The Bay premieres on ITV on Sunday, March 2, with Marsha Thomason reprising her role as family liaison officer Jenn Townsend. Fresh from grieving the loss of her father, Jenn returns to work and throws herself into her job as a respite from her troubled home life.
Soon, she's entangled in the case of a young woman whose body has been discovered, navigating the complexities of dealing with the victim's estranged parents. In an exclusive chat with Manchester Evening News, Marsha opened up about handling the series' weighty subject matter.
She shared: "It's wonderful, I love playing Jenn and she's a lot to sink my teeth into. I'm really grateful for that, but one of the scenes that comes to mind is when Jenn goes to tell Julie [played by Leanne Best] that her daughter is dead.
We rehearsed it, Leanne is incredible in this series, but my gosh in this rehearsal, she just... it was unbelievable. I couldn't hold it together and I was just balling my eyes out.
"It was so incredibly moving, she just was right there every take...that was just the rehearsal."
Expressing profound respect for the stories they tell, she said: "It was incredible and it's just such a privilege be able to tell these stories. People go through this in real life, people really go through these kinds of horrors. I enjoy the challenge and I enjoy the emotion of it all."
Admitting her own limits, she revealed: "I could not do the work that Jenn does."
She elaborated on the immense challenge faced by those who support people in their darkest hours: "To be living in other people's grief and being that rock for them... I recently had a friend experience a big loss and it's really difficult to be that person there for somebody else going through something so traumatic. This is what Jenn does day in and day out."
The creative minds behind the show were eager to explore fresh narrative territory this season, opting to focus the drama on a family torn apart by tragedy.
Opening up about the driving idea for season five, scriptwriter Daragh Carville explained: "This series I was interested in telling the story of a divided family where the parents of the victim are divorced acrimoniously and there's bad blood and history there.
"Obviously, that makes it more difficult for our central character, Jenn, the family liaison officer, because now she has to liaise with a broken family. She has to go between the parents and compare and contrast what she's learning in those different areas."
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