I was also fascinated by the male characters in the show. Arj, who killed Riz, ends up being the monster we expected Malachy to be. What was your thought process when it came to his dramatic final scene?

He does terrible things. But I guess it would be pretty poor drama if we didn’t try to humanise all the characters – that’s not to say we forgive them or let them off the hook, particularly not him. But for me the whole point of a piece of drama is to put yourself in other people’s shoes – even the people who are doing the most terrible and unforgivable things. Because that is how we reflect upon our own behaviour.

Then there’s Hitch, Ember’s younger partner, who repeatedly falls into the role of bystander, keeping quiet while other men in the town say horribly misogynistic things. It’s a situation a lot of women will recognise. Why was it important for you to explore that?

It’s hard, I think, to challenge people. It’s easier to let things go. If you’re asking a young guy like Hitch to challenge more dominant men in a pub like that, you’re asking quite a lot of him. It’s really brave to stand up and be counted in that moment. But I think that a lot of guys might not even understand why there’s such a need to do it. Because if you’re a guy who wouldn’t dream of being violent towards a woman and you’re sitting among a group of guys and somebody makes a joke, for you that’s just a horrible joke. You might laugh politely at it, but you wouldn’t connect that to actually being violent towards a woman. But if there’s one guy in that group for whom that joke is normalising the idea of being violent or abusive to women, then it can’t happen. Someone like Hitch has to see the need to challenge that culture before he finds the bravery to do it. It is a lot but it is what we’re going to need guys to do if there’s going to be a change in the culture.

Cat Jones on the divisive ending of The Jetty: “It isn’t just perfect, faultless women who deserve to be safe, it’s all women”