Villain returns for second season

Joanne Froggatt says ‘Andrew Earlham is definitely dead’ but that doesn’t mean he’s gone.

In the first season of Liar, the successful and seemingly charming surgeon had a Hyde side to his Jekyll as it transpired that he had drugged and raped at least 17 women.

Realising that the dogged Laura Nielson (Joanne Froggatt) had discovered recorded footage of his vile crimes hidden in his mother’s shed, Andrew (Ioan Gruffudd) disappeared.

It seemed like he was on the run, until the closing image showed him lying in the marshes with his throat slit.

The second series picks up straight away but now the focus is, ‘‘Who killed Andrew Earlham?’’ and the police investigation causes ongoing anguish for his victims.

‘‘Andrew Earlham is definitely dead but he and Laura are still the leads of the show so what we do in series two is go over the last three weeks between Andrew disappearing and turning up dead to see who killed him,’’ Froggatt explains when we chat to her during a break in filming at Tollesbury Marina in Essex, England. ‘‘This is intertwined with the present day and flashbacks three months earlier.

‘‘The first you see of Laura this series she is relatively together in a happier moment with Ian, the man she met in the first season.

‘‘Then very quickly we move to the police discovering Andrew’s body and then Laura is under suspicion, along with many others in the show for different reasons and a lot of new characters, too. Laura quickly switches back into her determined, forthright self.

‘‘She is still angry about the injustice of all that has happened to her and she feels that is being carried on because she is now one of the main suspects for Andrew’s demise.

‘‘Laura is someone who is used to being listened to and respected and she’s an intelligent woman with a good career and from that first incident with Andrew, when they went on a date and she was assaulted, her life just spiralled out of control.

‘‘But her personality is such that she isn’t just going to sit back and do nothing. She is still on her fight for justice, for herself and also for the other women he assaulted.

‘‘Even though Andrew is dead, he is haunting her and she feels like he is still affecting her life from beyond the grave.’’

Leading the police investigation is Detective Inspector Karen Renton (Katherine Kelly), a tough cop who believes her job is to find out who killed Earlham rather than to sympathise with his victims.

‘‘Laura feels frustrated by her attitude because it seems like Andrew is getting his justice because they are investigating his death, but what about what he did to her and the other women?’’ says Froggatt. ‘‘While the police are investigating who killed him, none of his victims can move on with their lives because anyone who had anything to do with him is under suspicion and being questioned.’’

It is an intriguing new storyline that feels fresh but is set in a familiar setting while further developing the original characters.

Froggatt was delighted to be doing a second series of the acclaimed drama.

‘‘Liar made a huge impact with viewers and I had at least six people tell me that they or their daughter had been sexually assaulted and, like Laura initially, hadn’t been believed,’’ she says.

‘‘When you hear that sort of thing and know that these people will be watching, it makes you want to be as believable as possible on screen, for their sake.

‘‘It was always in the back of the writers’, Harry and Jack [Williams], mind to do two series and then stop and I think that’s the right decision because then it really will be the end of Andrew and Laura’s story.

‘‘Once you start watching this series you will find that you really do want to know about these various things that happened.’’

The dark nature of the drama and the often intense and draining scenes are not easy to shake off at the end of a long day’s filming but Froggatt has discovered an antidote.

‘‘I quite like a hot bath or, weirdly, I love documentaries and I sometimes go home from work and I watch one. I don’t know why.

‘‘Maybe it’s because I spend so much of my life in a creative drama world. I mean, Ioan goes home and watches comedy on TV to clear his head of the grim scenes he has been playing during the day, and that seems normal, but I watch a really depressing documentary.’’ – Jim Maloney, TV Guide

Liar, TVNZ OnDemand, from tomorrow