The Cutprice Guignol

There’s this scene, in the first episode of Deadloch – this scene that told me I was going to love every moment of this show still to come.

In the small town of Deadloch, a man has been murdered. A funerial procession of police cars moves his body across the gloom of a winter evening; various members of the community and suspects in his death look on, some toasting to his memory, others more ambiguous in their reactions. It’s a dark scene rich with questions, mystery, dripping with noirish sensibilities and handsome cinematography.

And then, the cars grind to a halt, realise they’ve been going in the wrong direction, and make an ignoble and messy attempt to back it all up and get on the right path. The same reactions from the same characters in the same places play out in reverse order. It’s so freaking silly and fun and ridiculous, an acknowledgement of classic crime thriller tropes before literally turning them on their head, and from that moment on, I knew I was in good hands with Kate McCartney and Kate McClennan’s Australian crime drama comedy.

Deadloch follows Dulcie Collins (Kate Box), a one-time detective who’s moved from Sydney after an affair to try and save her marriage to her wife (Alicia Gardner); when a serial killer starts picking off the town’s menfolk, an eccentric out-of-town detective Eddie (Madeleine Sami) is sent in to bring the killer to justice.

And God, let me say this: if you think you have seen the odd-couple cop pairing done to death, this is the show that you need to re-invigorate your belief in the concept. Box and Sami are such a sensationally well-balanced double-act, both of them competent in their own ways and utterly annoyed by the other’s approach to that competency. and I think a huge amount of the credit here goes to their performances, especially Sami as Eddie (my absolute beloved, as you’d know if you have the misfortune of following me on social media and seeing me thirst-tweet about her and her bad shirts all week). Eddie’s such an outrageously over-the-top character that it would be so easy to fall into the realm of irritation or shark-jumping with her attitude, but Sami always finds a way to ground it without losing the unrelenting social nuclear weaponry of Eddie’s character.

And I feel like I’ve said it before, but I’m such a sucker for a small town show, especially one that throws in a few murders to spice things up. I grew up in a small town, and Deadloch perfectly captures that feeling of everyone knowing everyone, of the weird incestuous relationships that brew when you’ve only ever known one group of people your whole life, and the secrets that still somehow hang on despite it. The extended cast is brilliant (Susie Yousseff as the mayor Aleyna having a quiet meltdown in the background of the entire season trying to manage a popular festival in the midst of a serial killing is probably my favourite), and all these little overlapping relationships feel as though they have real depth and history to them.

And, beneath all the excellent comedy, there’s a really solid crime mystery running through Deadloch, too. Much like The Curse, it’s a show that skewers a genre only because it’s so confident in being able to pull it off so damn well. The well-paced unfolding of the mystery serial killer plot makes it incredibly moreish, and the show finds ways to consistenly up the stakes in a way that feels true to the characters and setting. From the hilarious subversion in the first episode through to the genuinely really compelling finale (which I won’t spoil for you here), it’s like Broadchurch by way of Brass Eye.

Deadloch is probably one of my favourite things I’ve watched this year, an incredibly polished and confident mystery show couched in some of the funniest one-liners you’ve heard all year (referring to an emotional breakdown as “The Big One” instantly entered my regular lexicon). If you haven’t seen it yet, consider this your marching orders to do so at once. And then come and talk to me about Eddie, because I think I might be getting a little too silly about this crush.

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(header image via Flicks)