Writers’ Notes: Episode 5, The Diner & Bulletproof

Quarry — Episode 5, “Coffee Blues”

Following each episode of Quarry, writers and creators Michael D. Fuller and Graham Gordy detail their experience creating one of the show’s significant moments.

“The Diner”

Episode 4 ends with a moment of truth, bonding and clarity between Mac and Joni. For the first time in the series, we see Mac being completely forthright with his wife. But after the mostly convivial evening between Mac and The Broker, The Broker needs to clear the air with Mac. Joni was dragged to an Arkansas motel to hide from her kidnapper, where she watched an innocent man murdered and a planted female gunman save their lives. What does Joni think? Mac tells The Broker he blamed Arthur, helped him out and caught the attention of the wrong people in the process.

Does The Broker believe what Mac has said? Presumably, The Broker uses an approach of “trust…but verify.” But whether Joni knows or doesn’t know isn’t what truly matters to The Broker; what matters is that she’ll keep quiet (and he will likely have enough of an eye on Joni to confirm the truth anyway). The Broker’s interest here is in testing Mac, and the transparency in their relationship. After all, The Broker knows of Mac’s tenuous bond with his father, Lloyd, and realizes that the only thing that could be more powerful than his love for Joni could be someone who is able to play upon Mac’s deep-rooted need for fatherly affection. Even the seemingly casual breakfast the two men are sharing after a night out on the town is The Broker’s signal that he’s not necessarily the nefarious villain Mac often regards him as. Lloyd sure as hell didn’t show Mac anything close to the attempt at camaraderie or kinship that The Broker has demonstrated to Mac this episode.

The Broker isn’t the only one with questions, however, and Mac takes this “cards-on-the-table” opportunity to ask a question of his own: before being killed by The Broker’s woman at the Sunnyside Motel, Suggs asked if “he” sent Mac and Arthur that night. Naturally, Mac wants to know if Suggs had ties to The Broker and, if so, was the job The Broker sent Arthur and Mac on in the first episode actually an ambush and not a standard job? In standard fashion, The Broker doesn’t bat an eye and gives a completely credible response that seems to satisfy Mac. The timing is also important here; Mac accepts The Broker’s answer when he’s feeling a begrudging but undeniable affinity for this man. Mac even thinking of what happened the night Arthur was killed in such a complex way, and directly confronting The Broker about it, only deepens The Broker’s belief that Mac is a man he desperately needs in his employ.

“Bulletproof”

As far as Joni is concerned, she and Mac are on the same page regarding their present situation, so she very obviously has pressing questions about Mac’s night out with The Broker. But instead of answering, Mac pours himself some coffee…and puts butter in it. Suddenly, the hope we felt at the end of Episode 4 that Mac and Joni’s partnership was going to survive feels threatened. His “Trying something” is an admission, conscious or not, that this trip with The Broker has had an effect on him.

These scenes were expertly-written by the exceptional Jen Schurr. This entire episode — The Broker taking Mac on an errand while simultaneously attempting to sway Mac’s affections his way — was completely Jen’s concept. The initial idea was a riverboat commandeered for a night of gambling up and down the Mississippi River. We became drunk in the writers’ room with allusions to Mark Twain and the cinematic possibilities the concept offered. The reality of production, however, didn’t allow for our riverboat-gambling-dream; the boat rental alone would equal about half of an entire episode’s budget and when you factor in shooting at night and on the water, it simply wasn’t feasible. The plantation home meet-up of The Broker’s cabal was always “one last stop” for The Broker and Mac, so we started thinking: what about the slave cabins that still sit on so many of these plantation homes? And what if the owner of this plantation was perversely using them for a night of debauchery and revelry? So we transported our riverboat to the slave cabins and, as is so often the case with production, the concept and episode ended up being so much better and more evocative than what we had initially envisioned.

Working within the framework of an eight-episode model, it felt natural to us to have a mini-reset of the season at this midpoint. Putting The Broker’s manipulations aside, the choice Mac has throughout the season is between the domestic life he’s working to reclaim with Joni and the hired-gun life with The Broker. As settled as that conflict felt at the end of the last episode, however, The Broker is already eroding the tenuous foundation Mac and Joni are attempting to rebuild together.

The Broker remains in the shadows through so much of this season, and because of what we knew would be gradually revealed about him, we needed an actor with all the gears to play him. Throughout the episode Peter Mullan belies the character’s inherent menace with a disarming charm, putting the audience in Mac’s shoes. We know many of the terrible things he’s done — more of them than Mac does — but it’s hard to not be at least a little enthralled with the man. With a lesser actor, that affection would be impossible; Peter’s ability to simultaneously convey menace and charm was crucial to the realization of The Broker.

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