The Sinner Returns for Season Four on Showcase

Even retirement isn’t safe from disturbing mysteries on a new season of the Showcase hit

After the trauma that Harry Ambrose (Bill Pullman) suffered at the hands of sociopath Jamie Burns (Matt Bomer) in the third season of The Sinner, the now-retired police detective needs a break. So he travels to Hanover Island in northern Maine for a getaway with Sonya (Jessica Hecht), his artist girlfriend, who was also a key part of that life-changing collision with Burns. But darkness seems to follow Ambrose, who, as soon as he arrives, is tasked with investigating the mysterious disappearance of the daughter of a prominent island family (led by the great Frances Fisher). While Ambrose believes he already knows the fate of Percy Muldoon (Alice Kremelberg), his recent experiences now make him question his instincts. “As Harry discovers, you don’t just start fresh. You carry over,” says Pullman. “In the previous year, he had this encounter with Jamie, and it had a complicated ending that he felt very conflicted about. So, when season four kicks off, he’s bolted from his therapist, he’s off his meds and he can’t sleep. Welcome to retirement.”

The mysteries tackled by Ambrose in the first and second seasons of The Sinner certainly left their mark on the detective, but it is only now that the cumulative effect of a life in peril is getting to him. “There is an accrual of his experiences that inform the character and bring Ambrose to a major reckoning point in this season that we haven’t really seen him encounter before,” says creator and showrunner Derek Simonds. “He’s facing the sum of his entire life, and then more recently what he did to Jamie Burns.”

Kremelberg’s character, who continues to appear to Ambrose as an apparition, is, much like the detective himself, someone who struggles with the darkness inside of her. “Percy is really trying to move through things, face the dark past, and going outside of herself. You’ll see, as the series progresses, all the different ways that she’s trying to reconcile with what happens in the story,” says Kremelberg. The actress knew little about her story arc when auditioning but was a fan of the show’s storytelling techniques from previous seasons. “The writing is so strong. It’s gritty. It’s real. It’s emotional. It’s raw. It’s all those things that I as an actor really am drawn to,” she explains. “It’s such an immaculate show.”

For Pullman, perhaps still most recognized for his turn as President Thomas Whitmore in sci-fi action flick Independence Day, Harry Ambrose is his longest-running role on television. “I continue to be amazed by this process,” says Pullman, who’s particularly impressed by Simonds’ ability to move the story forward without excessive use of dialogue. “Your behaviour is important,” says Pullman. “When you see the show, it’s not always, ‘Let’s cut to who’s talking.’ It takes a certain courage to trust that what isn’t being said is as interesting as what is said. And all of us get that message pretty loud and clear from Derek when we’re going through each script, line by line.”

Although Percy’s journey is front and centre in the new season, Simonds admits that what guides him as a writer is Ambrose’s arc. “After season one, I wanted to see Ambrose confront his childhood. After season two, I wanted Ambrose to confront a man who was not an innocent. After season three and the death that Ambrose is a part of with Jamie Burns, I wanted to see him contend with guilt that he’s accrued over his whole life, and what one does with that,” Simonds explains. “It’s always been about following this journey of Ambrose’s. What would trigger him the most?”

In the fourth season, Simonds also wanted to expand the scope of the intimate show and explore some of the greater themes that presented themselves in the past year. “It’s normally a very focused, hermetic show about the inner workings of one person or a few characters’ psychology, and I wanted to do that but also expand it into a bigger canvas and engage some of the broader social movements that we’re collectively processing. A lot of this season is about collective guilt,” he says. “What do we do with collective guilt? Who’s responsible when there’s more than one person who is responsible for a wrongdoing or a crime?”

None of this changes the template nor the feel of the dark thriller, yet it does allow the show to grow. “The idea of Ambrose encountering a seaside town and having the metaphorical power of the ocean, the myth around fishing and seafaring, and Ambrose entering this world that he doesn’t understand as a fish out of water had a lot of dramatic potential,” says Simonds. “It helped us develop his character further and revitalized the show.”

The Sinner airs Wednesdays at 7 p.m. on Showcase