This article contains spoilers for the Netflix drama Adolescence.
Adolescence’s distinctive one-take filming technique makes for a gripping and claustrophobic viewing experience, but because the camera is unable to cut away from the main action, it does mean some big questions never get answered.
In season two, detectives Bascombe and Frank (played by Ashley Walters and Faye Marsay) find themselves at suspect Jamie Miller’s high school to try and tie up a few loose ends – namely what could have motivated him to kill fellow teen Katie Leonard, and what he’s done with the murder weapon.
While Bascome is eventually able to get to the bottom of where Jamie found the knife with which he killed Katie, viewers never actually find out what happened to it.
Screenwriter Jack Thorne told Deadline: “I think that there is a real joy in the incomplete. There is a real joy in how partial this show was able to be. It was written in a really partial way, we couldn’t cover all corners.
“For instance, episode two has a whole question going through it, of where is the knife? That’s why DI Luke Bascombe is there. We cannot answer that. We don’t answer that.”
He continued: “I could have tried to fit it into dialogue in episode three, but that would have felt inauthentic and wrong.”
Pressed by Deadline, Jack refused to answer where the murder weapon ended up, out of fear of “spoiling” the show in its intended form, but did confirm that he and Stephen Graham do have an answer.
“Stephen and I worked everything out,” he insisted. “But the point is that we didn’t have to answer it, and by not answering it, we create a question, and that question hangs on.”
After Adolescence began streaming last week, Netflix has taken viewers behind the scenes of the show, lifting the lid on how some of those incredible one-shot techniques were pulled off – and exactly what happened if anything went wrong.
Cinematographer Matthew Lewis has also opened up more about some of the on-set blunders that led to entire takes being discarded.
Adolescence is available to stream now on Netflix.