Top Boy's Nicholas Pinnock breaks down Django finale and teases possible season 2
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Django finale spoilers below.
The tension that has been heating up between John (Nicholas Pinnock) and antagonist Elizabeth (Noomi Rapace) has finally come to a head in Django’s season-one finale.
In an exclusive interview with Digital Spy Pinnock breaks down their complex rivalry and asks whether or not Elizabeth's action finally brings her the justice she thinks is owed to her.
The Top Boy actor also sheds light on that unexpected death and what it means for the show’s future.
Do you think Django and John would have gone through with shooting each other if Sarah hadn't intervened?
No. Neither of them wanted to shoot one another, but it was a matter of honour and duty. I truly believe – knowing the characters as I do and what Matthias and I talked about during these scenes – was that I think they would have done anything not to kill one another. If one of them had been shot, it would be absolute remorse for the other.
So you saw the ending, right?
Yeah.
You saw how when John got killed, Django was distraught. He tried to save and help him.
That's not the sign of a man who really wanted the other man dead. He would have done it out of duty and honour, and that would have been it – but even that would have been a struggle for him.
How do you think things would have played out had he lived? What would that have looked like?
Well, they would have come to some kind of reconciliation. They became brothers. They became kindred and I think that stands for something in the type of Western that we were trying to deliver to an audience.
The message would have been of the unity of everything, and, you know, humanity and brotherhood and all those things – and where it comes to the fore, and stood the test of time, among all of the machismo and bravado that this genre usually plays out.
In the finale John kills the traitor, Aaron, but it felt as though the betrayal wasn't the motivating factor behind his actions. What was actually happening there?
Well, I think that it was partly betrayal, but it's mainly that he was a safety risk, because he has ruined everything. He potentially ruined everything that John had built up, and tried to contain for so many people. He jeopardised everything.
I think his feeling was, if he allowed that to go, others would come. So he needed to send a message that if there's anyone here who's going to betray me, this is where I stand. There's no more prisoners being taken.
That's interesting because we read it as his guilt over Seymour, Kevin's actions and everything in the past. We thought it was the 'darkness' within him that Kevin refers to, coming to the surface.
Listen, I think this is wonderful, because everyone has their own interpretation. This is what it's all about.
You're not wrong: it's all of those things but there is a sense of… you know, you threaten everything that John put into place, and that he and Sarah had built up in this safe haven.
It came crashing down to the point where Elizabeth's people come in, and they manage to burn the whole place down. All because of this one person that he took in under his wing, that he allowed to infiltrate all of New Babylon. He wanted to get rid of the element, and, yes, there were elements of guilt built up, and there was an element of, you know, "You almost had my family killed," but he was sending a message, as well as everything else.
That scene where Elizabeth actually finally shoots John is so loaded – did you and Noomi discuss what you wanted that scene to portray?
Yeah. Noomi and I had – gosh – numerous conversations in person and via text about so much of the relationship between Elizabeth and John. The audience don't know half of the relationship.
You get the sense that there's something held back.
There's so much about their relationship still to be revealed that will make so much sense when the audience finally gets to see it, hopefully in our season two.
OK!
Once they understand the dynamic between Elizabeth and John, it will all make sense, and a whole new gear shift of their relationship will play out.
You do find out about their past in that they're siblings – half-siblings – and that they were embarking on a more romantic relationship before that revelation.
OK. So because of that reason, that's why it was so loaded, that stuff, because there is a love/hate relationship with the two of them. Again, it's a very similar dynamic between John and Django, but this one runs deeper, and it runs from childhood – and they're siblings; they're half-siblings.
I'm not going to speak for Noomi's depiction of Elizabeth but there is an element of Elizabeth that is about getting rid of the hurt and the pain of not having a brother.
It's the same for John: he just wants it over with. They both just want it gone. They both just want it over with, and they don't want to confront the pain that they've caused each other, and the pain that they feel for each other, because there's a deep love there that was also, you know, as siblings.
Do you think there's also some element or residue of romantic love left over for your character, John? Because you know it's still very much present for her but do you think that John has made peace and moved past that?
I think John and Elizabeth are the same person. I think they're very much in that same world whenever it's the two of them. You look at the scene in the prison cell.
He ends up on the floor, giving her a hug. He lays next to her on the floor. In that scene, you see them both revert to being children. You see them laying on the floor together like they probably would have done, you know, when they were hanging out.
If you look at the flashbacks, they did everything together. The two of them revert back to being children again, being their most comfortable selves.
They are both locked in this space that they can't get out of without having the other one gone. It's too painful for them. So one of them had to go and it ended up being John.
You mentioned a possible season two. Does that mean that we'd be looking into their past a little bit more? Because obviously John isn't around.
I have no idea, but I could say why that makes sense.
Would you like to come back for a season two?
I would definitely. I really, really enjoyed making the show. I think the creatives were wonderful to work with. You know, Noomi was a friend of mine from before we started working together.
Lisa is wonderful. Matthias is wonderful. The boys, I had a great time working with. It was a great show to work on. I had a wonderful experience.
I'd be happy to go back and do another season were it to go ahead, and were they to ask me.
We've spoken about the Lizzie and John dynamic; Lizzie was the one to shoot John. Why couldn't John bring himself to shoot Elizabeth first?
Well, that's an interesting one. I feel that John has no anger in him. He's just killed that boy, and that was, you know, a really, really big thing for him because John's not a killer. He's not an out-and-out killer. He's a survivor.
Killing that boy was part of the survival for him and New Babylon. So it wasn't just a murder for murder's sake. When he was at the bank, again, he was fighting for survival, so he killed a few of the men on the roof.
He's not out to just kill Elizabeth and get rid of her. He'd rather never see her again. He had the opportunity to shoot her, and he didn't because, deep down, he loves his half-sister. He loves this girl that he's in love with. It's that platonic love for a sibling; that deep love; that love/hate thing. He just couldn't find it within him to kill her.
I don't feel that she meant to kill him, because, again, I'm not sure how it ended but once she did shot him, if I'm not mistaken, there was a lingering look, and a look of shock and remorse across their eyes, and: "Shit, I can't believe this has actually now finally happened."
There was also a kind of look of relief between the two of them that now makes sense if they just felt the other one needed to go. Like a "Finally, we've come to the end of this tension."
Absolutely. You've hit the nail right on the head. There was absolute relief in a bittersweet way. Elizabeth will drive herself crazy about it for the rest of her life, and she'll be full of regret. It won't be her proudest moment in life.
There's a moment when John is dying, and he whispers something to Sarah. What is he whispering?
Oh, right. OK. Yeah. I can't tell you that right now.
No, you can.
If the show gets a season two, that whisper will be revealed.
You're teasing so much. Can you give us a hint as to what it's connected to?
No, I cannot. I can but I won't. It will spoil so much for a future audience if we manage to reveal that part of the story.
What was your take on Django's death at the end? Do you think it's something that had to happen, or was there another way?
Well, here's my question: does he die? Did we see Django die?
We did not. We saw him go into the ocean. The hat covers him very artistically, and the hat disappears, and he's gone.
It could have been a cleansing. Who knows?
We like that idea because we cannot stand the thought of him being gone. It didn't feel like his story was finished.
Yeah and that could have been the end of him at the end of this season, and it's a one-off, and that's it – you only get one season of Django. Or, possibly, maybe, he had to just cleanse his soul, his sins, that chapter of life. He just wanted to wash it away. We may see him resurface again. Who knows?
All episodes of Django are available to watch on Sky now.
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