How Gogglebox inspired Bad Sisters series two

The conclusion of Merman’s 2022 drama Bad Sisters left little room for an obvious second series, but the writers set about nurturing seeds of inspiration to move the hit beyond its original premise.

As co-creator and star Sharon Horgan and head of drama Faye Dorn make clear, some of those seeds were found in unexpected places.

Dorn tells Broadcast it was “such a privilege” seeing the delighted reactions of Channel 4’s Gogglebox cast as they watched the Garvey sisters’ attempts to kill their unsavoury brother-in-law JP (Claes Bang) in series one.  

“Watching them watch the show was really useful for the writers room because we were watching what they responded to, and they loved that sense of the girls working together and getting into situations that they shouldn’t be in,” she says.  

These escapades continue in the second series of the Apple TV+ show which will premiere today, picking up two years after the climax of the first. Spoiler alert – the conclusion of series one revealed JP was killed by his abused wife Grace (Anne Marie Duff) after she found out he had sexually assaulted her sister Eva (Sharon Horgan). She also drafted in her neighbour Roger (Micheal Smiley) to frame JP’s death as an accident.  

Series two sees the sisters moving on to varying degrees, with Grace loved-up in a new relationship, when the discovery of a suitcase connected to JP returns them to police custody. 

Merman co-founder Horgan – who dons multiple hats on the show, exec producing, co-writing, co-developing and starring as eldest sister Eva - admits there “wasn’t a huge amount of chatter” about a second run when she was adapting the first series from the Belgian/Flemish limited series Clan. 

However, a germ of an idea came to her while filming, which bloomed into the central plot of the follow-up. She also points to multiple storytelling “gifts” from the first series – from the discarded suitcase to Roger’s involvement in JP’s murder – which helped the story develop. 

“I remember talking to people at the time about the idea but just parked it. But when Apple TV+ wanted more, we were like, ‘We’ll do a little writer’s room for a couple of weeks and we’ll see if there’s anything there’, using that germ of an idea as a starting point,” she explains. 

“The last thing we wanted to do was fuck with it because it had such a good reception, and we also felt a responsibility to the people – the majority of whom were women – who contacted us and said they felt they were hearing their story for the first time.” 

Horgan adds that she wants the second outing to be authentic to an abuse survivor’s experience, after JP’s coercive control and abuse of Grace is revealed in layers throughout the debut run. 

Dorn says: “The Garveys have all been through trauma and they’re trying to get on with their lives when we pick back up with them, but the suitcase that comes out of the pond symbolises the ghost of JP. The story is about how you can never escape your past. 

“We were very mindful that we didn’t want to revisit the events of the first series, so we set about a new series of events with new antagonists, more of a police presence and more twists and turns.” 

She assures fans that despite a new narrative structure, series two will retain all the elements that audiences loved about series one: the tone, the siblings, the dark comedy, high emotional stakes, thrills and spills and caper comedy. 

Emotional drive 

Horgan is clear that the need for an emotional hook was as important as the plotline, saying: “I remember saying to Faye, we have loads of things we can do, but what’s our thesis? What’s our reason for making another series?  

“For a really good emotionally driven drama to land there needs to be something bigger than just the thriller story.” 

The chemistry between the five sisters is a key ingredient in the success of the first outing. While they are based on Clan’s characters, Horgan – herself one of five siblings – says she was “hugely” influenced by her family dynamics when mapping out their relationships with each other. 

“We break the sisters apart and let them have their own little groups of who spars with who the most but also who’s closest and who gets slightly left out and who’s the matriarch – that dynamic within my own large family played a huge part,” she says.  

The second series also allowed the writers to introduce more elements and characters of Ireland, where the dark comedy drama is set. One such character is Roger’s sister Angelica (Fiona Shaw) who presents a new challenge to the sisters.  

“We wanted to bring in a female character who is not of the same generation as the Garvey sisters, who doesn’t understand their freedom or the way they are, and wonders why she feels so distanced from that,” Horgan explains. 

“She’s a woman of that generation from Northern Ireland where there were limits placed on what you think you deserve in your life and what you can do with your career, your time and your body.” 

Comedy or drama? 

The Bear’s win in the comedy categories at this year’s Emmys has caused much discussion as to what constitutes a comedy and what is a drama. Bad Sisters tackles serious subjects and dark themes interwoven with scenes of levity but the Merman execs are adamant Bad Sisters is firmly a drama ”injected” with comedy. Dorn insists that is reflective of life because there is always humour to be found in dark moments. 

She says: “When you go through dark experiences, you always find the light in that because that’s how we survive and get through painful things, and Sharon always has done that brilliantly in her work.”

Bad Sisters launches on Apple TV+ today.