Greta burned down a church when she was a child

Spoiler alert: This story contains spoilers for How to Get from Belfast to Heaven, available on Netflix.

Like many things in Irish life, it begins with a wake.

Lisa McGee has long wanted to try her hand at the murder mystery genre. She knew she couldn’t do it straight. “I was a big fan of ‘Murder, She Wrote,'” says the author of the Troubles-era ‘Derry Girls,’ a semi-autobiographical comedy that became a global phenomenon for its refusal to erase Northern Ireland’s specificity.

“How to get from Belfast to Heaven” is her answer. The eight-episode Netflix comedy-mystery is her first major project since “Derry Girls,” which ended in 2022. Three childhood best friends, Saoirse (Roisin Gallagher), Robin (Sinead Keenan) and Dara (Caoilfionn Dunne), are summoned to rural County Donegal after finding out about their estranged fourth friend, Greta (Natasha). O’Keeffe) passed away. Except Greta might not be dead. It turns out Greta has a secret that stretches back to her childhood religious commune, an abusive leader, and a church she burned down, leaving her children behind.

The three women are incapable of dealing with any of this. Anyway, they handle it badly, loudly, and somehow hilariously. They lock themselves in a confessional, blow up a boat, and encounter an underground female migration network run by quasi-assassins with a soft stance on murdering men. The darkness of the subject matter never overwhelms the comedy, but McGee deliberately balances it out, making us more interested in the women fumbling with it than the culprits. “The idea of ​​finding almost the worst people to solve this problem was really interesting to me,” she told Variety.

Below, Maggie details the making of How to Get from Belfast to Heaven, from its murder mystery beginnings to the unlikely heroes at its center.

This show has a lot going on genre-wise. How would you describe the actual show?

I recently saw someone describe the film as a murder mystery, but then added, “Was there a murder?” —I thought that was a very good thing. This death is not a typical murder case. I call it a comedy mystery because it’s a mashup of these two tones. What I always wanted was to see people laughing and trying to put the puzzle together. That was my ambition.

You’ve said you’d like to do your own version of “Murder, She Wrote,” but it’s starring three women who aren’t comfortable with it. Why did being incompetent feel like the right path?

Old mystery shows must have been very technical and incredibly difficult to write. I was a big fan of “Murder, She Wrote,” so I’ve always wanted to try this movie. But I knew I had to do it my way. My tone is fast, chaotic, Irish and funny. So the idea of ​​finding almost the worst people to solve this problem was very interesting to me. They’ll get there eventually, but they really have to learn to trust their instincts. I loved the idea of ​​life getting in the way. You’re trying to be Jessica Fletcher, but you also have to organize a kid’s birthday party.

The show is a realistic depiction of the crime obsession that has dominated the past decade, and its audience is overwhelmingly female. Why do you think that is?

That’s the question, isn’t it? I don’t know why women are so obsessed with it, but I often talk about it with my friends. This is very depressing, but I think it’s because most crimes are committed against women. So we try to find out as much as we can about what’s going on in the world. It’s no surprise that you know all the horrible things that can happen. That’s a depressing view.

Another perspective may be that women think they can solve problems. It’s like, “I’ve solved it.” Me and my friends thought we could solve these problems, but we never could. We’ll be just as bad as the security guards on this show. But in my experience, the biggest true crime fans I know are all my female friends.

You and your friends joke about thinking you can figure these things out, but are Saoirse, Robin, and Dara based on your real friends?

Well, they’re based on my real friend group. I am a mother of four very attractive children. She is very straightforward and doesn’t think about any nonsense. That’s Robin. And I have friends who are more gentle and kind. I like to take care of people, I like to take care of people, and I’m also a little quirky—that’s Dara. We go on these trips together. We don’t have to solve the murder yet, but we live with hope.

And Saoirse – TV writer – is she you?

She was definitely an intruder. Her frustration in her career, her chaotic approach to life was understandable. But she’s 100 times more interesting than me. She’s doing so much more. There is a point where she stops being me and becomes her own thing. But that’s how I was able to begin to understand the story.

Greta is the central mystery, but she’s almost non-existent. We experience her almost entirely through other people’s memories. Was it difficult to make the audience care about a character who was essentially absent?

