they both know who the other one is, and yet they’re pretending not to because of innocent parties being involved, and it all taking place in that enclosed compartment on a train, it’s terribly exciting, I think. Very, very suspenseful.”
The author and executive producer knows it’s something that works better in this medium than the one in which the story originated.
“It’s one of those sequences that works better on screen than it might in a book. In a book, you’d have to do a lot of description of what was happening in the compartments, what the compartments looked like, where you could hide on a train, and so on,” Herron explains. “Whereas on the screen, we can simply see it all happening and we can see Zoë’s fear and Zoë’s resourcefulness and the kind of implacable nature of Amos.”
What did you think of Zoë vs. Amos on the train? Let us know in the comments section below.
Down Cemetery Road, Wednesdays, Apple TV
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