Emma Thompson, Ruth Wilson in 'Down Cemetery Road.' Courtesy of AppleTV+ Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment Logo text [Spoilers for the season finale of Down Cemetery Road lie ahead. You have been warned.] Ruth Wilson is reflecting on a cracking Down Cemetery Road finale in which her character, Sarah Trafford, and Emma Thompson's Zoë Boehm come to a final stand-off with their hunters. Based on Mick Herron's bestseller and adapted by Morwenna Banks, the eight-part AppleTV series follows lost soul Sarah and the charismatic, no-nonsense Zoë in their attempts to save a young girl, Dinah (Ivy Quoi). When Dinah is taken after her parents are suspiciously killed in a bomb blast, Sarah and Zoë uncover the truth: that the British government has been trying bto ury a covert military operation in which they tested chemical weapons on their own troops. Related Stories TV SkyShowtime Sets Two-Part Doc on Polish Singer Edyta Górniak (Exclusive) Movies Sigourney Weaver Talks 'Avatar,' Legacy of 'Alien' Films: "Amazing to Me How Influential Ripley Has Been" Downey (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett), one of the soldiers the government are endeavouring to silence - for good - dies at the hands of killer-for-hire Amos (Fehinti Balogun). Sarah and Zoë have managed to rescue Dinah and are attempting a way off the Scottish island where she was being held. It all comes down to an explosive stalemate at a church nearby, where the rather wimpy government official Hamza (Adeel Akhtar) comes face-to-face with the women. Thankfully, Sarah manages to best him and Zoë indirectly kills off Amos, who C (Hamza's senior, played by Darren Boyd) had sent in as back-up. The pair of them delivers Dinah into the hands of Ella, Downey's sister, and part ways at Paddington train station in London. Zoë, it seems, has some real mourning to do - she has not yet entirely processed the death of her husband Joe, the private investigator Sarah hires, who is killed off early on in the series. Sarah, meanwhile, is ditching her lousy husband Mark (Tom Riley) and beginning life anew. Hoorah. Below, Wilson unpacks the wild season finale, "What Will Survive." She explains not quite understanding Sarah at first, throwing herself into stunts, and whether she and Thompson - also an executive producer on the show - could be tempted to return: "I really loved playing with Emma. I think there's more we can juice [from] that relationship. We haven't quite filled its potential." What is your reaction to reading a finale script like that? You hadn't read the book, right? No, I hadn't read the book. Emma [Thompson] had read the book. Emma knew of the novels before Slow Horses even became a thing. I had never read them, and I read the pilot script first, and I've obviously seen Slow Horses. I love the premise of [Down Cemetery Road]. I thought the characters really read like a page-turner. I mean, [the script] was a really, really fun read, and I thought it felt quite a different character for me in some ways. And then I read the novels, so I kind of had an idea of what Mick had intended with his piece. And it was a chance to work with Emma, and a chance to work with Morwenna Banks and work within that Mick Herron world, there's always a wonderful dry wit to his work. But at the heart of it, it's always about flawed characters who end up becoming these heroes in quite surprising ways. And they're very human. They've got very human qualities. They feel very relatable. I loved Sarah. She felt like someone I know. Were you happy with where her story ended? It was a real arc for her over the course of eight episodes. Yeah, it was funny. I didn't quite know. They had to truncate some of the first half of the novel in order to get Zoë's character in earlier. So by doing that, you had to push Sarah quicker into the action side of the script, because [there was] a lot more sleuthing that she originally did with Joe. It did make her have to become a bit more impulsive, I think, as a character, and a little bit more instinctive. As I played the role, I understood her more. I didn't particularly understand her initially, but as we progressed... I found it was through the relationship that she had with each individual, whether it was Downey, whether it was the little girl, or whether it was Zoë, that's how you really formed the character. It was in the relationships with those people that she came out, she became defined. And I thought, yeah, she's fascinating. Ruth Wilson, Ivy Quoi in 'Down Cemetery Road.' Courtesy of AppleTV+ She's someone who obviously has a real feeling of justice and a moral compass at the core of her, and she's very brave. At the same time, she can be very childish and petulant and impulsive and reckless, but I think she lives entirely in the present. She's very instinctive and ve