*Warning – contains spoilers for Two Weeks in August episodes 1 and 2.*
The first episode of Two Weeks in August ended with a shocking moment, as Jessica Raine’s Zoe saw her husband Dan (Damien Molony), while intoxicated, kissing the wife of her friend Solomon (Nicholas Pinnock), Antonia Thomas’s Jess.
In the second episode, Zoe then saw a different side to Dan, who had been depressed for a long time and previously tried to end his life. After the kiss, he had a newfound spring in his step – something which infuriated Zoe.
Explaining why the show’s drama was kicked off by an illicit kiss specifically, writer Catherine Shepherd told Radio Times: “I like the idea of it being a kiss and no more, because there’s a sort of ambiguity about how bad a kiss is, which I thought was really fun and interesting.
“It’s a betrayal, but it’s not full-on infidelity. And I thought that would be a really interesting event on the first night of a holiday, because no one would be quite sure how bad it was and how disruptive. And some of the characters love it and want it to be a terrible, terrible thing, and then some just want to pretend it hasn’t happened.
“I think a kiss makes all of those responses valid somehow. It’s weird, it’s a sort of teenage thing to do. It’s definitely a betrayal and it’s bad behaviour, but no one’s quite sure how angry to be. I think a kiss is a small event in a way, but it sets off a chain of massive events – that was really appealing.”
Meanwhile, Raine spoke to us about Zoe’s initial reaction, which she says she found “fascinating”.
“She’s locked in on watching it, completely shocked,” Raine said. “And then Leila [Farzad]’s character Nat is looking at her questioningly, and she just starts clearing up, and she goes to bed. And you can see there’s a change happening. But I love that it’s not a histrionic reaction that maybe one may have seen on TV before.
“She just doesn’t know what to do and sits on it for a really long time. And the peppiness of Dan after that kiss is so irritating, and it’s so well written. He goes from being incredibly depressed and negative, and I think Tom George directed you to skip at one point along the road. And I was like, ‘That is infuriating.'”
Molony, who was speaking alongside Raine, added: “Yeah. Can you be a bit more Tigger?”
“Tigger, yeah,” Raine continued. “It was upsetting because Zoe has spent the last year trying to shore up the family and support Dan and pull him out of this depression, and all it took was a kiss with the character Jess? It’s like tectonic plates shifting inside her. It’s very slow and it’s very deep, but when it happens, everything changes.”
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On Dan’s mental state, Molony said: “As well as where he’s at emotionally, that led to the instances of the crash, it’s also the guilt afterwards, knowing that he was going to abandon them, to take himself out of his suffering.
“It’s dealing with the guilt of that and the disappointment in himself of that, as well as not knowing how to put himself back together, as well as not being able to accept help from medical professionals, and not knowing how to fix himself and to fix the relationship.
“And I think that’s what has them so jarring against each other, is that there was great love and happiness in this relationship at one point, and now it is simply the embers of that relationship. There’s still a flame, still glowing, shall we say. So there is hope and there is possibility, but I think they’re both so exhausted.
“Zoe’s veneer is so exhausting to Zoe, and it’s also exhausting for Dan to watch that veneer and go, ‘Who are you? Will you just cop on? This is not great, and you have to stop pretending that it is.’ So that was a great starting point for a relationship on TV, to get to know how these guys can get themselves out of this situation.
“And the kiss is not like, ‘I have to leave my wife and move in with Antonia Thomas’ character Jess.’ It’s like, ‘Oh, that’s what it means to be alive. That is what freedom is. Wow. I haven’t experienced that for a long time.’
“And I think it is one nail in the coffin, shall we say, for their relationship, but it’s also the opening of something for Dan as a human being, which I think was really thrilling to get my teeth into.”
Two Weeks in August will air on BBC One and BBC iPlayer from 9pm on Saturday 23 May 2026.
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