'Broadchurch' finale preview: What's in Tom's emails to Danny -- VIDEO

Tonight, the answers are revealed on the season finale of BBC America’s brilliant whodunit Broadchurch. Ten minutes before this episode premiered in the U.K., creator/writer Chris Chibnall had a TV producer’s equivalent of stage fright: “I texted Jane Featherstone, the other executive producer on the show, and said, ‘I think we’ve got it entirely wrong. I think we’ve made a terrible mistake. I think it’s an awful ending,'” he recalls, laughing. “Knowing that so many people by that point were really invested in it and watching it, I’ve never been more panicked in my life. Then after about 20 minutes in, I was like, ‘No, no, it’s all right. I’ve had a drink. It seems to be going okay.'”

Chibnail was in a relaxed mood when he phoned EW from England earlier today, which could be because he knows how well that finale was received in the U.K. But there’s another reason: Joe Sims, the actor who plays Nige, had just texted him an hour earlier to say that Sen. John McCain had tweeted about the show. “He said, it’s the ‘Final episode of #Broadchurch tonight — one of the most entertaining shows on TV right now.’ That made me laugh in itself, but then it also made me laugh to see the tirade of responses from people going, ‘Haven’t you got better things to be doing than recommending television shows?'” Chibnall explains, laughing again.”The whole Broadchurch thing, for all of us, has been this kind of amazing response and amazing madness, and I think that one today has just beaten all the others. I’m here in my office, looking out into the rain of Dorset, and I’m really giggling.”

We’ll have a full postmortem with Chibnall posting after the finale airs. For now, watch our exclusive clip of DI Hardy (David Tennant) questioning Tom (Adam Wilson) below.

The Broadchurch finale airs tonight at 10 p.m. ET on BBC America.