Deadloch: Two Female Detectives and a Male Body on the Beach.

 

Usually tv series about a small-town murder begin with a a dead woman (whose naked body is featured), and a male and a female detective are assigned to the case, and fall in love.  In Deadloch, on Amazon Prime, it's a dead man and two female detectives: a big genre change.  No beefcake potential, but I'm still watching.

Scene 1: Night.  Two women walk through the town of Deadloch to the beach, where they stumble upon a naked man, dead, face up.  One accidentally drops her cigarette onto his extremely impressive penis (don't worry, he's not really dead, so it's ok to look).

Cut to the mayor being interviewed on tv about Deadloch's summer festival, an important event for the Tasmanian coastal community.  We see a lot of underwear hung up to dry.  Two women, Dulcie and Cath, are having oral sex (fully clothed, thank God). Then Cath goes to workat Deadloch Veterinary Services, and Dulcie (pronounced DULL-CEE) gets a call  about the murder!

Scene 2: Dulcie, the head Constable, and her team, Abby and Sven (Tom Ballard, left), examine the body.  He's got tattoos from the Deadlock Football (Soccer) Club and Trent Latham, so he must be Trent Latham (Barry Wheeler, top photo).  Wait -- do you usually get a tattoo of your own name?

The Commissioner calls and refers to the body as "she."  Dulce informs him that it's a "he."  Surprised, he muses: "This sort of thing, you expect a woman."  99.99% of the time, yes.  Women are stereotyped as soft and fragile, so their murders have a strong emotional impact.  Men in a passive state make the macho hetero mal viewers uncomfortable.  "Forensics is coming, and we've recruited a detective from Darwin, to lead the case.  Until they arrive, you're in charge."  Darwin?  But that's on the other side of the country from Tasmania, a 7-hour plane flight.  Maybe they mean Darwin Street in Hobart?

Scene 3: The Deadlock Football Club.  "Where's coach?"   Cut to forensics examining the crime scene.   Constable Dulcie calls her wife to tell her about being assigned to the case.  "But you promised, no more detective work!"

The teenage Tom (Harry Radbone, left) shows up, and recognizes the body as his coach.  Coach's wife Vanessa and her son have been notified, and show up screaming.  Someone tackles Vanessa to to keep her from seeing the body -- unsuccessfully.  

Dulcie interviews the wife about their movements last night: "We ate tuna mornay, watched Ninja Warrior, and went to bed and made love."  "Can anyone verify that?"  Um...the making love part?  "Yes, my son heard us." 

"Did he go to the Beast Master Gym that his brother Gavin co-owns?"  Notice how skillfully they engage in plot exposition?  "No, Gavin was at the harbor putting decals on the boat for their new business, Pro-Bro (protein for bros)."

Scene 4:  Dulcie and her assistant intervie the dead guy's brother, Gavin (Jackson Tozer), a belligerent, sexist, shirtless guy (nice chest, if you're into bears) whose ex-wife has a restraining order against him.  Informed that his brother is dead, he yells "Fuck!  It was probably one of those lesbian man-hating bitches in this town!"

Asked when he saw Trent yesterday, he gets all defensive and calls his mate Jimmy to attest that they were together all night. All night, huh?  Tell me more. 

Scene 5:  The scary woods of Tasmania, night.  Dulcie and her assistants are at the constable station, working on the case. Forensics found no evidence of Dead Guy's personal effects, and the trail cameras have all been smashed to bits (so the teenagers could use nitrous oxide).  

Dulcie rushes off to an event with her wife, but she walks past the house full of laughing, talking people to examine the Pro-Bro boat that Dead Guy and his brother were working on.  The security camera is smashed, and Brother's Mate Jimmy  (Matt Burton) is struggling with a bushel of copper wire. 

The mortuary ambulance and police cars drive right through town, so everyone sees them, including Ray (Duncan Fellows), who is yelling at Trent's wife.  I don't know who Ray is.  Whoops, they took a wrong turn and have to turn around and drive through town again.

A brash, coarse woman pops out of the bathroom.  "Excuse me, you can't be here," and so on, until they discover that she's the big city detective, Eddie Redcliffe.  She erases  all of Dulcie's notes, insults her work, and asks all of the questions that have already been answered.  I'd be expecting a "You're arrogant!" bickering romance, but Dulcie is already spoken for.

He was strangled, so Detective Eddie suggests that his "busy dick" is to blame: someone got jealous.  Or maybe it's the brother, Gavin: "He looks like a psycho killer."  This woman is highly annoying.  Australian humor, I guess. 

Scene 6:  At the autopsy, Detective Eddie keeps jumping to conclusions and second-guessing the coroner..   Time of death: Between 3 and 4 am. Fist fight prior to his death.  He was hit with a pink ceramic object, but not hard enough to kill him. His tongue was cut out. His last meal was steak.  "Wait -- his wife said tuna mornay."  

Meanwhile, Dulcie deals with a seal that's blocking the bridge.  The mayor orders her assistant Gez (trans actor Harvey Zielinski) to shoot it, but Dulcie suggests just shooing it away.

They discuss the previous mayor, who was found naked on the beach five years ago.

Scene 7: Detective Eddie interrogates the dead guy's son, Dolph (Bryce Tollard-Williams)  "We had tuna mornay for dinner and went to bed at 11:00 pm."    Eddie steals part of a pink ceramic plate set. 

I'm out of space, so I'll stop there.

Beefcake: Just the corpse.

Heterosexism: No heterosexual romances mentioned at this point.

Gay Characters:  The lesbian couple.  No one else specified at this point.

Will I Keep Watching  It's nice to see a dead guy and female detectives for a change, but I'm still not into murder mysteries.