Nicola Walker in Annika season 2: “All her secrets come home to roost”

Nicola Walker’s Annika has proved to be a cult hit over on Alibi. So much so, the fourth-wall-shattering cop show was even picked up by BBC One for a repeat.

Now it’s back for a second run and Nicola Walker spoke about the series and our obsession with crime dramas.

The Killing Times (TKT): Where do we find Annika at the beginning of series two?
Nicola Walker (NW): It’s direct continuity from the end of series one. She steps out of the pub, looks at everyone and admits that she has got a real problem on her hands. It’s Annika at her most honest. It took her the whole of the first series to get to this point where she realises that all her secrets are coming home to roost. Now she’s going to have to deal with it all. It’s a really clever way of jumping back into the story.

TKT: What do you think is the main theme of this series?
NW: For me, the whole series is about mothers and fathers and children. Later on, we get to meet Annika’s father, Magnus (Sven Henriksen) – and what a force of nature he is! Annika’s personality makes quite a lot of sense when you meet Magnus. It is not a good father-daughter relationship. They make the monumental mistake of going away together. Morgan (played by Silvie Furneaux) thinks it’d be good for them to all spend some time together. So, they end up actually going to stay at a camping retreat where Morgan is doing work experience. Morgan sees it as an opportunity to bring her mother and grandfather together for a weekend of joy. But of course, it doesn’t quite turn out that way!

TKT: Why does the structure of the show work so well?
NW: What’s lovely is that Annika is about the macro and the micro. On a macro level, something appalling and epic and drama-worthy happens in that episode. But on a micro level, you’re looking at a father and a daughter’s very difficult relationship playout. That’s what’s beautiful about the series. It does operatic, and it does realistic. It blends those two so well. It’s what the writer Nick Walker is interested in – how they always go along together in our lives. The dramatic and the mundane live cheek-by-jowl.

TKT: How is Annika’s relationship with Morgan developing in this series?
NW: Annika is now dealing with a grown-up teenager. What became very apparent when Silvie and I were playing it was how needy Annika is with her daughter. There is that point in parenting where you know you have to let your children go because they are becoming more adult. But Annika’s neediness is not even hidden. She’s very emotionally close to her daughter -she always has been. And she really relies on Morgan. They’re very easy with each other. You can see how intimate they are. And I love Annika for not being a grown-up parent.

TKT: Does she still address the camera in this series?
NW: Yes. There’s a whole different tone this time. Speaking down the lens now, she is saying, “I feel your judgement.” Annika was very cavalier in the first season. She felt very safe with you. You were in her corner. You were coming with her on every case. You understood how she felt about everything, including her domestic life. Now, the second timeout, she side-eyes you. She throws quite a few looks at you because she knows she can feel you’re judging her and asking her, “Why did you do that? Why did you say that then?”

TKT: She seems like such a fun character to play…
NW: She’s got a really good heart. She’s full of faults and along the way, she gets a lot of things wrong. But she’s driven by a very strong moral compass to do good. Even though it’s clearly a very artificial construct because she’s breaking that fourth wall all the time, she seems very human to me.

TKT: What makes Annika different from other TV crime dramas?
NW: We’re all very used to the device of breaking the fourth wall now. It’s been done superbly in lots of places. But I think what Nick Walker has done so brilliantly is create something that ostensibly presents as a crime drama, but is actually reeling you in for something else. Nick is very playful with the whole show. It’s a crime drama, but not really as we know it.

TKT: In what other ways does it deviate from more conventional cop shows?
NW: I think it’s self-aware. It’s aware of our obsession with crime dramas. That has always been interesting to me. It plays with those tropes. We don’t do a lot of the things you would expect we would do in a procedural. It’s pushing against a lot of those expectations.

TKT: Why do we love crime dramas so much in the UK?
NW: There’s a lot of discussion about why in this country we are obsessed with crime dramas. I am! I love crime dramas. They are how we make sense of things and how we make ourselves feel safe. The world becomes more manageable through a crime drama. Psychologically, part of that is down to us wanting to see the world as safer. We watch crime dramas because they add up. Someone does something awful. Then the good guys catch the bad guys, and the world is returned to normal. Restoring the natural order is a reassuring concept.

Annika: Wednesdays, 9pm on Alibi