Speaking exclusively with RadioTimes.com<\/a>, the show\u2019s creator Nick Leather spoke about how he loved \u201cthe idea of this series being a bit like a magic trick\u201d, with multiple surprises and reveals throughout.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re struggling to keep up with just what happens in the show\u2019s ending don\u2019t worry \u2013 we\u2019ve got you covered, with exclusive comment from Leather on his intentions behind the series and what it all means.<\/p>\n Read on for everything you need to know about the ending to The Control Room.<\/p>\n *WARNING \u2013 Contains full spoilers for all three episodes of The Control Room*<\/strong><\/p>\n From the start of the series, emergency call worker Gabe\u2019s<\/a> life is turned upside down by what he believes is a coincidence \u2013 he receives a call at work from Sam, a childhood friend who now appears to have murdered her abusive partner.<\/p>\n He agrees to move the van containing the body, but his co-worker Anthony discovers his secret. Anthony then blackmails him into delivering a package in order to keep him quiet, with one thing continually leading to another.<\/p>\n However, in the end it turns out there was never a body and Sam hadn\u2019t killed her partner. Instead, Gabe has been duped by Anthony into a dodgy deal, delivering stolen data regarding calls taken at the call centre \u2013 names, addresses, injury details and more.<\/p>\n Creator Nick Leather revealed that this concept of data harvesting from control rooms was a part of the show\u2019s concept \u201cright at the beginning\u201d.<\/p>\n He explained: \u201cI was reading up everything about control rooms and in a local newspaper or something there was about three paragraphs about someone who had been sentenced, a call handler, for having been found guilty of selling data. She said no one else was involved in the centre, it was only her, which straight away I was a bit like, \u2018yeah, right\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd she said unfortunately she couldn\u2019t tell them who it was for, they had known data was going missing, the police checked and she\u2019d had thousands of pounds appear in her account which she couldn\u2019t explain. But she said, \u2018I wish I could tell you who it was. But it was just a mysterious person who approached me on the street when I was waiting for a bus outside the control room\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cI just thought it was extraordinary. What I loved about it was one, it was left field, and two, it wouldn\u2019t be featured on a documentary. And I thought, at a certain point I\u2019m really gonna wrong foot everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n Leather explained that he wanted the series to be like the classic magic trick involving one call and three cups, with the cups being moved around the ball appearing to disappear and reappear.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cI really wanted it to be like that. I mean literally like that \u2013 you park a van in a garage, you open the garage door, it\u2019s gone. There\u2019s a body in a van, you open the van door, it\u2019s gone, you put a bag in a locker, it\u2019s gone. And then you go back to it, you open it, and it\u2019s back again.\u201d<\/p>\n Leather said that in wrong-footing viewers with the final reveal he\u2019s hoping that \u201csome people will love it, some people will scream at the telly. I really like that idea.\u201d<\/p>\n Mid-way through the third episode of the series, Gabe comes to realise that Sam has been in on a plan to dupe him all along.<\/p>\n She has actually been in a relationship with Anthony, which we are told has become abusive. He had got himself into debt, and when approached by someone outside the control room and offered money to smuggle data, he had taken the opportunity.<\/p>\n When meeting him outside the control centre one day, Sam had then recognised Gabe, and the plan was put in place. She called up multiple times in order to get through to Gabe specifically, and once she had she made up the story about murdering an abusive partner, in order to get to a position where Gabe could be blackmailed into delivering the data for Anthony.<\/p>\n On Anthony\u2019s villainous turn, Leather said he was worried that he may come across as an \u201cobvious baddie\u201d but was heartened that that doesn\u2019t seem to be the case.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cI\u2019m trying to play him as almost an archetype of the comedy one in the office, he\u2019s quite cocky.\u201d<\/p>\n He also said that it was an early decision that no one in the control room would be \u201cthe uber baddie\u201d and that he \u201cwas obsessed with that idea of who else might have been involved around\u201d the person in the news story he had read.<\/p>\n He explained: \u201cAt one point I was going \u2018I need to calm down here\u2019 because I was tempted to have everyone involved. So I stripped it back so it\u2019s just a couple of people, and actually, when we get halfway through the last ep, if you look back at ep one you\u2019d see there were glances between them where something else was going on right from the beginning.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd Anthony, obviously a lot is going on with him during that initial call, which I think he does really well because I can obviously see it from the first time. So I was so pleased that no one sees that.\u201d<\/p>\n In the end, after a chase through the Christmas tree farm, Sam, Anthony and the man running the data stealing operation that they\u2019re caught up in are all arrested by armed police, after Sam had contacted them and given them their location.