How to make the aha! moment more aha!!!

Have you seen the blunt force mystery thriller television series “Untamed”?

It was written by Mark L. Smith (“The Revenant”, “American Primeval”, “Twister”) and his daughter Elle Smith with both doubling as show runners. Given Mark’s pedigree it should come as no surprise that it’s a man vs nature vs man narrative set against an expansive and wild American landscape.

It features Eric Bana playing a gruff and dour federal agent in Yosemite National Park struggling to cope with the death of his young son and Sam Neil playing his gruff and somewhat taciturn boss amidst the sheer granite cliffs, groves of giant sequoia, gushing waterfalls, tumbling streams, soft meadows.

Because it’s a thriller someone has to die pretty early in the piece. In this case, within the opening minutes of the first episode, a young woman teeters on a cliff top and then plummets to her death down the rocky face of a computer-generated El Capitan. But not before entangling a pair of young male rock climbers who she almost drags to their untimely deaths.

Bana’s character is introduced as the no-nonsense ranger who abseils down the granite cliff face towards the dangling body of the dead young woman without so much as a nod to the approaching lightning storm. Of course it’s a Jane Doe who Bana will spend six episodes trying to reveal along with whoever killed her.

Instead of just hanging dead in mid-air, the drama and motivation could have easily been ramped up if she were (no pun intended) hanging on to life by a thread when Bana reaches her, gasping in and out of consciousness and struggling to mouth her killer’s name when the ropes snap and she tumbles to her death. All the more guilt to drive Bana to find the killer.

In case you didn’t think Neil’s character was the murderer the moment you first saw him (because it’s always the least likely who will prove the most guilty), his bumbling admission to Bana’s character before he blows his own brains out off camera in the final episode would still feel forced.

Here are three ways to give that final admission scene more shock, more gasp, more drama. More ways for the audience to re-evaluate and reassess the entire story.

1. Neil’s character should comfort Bana’s character in an earlier scene in the morgue as they look over the dead woman’s body. Bemoan such a tragic, unnecessary waste.

2. Neil’s character should lend his rifle, the murder weapon, to Bana’s character to physically implicate him in the crime. Not as a suspicious gesture but in act of kindness. It’s loaded and the safety is switched but he tells Bana’s character to be careful

3. Neil’s character should be showing greater and greater concern throughout for Bana’s character, for coping with the murder of his innocent young son, for his grief, for his loss, for his drinking, for his hallucinations. Urging him to leave the park, leave the case for his own good, for his own peace of mind.  

Drama is all about set-ups and unexpected twists and turns (and misdirections) to give the payoffs more impact, more resonance. They’re what give a scene more meaning, more weight, more aha!!!