Itās getting so you canāt visit one of Australiaās many picturesque tourist towns without tripping over a pile of corpses.
Even Victoriaās high country, previously known mostly for the occasional wild horse, is racking up an impressive body count. Earlier this year we had the Eric Bana-led murder mystery The Dry 2: Force of Nature; now thereās High Country, a title which sounds like a tale of small-scale drug dealers and the big time crims who prey on them but (going by the first few episodes at least) turns out to feature pretty much every crime but drug dealing. Guess theyāve got to save something for Season 2.
Read: Force of Nature: The Dry 2 review ā no damp squib
City detective Andie Whitford (Leah Purcell) is the new top cop in the small town of Broken Ridge. In something of a twist for this genre of crime drama, itās not her home town that she left years ago only to be drawn back by a mystery from her youth; instead she and her family ā partner Helen (Sara Wiseman) and their daughter ā have left the city after a big case put her in the sights of some very dangerous people. Sheās hoping for a break from constant threats and danger.
Yeah, good luck with that.
Popular departing chief Sam Dyson (Ian McElhinney) gives her his full support. Not every other cop ā superior or underling ā feels the same about her arrival. Thereās a feral element beneath the touristy faƧade too, with the local teens looking like a bunch of bad seeds and the local poachers (who go around ‘ringbarking’ deer ā cutting off the heads for the antlers and leaving the bodies to rot) letting their opinion of the law be known loud and clear.
Violence
Thereās definitely plenty of small-scale crime and violence around the place. When Helen goes for a bookkeeping job at an artistsā retreat, the job interview ends with the owner (Linda Cropper) firing a shotgun to scare off a violent ex attacking her pregnant niece.
Read: Binge ā new shows streaming March 2024
But the big mystery is the disappearance into the bush of a big city doctor (Francis Greenslade) who murdered his family for reasons that remain unknown despite a growing number of sinister postcards and ominous clues.
A missing person search, no matter how big, isnāt enough to base a whole series on. Fortunately a quick check through the records tells Andie that thereās been a string of suspicious disappearances in the high country of late. Sam says thatās just how things work up here, but his aura of folksy Irish competence is starting to crack even before he shows her his conspiracy wall (actually, an entire conspiracy room) devoted to trying to solve the murder of a local teen five years ago.
It’s a little surprising he needs a whole room, or any evidence at all, considering the only suspect heās considering ā former local teacher Damien Stark (Henry Nixon) ā came into the station claiming to have had a psychic vision of the dead teenās location that turned out to be surprisingly accurate.
Read: Apples Never Fall, Binge review ā a big twist inward
For Sam, thatās all the proof he needs (unfortunately the courts disagreed), but when Damien starts having visions about the current mystery, Andieās not sure whether heās a serial killer or a legit visionary.
Genre fans know the fact that heās the prime suspect in episode one means there are more twists ahead, and this quickly shapes up to be the kind of series where the new cop ends up relying much more on the local outcasts than the established hierarchy. Enter former forestry worker turned tour guide Owen Cooper (Aaron Pederson), who clearly knows the local country better than anyone. Whether heās using that knowledge for good or evil remains to be seen.
Strong cast
This has a strong cast and it gives them plenty to do; this season runs for eight episodes, and the first two establish enough plot threads for a series twice as long. With so much else going on, the mystery is a bit thin to start with, but thereās a lot of pieces to put in place and once things get going events move at a satisfyingly rapid pace.
Some charactersā roles are fairly obvious ā Sam is clearly on a journey of his own thatās going to clash with Andieās new role ā while others could just fade away ā¦ or have their plotlines cut short by whoeverās sticking bodies up hollow trees. The result is enjoyably messy; the setting feels like a town full of stories, not a place where a collection of suspects wait for their turn in the spotlight.
What makes this series really stand out from the increasingly crowded rural murder pack is the sense of place. Broken Ridge quickly feels authentically shady, with a plausible mix of upright locals and stuck-in-their-ways cops keeping the lid on a rotten underbelly. Around that thereās the high country itself; Andieās newcomer status provides more than one opportunity for her to just stand in front of a majestic view and just take it all in.
Plus, sheās the rare big city cop who rides a horse, which tends to come in handy.
Purcell plays Andie as wary, not so much out of place as constantly on guard. Thatās how we know the town isnāt a safe space; if she canāt relax, neither can we. While the mystery here is the obvious hook, at its heart this is a series about a cop sent to tame a lawless (well, by rural Victorian standards at least) town. The direction to pay attention to in High Country isnāt up, itās west ā the wild west to be exact.
The first two episodes of High Country are available on Binge from 8.30pm on 19 March, with new episodes streaming weekly.
Actors:
Leah Purcell, Aaron Pedersen, Sara Wiseman, Ian McElhinney
Director:
Kevin Carlin, Beck Cole
Format: TV Series
Country: Australia
Release: 19 March 2024