Review by C.J. Bunce
The leading contender for best mystery television series of the year hails from Australia. Odds are you probably haven’t yet watched Prime Video’s Deadloch. But you should, because it’s the best show on TV right now. For six episodes creator-writers Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan (an Australian comedy duo) deliver the best mystery, best drama, biggest bust-your-gut laughs, and best writing this year. Kate Box is back as the quiet and inward cop Dulcie Collins. She and her doting wife Cath, played by Alicia Gardiner, accompany Madeleine Sami as the foul-mouthed, very extroverted Eddie Redcliffe to the town of Darwin to sleuth-out what really happened to her partner Bushy. Everyone says his cause of death was suicide, but Eddie knows otherwise. But Eddie’s detective work must move from Darwin to the little hamlet of Barra Creek when a local bigwig is found dead–in parts. Unbeknownst to Dulcie, Barra Creek is Eddie’s hometown.
Eddie must confront her past, her eccentric family–especially her dad–and her latest partner, or she’s going to wind up in jail herself. Get ready to witness what brilliance can happen when two women–Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan–take off their gloves and let loose with the ultimate, definitive crime show–Aussie style.
Last season (reviewed here at borg), the backdrop was the annual winter Feastival in Deadloch–the most progressive and least progressive town in a land full of oddly named but real places (like Mount Mountain), where a naked dead man was found on the beach. Before that murder the town’s worst criminal was a sea lion named Kevin. After the fallout from the serial killer in the first season’s disastrous case, Dulcie and Eddie have removed themselves, but it’s really out of the frying pan and into the fire. Dulcie is still that straight arrow, working under the guidance of Darwin’s friendly and encouraging Superintendent Col Culkin, played by Damien Garvey (The Artful Dodger, Harrow). She never swears or emotes and barely acknowledges the foul vocabulary of crimesolving partner Eddie. But her ability to stay calm and cool is taxed this season because it’s so damned hot in Barra Creek. Will she finally release all her angst and frustration with Eddie, her wife, and the unusual townsfolk, and finally have a literal and figurative meltdown?
Sami’s Eddie Redcliffe–the mouthiest, foulest cop you’ll ever meet–is dialed up to eleven this season. She’s still that disheveled cop like Columbo, part Jim Rockford, part Gene Hunt, with language worse than Alex Foley, and the Hawaiian shirts of Thomas Magnum. But when she’s back with her school peers and her dad, what you thought possible from the first season is amplified so much more. The result? The best laughs this year–the best comedy you’ve probably ever seen in a mash-up. The dialogue is so quick and local and pristine–there’s never been anything quite like it, at least nothing that has reached U.S. audiences.
Deadloch is atmospheric and intriguing, but it feels much hotter than last time. Amanda Brown returns with another soundtrack that is haunting, exciting, and perfect. Nina Oyama (Koala Man) returns as Abby Matsuda, last season’s earnest, eager, fresh-faced young cop, ready to work again, this time not as a cop, but part of a forensic analysis student team. Oyama played it serious last season, but maybe because of that heat she is way over the top this season. Joining the cast is a local journalist (that’s “journo” for short) Leo Lee, played by new actor Jean Tong. She is more like last-season Abby, that necessary “guy in the chair” archetype digging up the requisite clues the leads can’t get to along the way. A battle of sorts erupts between Abby and Leo, but it’s one-sided, because Leo’s easy-going–mostly.
But the lesson in acting prowess comes from crude, rude, ornery, sweaty Sami when Eddie confronts her dad, a gruff, mouthy but devoted, scooter-driving bastard named Frank, played by Steve Bisley. How did Eddie get the way she is now? It’s equal parts family, equal parts Barra Creek, because everyone there seems to be like Eddie. We meet her old chum Miki, played by Shari Sebbens (Thor: Ragnarok), Ursula Yovich (Troppo) as barkeep Mary, Genevieve Morris (Scrublands) as retiring cop Pat Heffernan, and Nikki Britton and Blake Pavey play the dead man’s enraged adult kids. They ran a crocodile tour against a competing company, headed up by the manly and suave Jason Wade, played by Luke Hemsworth (Chris’s eldest brother), Ines English plays Roisin, one of his employees, and Byron Coll plays an underperforming local cop.
