descending into deadlochposting on main i don't even care. this show is SO GOOD. i think the thing that really stuck with me throughout every episode is how committed it is to not fucking up women, and especially women of color, just to have a Plot Point + for Emotional Resonance!!! every woman on this show gets an ending that feels earned. (and yes that does include margaret carruthers.) there is just so much love woven into this narrative but they still manage to capture the grim miserable reality of patriarchy without EVER reducing a female character we care about to a Murder Victim or having her horrifically brutalized as an ending!!!! like holy shit, guys, it's actually fucking possible! you can create horror blended perfectly with humor and never actually fuck women over!!!
and yeah actually as a woc it felt really fucking good to watch a show where i got to see women of color (aleyna and tammy and sharelle and miranda and faye my beloved <333) just thrive and be silly and stupid and terrible and also lovable. and also, oh my god, revolutionary, NOT GET MURDERED, even though this is literally a fckin murder show!!! i said to my dad like midway through the series that i just got this sense the show understood how goddamn hard it is to watch television sometimes waiting for that character you love, who looks like you and has life experiences that resonate with you, to get killed, or to be treated like she's not important, and how dedicated it is to not just killing off women for shock value. every woman in this show mattered and had meaning and dimension.
because seriously, SO MANY INCREDIBLE WOMEN!!! abby with her perfect little haircut driving off into the sunset saying Of Course She Knows She's Right About Forensics. aleyna and her husband, her whole heart!!!! vanessa who in a lesser show would have been reduced to The Bad Woman, The Bigot, but we are shown how she has been abused and mistreated by men and how that's so informed her perspective + her genuine love for her son! sharelle who lays down the hard truths, who calls them out -- "all this civility but no fucking community" !!! miranda who learns that she doesn't want blood money from a woman who looks down on her cousin! tammy who is literally just all about that footy club the entire time even as men are being murdered and that's honestly so real of her. skye o'dwyer who perfectly captures that Emotionally Unavailable Dad energy except she's a lesbian and i love her. nadiyah who is Trying Her Best :) And Gritting Her Teeth About It :) faye who has no god damn patience for margaret carruthers and all kinds of blunt determined love for her niece and her daughter. vic who throws herself under the bus because she's just so determined to protect anyone she can after the women in this town protected her and kept her secret for so long!!! cath who parents her emotions and is definitely relentless in her guilting but also so relentless in her love. MARGARET CARRUTHERS WHO EXEMPLIFIES SHITTY RICH WHITE WOMAN. and of fucking course, the legends, the buddy-cop duo of all time, dulcie and eddie, who are just perpetually going around like this
except it's not even working because eddie chewed the leash off.
favorite show of the year by far. so so happy about it. rotating it joyfully in my brain for the next week, probably longer.
Thinking abt Dulcie picking up Eddie by the scruff of her jacket 😳 like ma'am pls I too am small and gay and would like to manhandled by a beautiful butch
thinking about pre-Deadloch Eddie, desperately trying to tell people that Bushy’s death was suspicious, while everyone told her she was crazy and that his death was her own fault, no one wanting to speak to her so she was alone in her grief, and eventually their words started to wear her down and even she believed she was responsible for him dying. Hi happy Sunday how is everybody
I have just realised why I was so blindsided by the identity of the killer in Deadloch.
(Obviously BIG SPOILERS here! Only carry on if you've watched Deadloch! If you haven't watched Deadloch, go and watch Deadloch!)
Okay, so I never even thought about Ray as the killer. And I think it's because the Kates did something very clever and took advantage of a blind spot. I'm so used to shows jamming in an incongruous male romantic interest for the main (straight, female) character that I don't even think about him, I just wait for his scenes to be over so that we can get on with the story. The obligatory romantic D plot that adds nothing to the main storyline has become just so much wallpaper. And I think they used it as camouflage.
And also Ray seemed so sweet and Duncan Fellowes was so funny and, let's admit it, we were all focusing on Eddie anyway.
A sudden thought: be careful with your tags, folks! Don't give the mystery away!
I love how the show is both so serious and so unserious and they balance that shit so well so you’re chuckling even as your heart is breaking, but nowhere is this dichotomy more apparent than when they’re discussing Skye as a suspect and they’re like “We gotta be sure about this because it has to mean something when Dulcie throws away her life and all her meaningful relationships by arresting her best friend :D”
I've liked Kate Box in other stuff but... something about Dulcie is incredibly attractive to me. Is it her competence? The uniform? Her apparently endless patience for idiots? Who can say.
All those things! And her voice. Although, not just the uniform, she looks so good in just slacks and a shirt. That last scene, my god, they knew what they were doing! She could not have been styled to look more of a dreamboat.
But I really do love her character, the by-the-book earnest helpful kind leads are always my weakness.
interesting how ray pies killed all those men in the name of "solidarity with women" but ended up throwing said women like skye o'dwyer under the bus. how continuing the killings made it so that vic had to bring up that trauma of hers again. kind of like how men use force and violence to solve societal issues whilst ignoring what the victims (women) have to say about it. taking credit when its not supposed to be about taking credit. wanting notoriety vs wanting retribution.