PicoBlog

This is a mostly spoiler-free review of “Deadloch.” We’ll talk about the bones of the show (eh?) but no specific plot points or details beyond the first episode because you really should just, please, watch it.

TAMMY: “Is that a body? Oh shit his dick’s on fire!”

I can’t hammer this home hard enough: Deadloch should. Not. Work.

And yet.

And yet…!

It does. Oh, how it does.

Deadloch is 30 Rock meets True Detective. It is simultaneously, from start to finish, a deadly serious murder mystery and a stone-cold comedy. It is packed full of more jokes (more potent jokes) than any show I’ve watched since 30 Rock; it is also a twistier, murkier, more thoughtfully paced mystery than most murder-dramas I’ve seen since True Detective. It lampoons the latter genre at every turn — from adopting the desaturated, Fincher-esque color scheme to the sweeping landscape transitions between scenes to the haunting women’s choral melodies that background each episode (that you’ll realize a little too late are all extremely silly pop covers) — without fully undercutting the drama and losing the stakes. How?

The short answer: Because it is, at its heart, beyond a comedy, beyond a mystery, a small-town soap.

Small towns are, like people, both sillier and darker than we like to think. For cityfolk, rural communities hardly exist on a spectrum; they are either A) an idyllic dream, leafy, removed oases to retire or escape to once you’ve decided urban living has finally consumed enough of your soul; or B) po-dunk, flyover Schrodinger’s towns that do not exist until you drive through them on your way to some remote national park and stop existing immediately on the other side, where live the strange and deranged who’ve chosen to settle in a place without endless variety of food & culture. But small towns are both of those things, intertwined, with all their own mundanities and complexities. Small town people can be strange and antisocial; or, sometimes, they’re just more friendly, or differently-social than you’re accustomed to. They can be polite; or too polite, burying both old grudges and suspicion of newcomers under shallow smiles while adhering to hospitable social norms. They are often people who don’t want to be bothered, by the government, by noise, mostly by other people. Deadloch understands all this on a fundamental level, and crafts a reality where the irrational, the silly, the borderline-insane, the disturbing, and the depressingly real all exist in dysfunctional harmony (harmony nonetheless) within a few square miles of Tazmanian island.

(Right — this is also an extremely Australian show. Subtitles are advised on your first watch. The C-word is used as liberally as we use the word, “asshole,” and the F-word significantly more liberally than that. For example…)

GAVIN: “Fuck…I loved that c*** like a brother.”

DULCIE: “He *was* your brother.”

GAVIN: “... … …Fuck!”

Deadloch shows you its cards from the jump, making it clear in the first scene and increasingly throughout the first episode exactly what kind of show you’re watching. It initially feels a little uncomfortable, in a “How am I supposed to be feeling?” way, as the cold, blue-tinged visuals and melancholic score point in one decidedly serious direction and the nonstop quips, quirks, and antics point in precisely the opposite. If anything, the first few episodes lean a little more towards comedy than drama; yet at no point do we fully lose the sense that these are real, if ridiculous, people, dealing with real, if somewhat ridiculous, tragedy in their midst. As the show continues, especially beyond the third episode where there is a bit of a narrative shift, the two tones fuse spectacularly. The answer to, “How am I supposed to be feeling?” becomes simply, “Yes.”

As in all great stories, Deadloch’s heart is its characters. Everyone in the not-so-sleepy town has a thing — a quirk, an intense personality trait, or a look that instantly defines them as a character — but the show often uses their thing to obscure depths that will only be revealed later. There’s Kath, our protagonist’s perhaps over-communicative, eye-of-the-gossip-hurricane veterinarian wife; Aleyna, the anxious doctor-mayor and conductor of Deadloch’s Feastival, the town’s weeklong art & food festival that draws Australians from all over…Australia; Margaret Carruthers, the Martha Stewart-esque old money matriarch and the last descendant of the town’s “founding” family; Phil McGangus, football club president and misogynist extraordinaire; Tammy and Miranda, Aboriginal teens mostly concerned with getting high and figuring out what’s next in life when murder isn’t interrupting their day; and many more. Whether each character’s hidden depths contain mundane embarrassments, repressed feelings, or insidious intent is left to us to ponder, though the answers, as they are dropped breadcrumb-like throughout the series, are always entertaining.

ABBY, looking at a tattoo that clearly reads, “Trent Latham”: “That says ‘Trent Latham!’ Ma’am, I think this is Trent Latham!”

The show is anchored by its two powerhouse lead detectives and their two sidekicks in a quartet of memorable performances. Dulcie Collins (Kate Box) is the town’s reluctant top cop and the show’s comedic straight-woman (to clarify: she is gay, as is much of the town and much of the show, and married to the aforementioned Kath), doggedly and grimly pursuing the case amidst the chaos of the town and its people around her…and trying not to think about her sordid past in Sydney. Shortly after the initial murder, Dulcie is joined by a “ringer” from the mainland in the form of Eddie Redcliffe (Madeleine Sami), an aggressive, aggravated, and aggravating detective who can’t seem to get out of Deadloch fast enough; but also helpfully exposes the townsfolk’s long-buried secrets, and with them potential motives, through sheer attrition. The two are assisted in their investigation by Abby, a crushingly nervous yet incisive rookie, and Sven, the unflappably cheerful police admin, who are my personal MVPs of the series, knocking out one home run of a joke, background bit, or off-kilter line reading after another.

What works most, and best, about Deadloch is that, as in all great mysteries, every little thing ultimately matters. Throwaway lines that you think, early on, are goofy one-off jokes return to haunt the case, or become increasingly potent recurring bits, or both. Every one of the many, many, citizens of Deadloch that we meet has a part to play, some hilarious, some grim, often, again, both. It matters that the town of Deadloch is majority-gay, specifically lesbian, as the culture clash between old, traditionally masculine and misogynist ways and the new, more accepting, liberal, and femme-driven town culture boils over, ignited by murder. Who is getting murdered matters, of course; but don’t expect another series that seems to borderline-revel in violence against women or minorities; in fact, don’t expect a series that revels in violence at all.

I’ve gone on both too long and could go on for hours more about Deadloch. After watching it a second time through over the last few days to write this review, I’ve realized that it is simply like no other show I have ever watched; and boy, have I watched a lot of shows. Trust me. Beyond too many. I was nervous, starting it the second time, that I had been over-wowed by the Australian-ness and shock value of the series the first time around. But I enjoyed it just as much, if not even more, viewing the mystery with awakened eyes and watching the killer move horrifyingly confidently through each episode.

Do me a favor, do yourself a favor, do Deadloch a favor and watch it, please. I need someone to talk to about this surprisingly funny, shockingly grim, heartfelt and hilarious oddball of a series. And sure, I also need there to be a Season 2.

DULCIE: “You said she looks like a traumatized bush baby.”

“Deadloch” is available to stream on Amazon Prime.

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