Writers’ Notes: Episode 4, Opening Up
Quarry — Episode 4, “Seldom Realized”
Following each episode of Quarry, writers and creators Graham Gordy and Michael D. Fuller detail their experience creating one of the show’s significant moments.
This episode took us the longest to card (outline) in the writers’ room. The emotional beats and exchanges constitute the bulk of the action in this episode and, as such, needed to be as fully fleshed out as possible — lest anything feel too easy or unearned between Mac and Joni. We utilized a sci-fi analogy for their relationship in this episode: they are two spaceships attempting to line up and dock with one another, with little to no success making or sustaining any type of connection. Just when one would be in a position to open up to the other, a memory, or a reference, or some external stimuli would rock the ship — so to speak — and throw the connection completely off. This particular moment, however, is the first time in the episode where that connection occurs and it’s a confrontation that’s nearly two years in the making for these characters.
Joni leaving the Sunnyside Motel in the manner she did put Mac in a position of vulnerability, and it’s that opening that finally allows her to finally gain an answer to a question she’s struggled with since Mac left for his second tour: “Why did he go back?” Why did he choose to put himself in danger, and put her through the emotional trauma that the spouse of any soldier at war must endure? It was also the moment that, in many ways, set the events of the show in motion: it was during Mac’s second tour that whatever happened at Quan Thang occurred (placing him on The Broker’s radar) and Joni’s anger at him for doing so directly informed her affair with Cliff.
For Mac, expressing his emotions isn’t something he’s accustomed to doing. He obviously feels things very deeply, but men of his generation (particularly in the South) weren’t exactly encouraged to explore those feelings. The societal expectation of stoicism was one of the key factors that contributed to so many Vietnam Veterans silently struggling with their trauma and experience of war (and, in many cases, still do to this day). So much of the research we did with regard to the Vietnam Veteran experience as it pertained to returning home involved the deep, abiding sense of duty and honor to their fellow soldiers that Mac expresses here. It was that same sense of duty that was often almost impossible for them to articulate or convey to anyone who hadn’t lived it. Mac’s revelation here about both that sense of obligation, and the inferiority he carries with him as it relates to Joni, are the most honest and open he’s ever been with her. The significance of that isn’t lost on Joni, as excruciatingly hard-earned as it is. It certainly doesn’t resolve the issues these two people still have to contend with, but it’s something.
There aren’t enough superlatives in the book for Jodi Balfour and Logan Marshall-Green in this scene, and in this episode overall. We set out to create a one-act play that put these two characters in a position where they had to confront the events and decisions that led to them hiding out in a roadside motel in rural Arkansas. Every scene was constructed so that their emotional journey builds to a more and more harrowing pitch, as the history, the anger, the heartache and ultimately, the love these two people still have for one another is wholly palpable. That’s a testament to Jodi and Logan’s astonishing talent.
Watch the entire season of Quarry with your Cinemax subscription on MAX GO.