Drones, crocodiles and crocs, more naked dead male body parts (for forensic investigation), Cath’s romantic public overtures and forging deep and meaningful relationships with pretty much everyone, plus Eddie’s brother (a crocodile named Three Pet), and all the murder and mayhem you can cram into six episodes. (Note: Despite what you may think is coming, no animal is killed in the story).
But the framework is all mystery. The whodunnit may be in front of our noses all along, if you’re savvy enough to keep up with the two Kates. They actually wave the secret at viewers for the entire six episodes. The audacity of the writers letting go, letting Eddie, a woman, take on the role usually assigned an obnoxious, rude male actor, is glorious, and in the first season it created a scenario nobody’s seen on TV before. The juxtaposition of current political dialogue, current humor, current slang, and the setting is jaw-dropping stuff. Everything feels American, but it’s not. It’s both a razor sharp autopsy of sex and sexism in society and a mirror of every type of person in Anytown, Anywhere in the 21st century. By the end of Season 2 it seems everyone’s pronouns are “they.” As with the first season, every episode pulls in clues and science that can help the attentive viewer figure out the whodunnit, but it’s the journey that is the most fun. We’ve seen lots of good mystery TV series this year, and if there is only one that gets renewed, Deadloch should be every TV watcher’s #1 choice. If only they would get going on a third season. Get on with it, already!
As Eddie said, “Play it now! Play it now! Play it now! Know your history!” Watch all eight episodes of the first season and all six episodes of the second season of Deadloch, now streaming on Prime Video.
Catch up with our reviews of other quality British TV series (including Australian and New Zealand shows you’d find on PBS, BritBox, or Acorn TV) beginning with our Top 10: Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes, Zen, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?, Mr. Selfridge, Guilt, The IPCRESS File, The Hour, The Gentlemen, Black Doves, and Shetland. You could stay pretty busy with our full list of top British TV recommendations, including Deadloch, The Artful Dodger, Van Der Valk, the first season of Sherlock, Troppo, Case Histories, This is Going to Hurt, Black Snow, Mystery Road: Origin, Death Valley, Dept. Q, Bodkin, The Bletchley Circle, Good Cop/Bad Cop, Grace, Steeltown Murders, Hinterland, Glitch, Mystery Road, Culprits, Harrow, Annika, The Day of the Jackal, Code of Silence, Luther, Professor T, and Supacell.
After you’ve seen all of those, try Viva Blackpool, Marchlands, Lightfields, State of Play, I, Jack Wright, Population 11, Protection, After the Flood, Traces, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Scrublands, Ordeal by Innocence, Unforgotten, The Bay, Wild Bill, Quirke, Requiem, The Gloaming, The Clearing, The One, The Tourist, The Tower, Collateral, Roadkill, Stay Close, The Salisbury Poisonings, and A Confession.
Other British series across genres that are worth checking out (a few still to be reviewed here) include fun romps like Monarch of the Glen, Para Handy, Cranford, Viva Blackpool, and As Time Goes By, and cozy mysteries Rosemary and Thyme, Father Brown, Hetty Wainthropp, and Death in Paradise. One of the best of all British productions is the reboot of All Creatures Great and Small, which is in our British Top 10 (and the original is good, too). Of course there’s always Doctor Who for your sci-fi fix (and spin-offs Torchwood and Class), The Watch for your fantasy fix, Truth Seekers and Sea of Souls for your supernatural fix, and Spaced for more sci-fi fun, and we really should add House, MD, for Brit lead Hugh Laurie’s one-of-a-kind performance. (We’ve also reviewed but don’t heartily recommend so much Dublin Murders, The ABC Murders, The Pale Horse, Reef Break, The One That Got Away, The Silence, The Five, The Missing, Thirteen, or Broadchurch, as well as No Offence, which could have merited a review for its first season but, like Sherlock, its later episodes were a disappointment).
Keep coming back to borg, your source for the best of British TV.