<\/p>\n Leather explained that he \u201cwould have loved\u201d Gabe and Sam to end up together but in writing it realised \u201ctheir journey is to be able to now move on as a result of each other. I think they wouldn\u2019t move on if they stayed together.\u201d<\/p>\n He said: \u201cI don\u2019t think ultimately that they would be a good couple. I don\u2019t think that that is the show. I think when you get to the end, the love story is Gabe and his dad. You realise, \u2018oh, it is a love story, but it\u2019s not the one I thought it was\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Through flashbacks shown throughout the series, we learn that Gabe and Sam were close childhood friends after his mother died.<\/p>\n One day Sam lit a match which started a devastating fire across the Christmas tree farm. A man died in the fire and Gabe took the wrap in place of Sam, making him a pariah.<\/p>\n Leather explained that the flashbacks were devised based on he \u201cknew as a kid\u201d, who he \u201cdidn\u2019t even know that well, but it was a close relationship\u201d.<\/p>\n He continued: \u201cI thought it would be really interesting to put it into that, and what if we go through it and can suggest that Gabe did something bad. And ultimately say no, he did something honourable. They were two broken kids who, in that moment in their lives, understood each other.\u201d<\/p>\n The series ends with Gabe finally reconciling with his father, after the pair had been closed off from one another for so long. Gabe exits the Christmas tree farm, knocks on his dad\u2019s door and, without speaking, the pair embrace each other in a hug.<\/p>\n Leather explained why this element was so fundamental to the overall story, saying: \u201cI\u2019m always fascinated with dad stories. I lost my dad a few years ago and so I really invest in that. And I like having scenes where it\u2019s two men struggling to articulate themselves, and you just almost want to scream and go \u2018just tell each other what you feel!\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cI think they would have found it hard anyway, but then they went through something that was traumatic, and they could never articulate it. They\u2019re stuck because of it, they almost needed an intervention, someone to bring them together like a therapist to go talk about what you feel in this safe space, but they didn\u2019t have any of that.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd actually, this massive story happens, and it seems like it\u2019s a terrible thing for Gabe, but when we get to the end it has facilitated that.\u201d<\/p>\n The Control Room is available in full on BBC iPlayer now. Looking for something else to watch? Check out our TV Guide<\/a>\u00a0or visit our dedicated\u00a0Drama<\/a>\u00a0hub for the latest news.<\/strong><\/p>\n The latest issue of Radio Times magazine is on sale now \u2013\u00a0subscribe now<\/a>\u00a0and get the next 12 issues for only \u00a31. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the\u00a0Radio Times podcast<\/a>\u00a0with Jane Garvey.<\/strong><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n By James Hibbs Published: Tuesday, 19 July 2022 at 12:00 am The Control Room is now available to stream in full on BBC iPlayer and if your mind was blown by all the different twists and turns, well, that was certainly the point. Speaking exclusively with RadioTimes.com, the show\u2019s creator Nick Leather spoke about how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":18819,"template":"","categories":[5],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/07\/the-control-room-ending-explained-series-writer-on-magic-trick-reveal-scaled.jpg",2560,1707,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/07\/the-control-room-ending-explained-series-writer-on-magic-trick-reveal-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/07\/the-control-room-ending-explained-series-writer-on-magic-trick-reveal-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/07\/the-control-room-ending-explained-series-writer-on-magic-trick-reveal-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/07\/the-control-room-ending-explained-series-writer-on-magic-trick-reveal-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/07\/the-control-room-ending-explained-series-writer-on-magic-trick-reveal-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/07\/the-control-room-ending-explained-series-writer-on-magic-trick-reveal-2048x1366.jpg",2048,1366,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By James Hibbs Published: Tuesday, 19 July 2022 at 12:00 am The Control Room is now available to stream in full on BBC iPlayer and if your mind was blown by all the different twists and turns, well, that was certainly the point. Speaking exclusively with RadioTimes.com, the show\u2019s creator Nick Leather spoke about how…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/18818"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Control Room ending explained<\/strong><\/h2>\n
What was Gabe wrapped up in?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>What was Anthony\u2019s plan and how was Sam involved?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>What happened to Sam and Anthony?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>What happened between Gabe and Sam when they were kids?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>How does the series end?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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