We were able to do a lot by having Natasha O’Keeffe play her. She had to sell everything without saying anything. The three leads are insane, jumping off lighthouses and blowing up boats, but then when we go to Greta, she stays still. All that trauma runs through her veins. I tried to drip-feed information to the audience to keep them interested and understand why she did what she did at the end.

The backstory, in which Greta accidentally sets a church full of children on fire, is truly horrifying. How did you decide you could handle that level of darkness in a comedic mystery?

You just have to try it. What you leave out and what you suggest matters on this page. Some sentences simply cannot be written because the tone is unacceptable. For heavy content, it was important to use as few words as possible and give the audience enough information to fill in the gaps. And we removed some jokes that were too close to that content. Because they obscured the seriousness of the story. Editing solved a lot of things. Using these visual flashes was helpful. You’re seeing something, but you’re not necessarily hearing it in conversation. It was really a puzzle.

And how do you orchestrate a tonal shift from comedy to dark without giving the audience whiplash?

I think a lot of it is due to performance. These three actors, Róisín, Sinead, and Caoilfionn, have great ensemble chemistry. It’s very difficult to walk that path as an actor and go from really silly roles to more emotional roles. They sell everything. They sell the silly parts, but they also sell the really sad parts. That’s what makes the tone work.

The underground relocation plan (basically a secret witness protection program) is a wild plot element. I thought Booker and Feeney were the bad guys until the last 10 minutes. Where did the idea for this plan come from and what inspired you to give them redemption?

I had this idea that I didn’t want someone to be a really bad person, I didn’t want someone to be a really good person. Booker (Bronagh Gallagher) wants us to think she’s psychotic at first, but she looks like a killer. But then you realize that she’s actually part of this organization that’s trying to help women in psychotic, crazy ways. She has no big problem killing people if necessary, especially if she has to kill men. But she truly believed in what the organization was trying to do: help women start a new life. It has become highly damaged and eroded over time. I love that she believes in something. And believing in something strongly can sometimes be very dangerous.

Saoirse-Monica Jackson, who plays Erin in Derry Girls, appears as the bubblegum-pink assassin’s sidekick, whose costumes are elaborate for each scene. How was the casting decided?

Booker needed a sidekick. He’s the kind of person you’d want to throw out the window of a moving car. I kept imagining this quirky blonde woman who was actually Gwen Stefani, but then I thought Saoirse Monica. He’s the worst person to put next to Booker. She agreed immediately. I don’t think she even read it. And then costume designer Kathy Prior kept adding more pieces and it just kept getting more and more interesting.

“Derry Girls” was written completely by yourself. This time there was a writer’s room. What has changed?

I don’t feel like doing anything on my own anymore. “Derry Girls” is so personal that it would have been complicated to explain it to other writers. But it’s even better when you have smart people to ask for help. It’s 8 hours of TV. You’re always trying to change the narrative. My husband is a writer and is very good at horror, but that’s not my forte. Some writers have brought true emotional intelligence to their young characters. And Brona — for Brona, no situation could be more stupid. She did everything where they were locked in the confessional. You need an expert to handle everything.

The show moved from Channel 4 to Netflix around the time of the writers’ strike. What was the transition like?

Netflix is ​​great. They support the writer’s vision and want to reach as wide an audience as possible. But to be honest, my team hasn’t changed in 16 years, so I felt the same way. Same director, same producer, same production company, shot in Belfast. We got the gang back together and made another show. It’s scary that it’s now all over the world all at once. The idea that someone on the other side of the world who has never heard of Belfast might watch this is still completely unbelievable to me.

In the end, Greta leaves with her daughter and husband under her new status. Will I see her again?

probably. There’s something to do with the contents of the bag at the end, and she might help with that. I also like the idea of ​​throwing the three main characters into new and even crazier scenarios. It’s probably about getting them out of Ireland and bringing them back.

If there is a season 2, will the women be better at solving mysteries?

I don’t think they learned anything. They may have a false sense of confidence in themselves, which can be even more dangerous. Or it may cause further problems. That would be interesting too. I think it’s probably more interesting if it’s still chaotic and not very good.

This interview has been edited and condensed.