Sophie Rundle is back as newly promoted detective Jo Marshall in ITV’s hit series After the Flood (Image: Jo Hale/Getty Images)
After the Flood makes its dramatic return this Sunday evening, 18 January, with a thrilling and action-packed second series.
The debut series followed the discovery of an unidentified man’s body in an underground car park following a catastrophic flood, with PC Jo Marshall, portrayed by Sophie Rundle, tasked with uncovering the circumstances surrounding his death, leading to startling and disturbing revelations.
The second series sees the newly promoted detective Jo pursuing a perplexing new murder case. As friction intensifies in Waterside against the backdrop of escalating moorland fire threats and the ensuing danger of additional flooding, a corpse is found in extraordinary circumstances.
Jo’s pursuit to apprehend the perpetrator places her in direct opposition to powerful and prominent figures within the community, eventually pulling her into an investigation that takes on a deeply personal dimension.
The case will demand she work covertly if she harbours any chance of exposing the corruption that has tainted the town’s police force – and her own family – for generations.
After the Flood returns this Sunday night, 18 January, with an exciting and explosive second series (Image: ITV)
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Speaking about the new series and production, Sophie, 37, exclusively revealed: “It’s really nice coming back to something that has been recommissioned because people watched it and because people liked it, you know, and I think that’s obviously the only way you can kind of judge whether people want a series two.
“It’s really lovely coming back, you meet people when you’re out and about and they often say, ‘Oh, we loved After the Flood, we loved that one’, so it’s really nice when you go back to something and you think, ‘Okay, to a degree, I think we got that right’ and I think people liked it and people kind of want more, so that is always a really nice starting point.
“And 99% of the crew was the same crew from series one so there was a lovely kind of consistency there and it’s a great part and it’s a great, very well-drawn, well-built world that lends itself really well to continuing on the story, I think, and kind of expanding out into a second season.
“There’s more new characters come in, so yeah, it felt like we started from a really robust place and it was just a really nice one to come back to.”
Sophie and Matt have two sons together, a four-year-old and one-year-old (Image: Instagram)
Elsewhere in the conversation, Sophie discussed the difficulties of balancing filming commitments with motherhood, commending the ITV production for accommodating her with a four-day working week to help juggle both responsibilities.
Sophie is in a relationship with fellow actor Matt Stokoe, who is best known for starring as Alex in Channel 4 series Misfits. He takes on the role of detective Pat Holman in After the Flood, playing the spouse of Sophie’s character Jo.
The couple share two young sons, aged four and one. The Peaky Blinders and Gentleman Jack star confessed that filming, which spanned three to four months, was challenging: “It was hard, it was hard going because I have a four-year-old. My eldest son turned four and then my youngest son turned one.
Sophie is in a relationship with fellow actor Matt Stokoe, who also stars in After The Flood (Image: Jo Hale/Getty Images)
“So there’s the huge juggle of trying to be mum and trying to be, you know, me as an actor. And that is always really, really hard for anybody, a parent who tries to work. It’s very difficult.
“But I had a wonderful team and production were amazing actually. And they configured the schedule so that I could work four consecutive days a week and then I would get three days off so I could come home and be with the boys and be with the family.
“It was great because this show is about a woman trying to find a balance between motherhood, herself as a mother, and herself as a professional. They allowed me to do that in my real life as well. It was such a lovely job and it was so fun to do.”
Offering a glimpse into what viewers can expect from series two of After the Flood, Sophie revealed: “I guess in a way, in the same way that Jo [her character] just kind of goes hurtling down that rabbit hole, so does the show, you know, it goes right to the brink.
“It’s a really good, well-deserved continuation of season two. There’s so much more story to be explored in it and it does go there, you know, it gives you that gripping murder mystery element.
“But you also think at this point, you really care about these characters and you’re rooting for them. So you want to find out what happens. I think the show, it serves that.”
After the Flood returns on Sunday, 18 January, airing weekly on Sundays and Mondays on ITV. All episodes are available on ITVX.
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