Odds are you probably haven’t yet watched Prime Video’s Tasmania-based mystery series Deadloch. But you should. In 2023 creator-writers Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan (an Australian comedy duo) delivered the best mystery, best drama, bust-out-loud laughs, and best writing of the year. Reviewed here at borg, its first season introduced the world to the town of Deadloch and its annual winter Feastival, where two girls find a dead man left naked on a beach. Deadloch doubles as both the most progressive and least progressive town in a land full of oddly named but real places (like Mount Mountain), and before now, its worst criminal is a sea lion named Kevin. If you’re at all prudish, look the other way. Otherwise, get ready to witness what brilliance can happen when two women take off their gloves and let loose with the ultimate crime show. And Season 2 is on its way.
The tone of the series is like nothing you’ve seen before. The series lead is Kate Box as local head of police Dulcie Collins. She’s a little bit like a young Judy Davis, most recently of Mystery Road fame, a bit Walt Longmire, a bit like your typical low-key British crime series lead. Dulcie is a straight arrow, she never swears, and she is the only one in town who keeps her cool while doing her job. That gets challenged when her uppers in the big city assign another cop to work with her. That’s Madeleine Sami as Detective Eddie Redcliffe, the mouthiest, foulest cop you’ll ever meet. She’s a disheveled cop like Columbo, part Jim Rockford, part Gene Hunt, with language more foul than Alex Foley, and she’s about as experienced at solving crimes as Vinny Gambini had practicing law (she also takes Mona Lisa Vito’s vocabulary to another level). She’s actually a lot like Ace Ventura, and like Ace and Thomas Magnum, when she’s not wearing something from the Army-Navy Surplus, she’s wearing a Hawaiian shirt and sandals. Together Dulcie and Eddie are the Odd Couple of crime. If Dulcie is Turner, Eddie is Hooch. This is a comedy, but this isn’t Police Squad. The mystery plotting is as good as it gets for TV mysteries. And Deadloch is what the ads for Poker Face promised, but didn’t deliver. It won about a dozen big TV awards Down Under. And Chris Hemsworth’s older brother Luke joins the cast for the coming season.
Check out this trailer for Season 2 of Deadloch:
Accompanying the two lead cops is Nina Oyama as Abby Matsuda, the rookie cop. Abby is earnest, the eager, fresh-faced young cop, ready to work, and Oyama plays the role with the same seriousness as all the actors on the show. She’s back, along with Dulcie’s seemingly polar opposite wife Cath, played by Alicia Gardiner. Other cast members include Steve Bisley, Shari Sebbens, Jean Tong, Byron Coll, Nikki Britton, Anthony J. Sharpe, Blake Pavey, Damien Garvey, Ngali Shaw, Bev Killick, Ines English, Lennox Monaghan, Reiden Corpus, Ling Cooper-Tang, Ursula Yovich, Syd Brisbane, and Storm Murgha.
Catch up on all eight first season episodes of Deadloch now streaming on Prime Video. Deadloch is a Prime Video production. Season 2 begins March 20, 2026.
C.J. Bunce / Editor / borg
