The Undeclared War star unpacks “too good to be true” episode 1 ending

By Flora Carr

Published: Thursday, 30 June 2022 at 12:00 am

The Undeclared War star Hannah Khalique-Brown has discussed the season premiere’s “too good to be true” ending, after her character Saara – an intern at GCHQ – apparently managed to avert a major cyberattack.

In an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com, Khalique-Brown said that by the end of the first episode, Saara is “hated” by the rest of her department at GCHQ – but added that her character is far more focussed on and “traumatised” by the loss of her late father.

“She’s gone from being this golden girl, to being hated by everyone in her department, because she showed them up basically, towards the end of the episode,” Khalique-Brown explained.

“I remember it [the episode ending] just being about her feelings. [She’s] so alone. I think there was a line [in the script], ‘She’s never been more alone’, or something like that. So it’s funny, she’s kind of almost insulated from a lot of those bigger plot points, because the interior is what takes over her.”

On the episode one ending, Khalique-Brown added: “Yeah, so a lot of the time you do get these ‘too good to be true’ moments [in the script], but so much of the time, especially at the end of the day on episode one – it’s basically [been] a four day bender of work that she’s [Saara has] been on, with severe trauma at every point.

“She’s just absolutely alone and devastated and traumatised, and lost, I think, and that’s all that I could really think about when I was doing that.”