Fair City actress Kate Gilmore has spoken about her character Karen's death on the soap, saying it's "really gruesome, dramatic and emotional".
Viewers witnessed devastating scenes this week as Karen was found unconscious and bleeding on the floor in Wayne's kitchen with the word "slut" written on lipstick on the fridge beside her.
He tried to bring her to hospital in his car, but she stumbles out of the car into the park, where she ends up passing away.
Gilmore says that things have been "going downhill for her for a long time now" and that Sean's rejection was "the straw that broke the camel's back".
After the charity auction where Karen rubbed many of Carrigstown's residents up the wrong way, there are many suspects that are implicated in her demise.
Speaking to RTÉ Entertainment, the actress said of Karen's final weeks: "She finds an opportunity to try and get Sean back, to hurt Orla, to piss off Kerri-Ann, and Oisin who’s been coming onto her quite strongly, he has it out for her, so basically she’s just creating a whole load of enemies.
"The set-up is perfectly written for a real whodunnit because there’s so many people that she pissed-off in the past few weeks, it could literally be anybody, any resident of Carrigstown."
Karen's final scenes in the park were filmed on the Tuesday before the Beast from the East hit, which made it more challenging for the actors involved.
"Lesley [Conroy] who plays Aoife, she has to take her coat off to put it on me, so she was freezing. We were all freezing but wardrobe were absolutely incredible, they had heat packs stuck on you, so even though it looks like you’re completely uncovered you have little heat packs in all your little crevices, so it wasn’t too bad!
"The only thing I was worried about that when I do actually pass away, that I wasn’t chattering involuntarily," she added.
Gilmore says she genuinely doesn't know who is responsible for Karen's murder, explaining: "Even though they’re airing this week, I still don’t know, as an actor or as a character, who killed me! But I really think that’s cool for everyone else who’s still playing the storyline, they’re looking at everyone, they’re looking around their shoulder, is it me, is it you, so it keeps things tense."
She says she will continue to follow the storyline to find out what happens, saying: "I’ll probably enjoy it much more when I’m not in it because it’s very difficult to watch yourself!"
The TV and stage star says she wants to watch her final scenes as Karen with her mum, saying: "I’ll probably watch it with my mam because she’ll be quite disturbed by the gruesome nature of it, seeing your child in that position, so I’ll watch it with her and I’ll be like ‘I’m here, it’s okay!’
"It was emotional doing the last scene so I’m sure it’ll be emotional reliving it again."
Gilmore has been playing Karen for the last couple of years before becoming a recurring character last August. The actress said it's been "a real thrill" going out of the soap with a bang.
She said: "I feel very lucky because I’m only really there since August as a recurring character. I’ve had cameos in it over the last couple of years as Karen but her storyline only really started in August and I only came in full throttle then, and since then with the storyline of finding her dad, figuring out it was Dan, figuring out how she was conceived, meeting Kevin, Kevin turning out to be gay, her dance career ending, inheriting the gym, it’s just been one storyline after the other, really complex, interesting storylines with a load of different actors.
"And even though I cried a lot, it’s actually been really fun, because I have so many friends out there and it’s just such a nice environment to work in. I know this is an ending, and it’s final, Karen can never come back, but I don’t feel sad about it. I feel excited about it."
Karen has had a tumultuous time in Carrigstown of late. How would Kate like people to remember her?
"I’ve seen that people have turned against her in the way that other characters have, saying ‘oh she’s a slut for going after Wayne’ and ‘she’s just a moan bag’ or ‘she’s deranged’ and I think the writers have created a character here who is going through a mental health crisis which is actually very true of people in everyday life, so I hope people look at her with empathy rather than scorn, and not to judge her choices too harshly that she made in the past few weeks," the actress said.
"Looking back, she was really vivacious, a dancer, fun, quippy, very quick witted. She had her fair share of Carrigstown men, so yeah just really full of life.
"It was really fun to play someone like that and to get to interact with loads of different actors at different points in the process."
Fair City continues on RTÉ One on Tuesday at 8.00pm. Catch up on the drama over on the RTÉ Player.
