Riveting ‘Payback’ offers high-stakes crime drama
Jed Mercurio, the creator of international hit series “Bodyguard” and “Line of Duty,” knows a thing or two about riveting television drama.
And that’s why he signed on as an executive producer of “Payback,” a BritBox crime thriller series created and written by Debbie O’Malley that takes place in Scotland and features Peter Mullan, who memorably played doomed killer Jacob Snell on “Ozark.”
“Debbie was a writer I admired and I knew her a bit socially,” Mercurio, 57, told The Post. “We got talking about this idea she had for a show and it was fairly soon in the process when I realized she was on to something — and then making sure we had a very strong serial thread.
“Debbie did fantastic work on the protagonist, making her an everywoman character and creating the stakes and jeopardy within the story.”
The protagonist here is Lexie Noble (Morven Christie), an accountant who’s raising her two young children in Edinburgh while her husband, Jared, who’s also an accountant, runs their business. After Jared is murdered in broad daylight by street thugs, Lexie discovers that he stole $27 million pounds from feared local crime boss Cal Morris (Mullan) while supposedly helping the gangster launder his ill-gotten gains.
The Edinburgh police, meanwhile, are trying to nail Morris and bring down his empire. Over the course of six riveting episodes, Lexie works both sides of the street in an effort to save her family’s lives — trying to recover the stolen money for Morris while simultaneously providing inside information to the police.
In the process, she untangles a complicated, shady land scheme and Jared’s equally tangled web of financial deceit, which takes her to Lithuania, keeps her in Morris’ sights — and eventually leads her to astonishing secrets.
“Peter was absolutely the first name that came to mind to play Cal,” Mercurio said. “Just because of the roles he’s played before and I also knew Peter – he directed some episodes of my first-ever TV show [the medical drama ‘Cardiac Arrest’] so we go way back and we hadn’t worked together since then.”
“Payback” has many twists and turns; viewers will be as surprised as Lexie when she starts uncovering Jared’s professional misdeeds, which bleed into his personal life.
“That is the centerpiece of the drama,” Mercurio said. “This ordinary character who’s got business skills, but nothing extraordinary about that, who’s in this incredibly threatening situation. On one side there’s organized crime in the person of Cal and the people who work for him, and on the other side the police.
“They just want to bring Cal to justice and there’s a very great likelihood that Lexie will be collateral damage. She’s just a regular person navigating this incredibly perilous path between these two very powerful forces in her life — which creates an enormous amount of jeopardy for her.”
The city of Edinburgh, where “Payback” was filmed, also plays a role in the show’s plotline and certainly helps set the brooding, foreboding mood of its narrative.
“That was Debbie’s idea,” Mercurio said. “She loves Edinburgh and thought it would be a great setting. It also gives the series some distinctiveness; so many UK shows are set in London or in very urban centers. Edinburgh is an ancient city that’s got fantastic scenery and iconic landmarks.”
And, he said, series antihero Cal Morris, whose presence looms so large, is a composite of types with which we’re all familiar.
“Who isn’t he based on?” Mercurio said. “I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to imagine certain types of legitimate businessmen who are also involved in criminal activity.
“[Cal] is not based on anyone at all, but we’re all familiar with the big-city businessman who maybe does a little bit of philanthropy and has associations with celebrities — and there are always whispers about where he actually gets his money.”
