What I'm Watching: Deadloch

Over on 'zon. Bodies start piling up in a little mostly-lesbian resort town in Tasmania, currently having a "Winter Feastival". The local cop, Dulcie (Kate Box) used to be a detective in Sydney, which passes for civilization, so she investigates. Soon a bizarrely drunk, stupid, unwashed, hairy, probably-Human (much like Nobby Nobs from Discworld) detective Eddie (Madeleine Sami) shows up to "help". More bodies pile up, with ritualistic patterns.

The show mostly exists to skewer new-agey bullshit, pretentious people, stupid people, racists, sexist men, women, and really anything. The serial killings and bodies are just an excuse. The, uh, surprise intermission at the 4-hour-long art film is perfect.

Eddie goes from a horrible caricature muppet to someone not too bright (cop, obvs) working far above her abilities, dealing alone with trauma and about to get some more. Dulcie's ridiculously calm and stoic despite a really insane world she's forced to put up with; her wife in particular is a different kind of self-centered chaos muppet no normal person could deal with.

Abby (Nina Oyama) plays the one reasonable person, a long-suffering assistant, fiancée to the shittiest man since Lucy's other boyfriend in Twin Peaks. I love every scene with Abby ("Big Eyes" to Eddie, who is incapable of learning names).

There's a little Scooby-Doo/indigenous people subplot with three teenagers, black, native, and gay, and the rich bitch who owns the local sacred island and won't allow anyone on it, but offers scholarships to get them assimilated. Hm, real estate or something else?

The straight men & women of the town range from feeble-minded working-class thugs to long-suffering with tarts or crazy women, with one or two suspicious exceptions.

I pegged the instigator (who later confesses) in the first episode, but the actual killer baffles me, there's no setup and clues to their involvement except one, which is withheld from Dulcie as well until late. The final showdown and possibly-obscure death escape in the dark, turns into a very trite solution, chance punishes the guilty. I dislike the trivial last 30 minutes or so of an otherwise extremely fun gag.

Other than being doled out an ep a week, and maybe needing a 25-50% editing pass like all streaming shows, this was a nice watch. If your sense of humor's laughing at corpses, this is for you.

★★★★½