Mystery Road: Origin Season 2 review: intriguing, snappy and addictive

One of Australia’s greatest performers, Mystery Road star Aaron Pedersen’s indelible footsteps on the cultural fabric of this land ensure he’s no easy act to follow. 

And yet somehow, Beast of War star Mark Coles Smith made it look like a breeze when he stepped into the careworn shoes of Detective Jay Swan after Arrernte and Arabana actor Pedersen called time after two spin-off series on the ABC, following his turns in Ivan Sen’s films, Mystery Road and Goldstone.

Of course, that’s because Smith (Nyikina) is another of this joint’s greatest performers. Watching him stand tall in season one of prequel series Mystery Road: Origin, it’s clear he just gets Jay Swan. As we watched him face down Ned Kelly mask-wearing Nazis, navigate an estranged relationship with his dad (Kelton Pell) and brother Sputty (Clarence Ryan), all while finding time to flirt with future wife Mary (Tuuli Narkle), we realise that Jay has always been cool and collected. 

Watch the trailer for Mystery Road: Origin season 2.

Quietly gruff, more so than calm, his face holds still over deep-running waters. The only thing that changes, as he gets older, is his control over the demons that haunt him. But this younger Jay recognises his inherent strength. Holding his own against racist cops in a racist country to rise through the ranks, he understands that colonial law offers no protection for First Nations people, and that sometimes he’ll have to bend or break it to get the job done. 

A fact alluded to early in season two, when Jay responds to a question from a person of interest, Lana (Sweet As actor Shantae Barnes-Cowan), during the early stages of a new investigation in a new town. Mid-interview, she asks him what it’s like to be a Black detective, and he responds, ‘It’s like walking a tightrope.’

Mystery Road: to the loch

Far from the scorched outback, that tightrope now stretches tight over the misty forests of Loch Iris, where Aboriginal blood once ran freely in the streams. A foreboding place, it’s no wonder Mary’s late mother, Catherine (season one’s Lisa Flanagan), high-tailed it and never looked back. 

Catherine grew up in the ‘care’ of the local church-run home, St Joseph’s, though as Mary reminds Jay, ‘Being in care isn’t being safe.’

That fire and brimstone intuition, concealing awful secrets sadly known all too well now, has long-since shuttered, with the building taken over by the local hospital, its former records gathering dust in a locked room. A nurse, Mary’s now working here, trying to make a difference in the town her mother forsook. 

They’re expecting a baby while looking after Mary’s niece, Anya (Eloise Hart), whose mum and dad are in prison after the events of last season. But their fresh start is off to a rotten beginning. Jay nearly gets run off the road on the way into town by a 4WD that’s been stolen by a young lad, Swayze (The New Boy star Aswan Reid). He’s terrified of going back to that hospital. 

At the cop shop, Jay’s new partner, the permanently half-cut Sergeant Simmo, is none too impressed by his rapid elevation to detective. ‘You got your last boss locked up.’ It’s a magnificently salty turn by Robyn Malcolm, shrouded in a cigarette fug. Simmo’s been around long enough to care little. Anyone who really needs her can find her at the local pub. She’s even more pissed that Jay’s arrival appears to have dragged a storm in. 

‘This used to be a quiet town until you showed up,’ she huffs as the bodies begin to drop. A situation ignited when Sputty also rocks up, sparking trouble with the local racists. There’s a stark reminder of the first season’s ‘ornamental’ neck chains when Jay’s bro winds up in a near-lynching.

‘Around here, you need to keep your eye on those kids,’ says Joey (Luke Carrol), a neurodivergent man who carries his own burden, and whom Jay promptly distrusts, a suspicion exacerbated when two kids go missing.

Throw in a menacing nun, a nosy social worker, buried family history and enough boofheads to field an abundance of suspects and the scene is set for a conflagration that will consume this one-pub town like an unfortunate doll’s house Mary takes a dislike to. 

Mystery Road: two become one 

Handsomely lensed by cinematographer Sky Davies, who magnifies the town’s crisp, chilly blues, this intriguing season of Mystery Road: Origin is co-directed by a returning Wayne Blair and Sweet As filmmaker Jub Clerc, working from screenplays by an all-First Nations writing room including Erica Glynn, Steven McGregor and previous series star, Jada Alberts.

Narkle’s chemistry with Smith crackles, and it’s great to see the show continually layer more depth into Mary and their fluctuating relationship. Malcolm is a treasure, her dark seam of cranky comedy the perfect foil to Jay’s straight man routine, echoing Pedersen’s sparring with Judy Davis. 

Top End Bub actor Ryan also gets to be goofier this time round, working his own love interest with Mary’s colleague, Alice (Alex Malone). Even Smith gets to deliver one deadpan zinger when the self-serious Jay asks his bro, ‘who the fuck’ she is, in a hilarious nod to the infamously potty-mouthed song by Smokie. 

Snappily edited by Nicholas Holmes, folding overlapping timelines that swirl up the scarlet dirt buried in clay below rain-lashed grass, it’s compelling stuff. If it’s not quite as tightly paced as the opening gambit, Mystery Road: Origin still makes for a compulsively addictive binge.

Terri Lamera’s costume work, in particular, helps connect Smith to Pedersen, as the younger Jay loses the cop togs in favour of his trademark denim, flannels and cowboy hat. He may be a long way from the desert, with a broken road ahead of him yet, but Smith is Jay, as two become one. 

Mystery Road: Origin Season 2 is streaming on ABC iView from 21 September.

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