The Lesbian Feminist Noir Comedy Getting Me Through Covid
Welcome to this week’s edition of Stacks & Spoons, a weekly newsletter for bookish girls, gays and theys, written by author Jen Wilde. If you enjoy it, make sure to subscribe here.
CW: this post mentions murder, SA, and homophobia.
Well, after avoiding it for four years, Covid finally got me.
I’ve been sick for three weeks, but I didn’t test positive until late in week two with my fifth rapid test. Even though I was coming up negative at first, I still isolated at home – not just because I felt terrible, but because I didn’t want to spread whatever it was I had. We’re in a Covid surge right now, and the only thing I can think of that’s worse than having Covid is giving it to someone else.
The worst of it seems to *hopefully* be over for me, but my energy is trashed. Normally, I’m used to being unwell. Anxiety and chronic pain are my baseline. But getting sick like this, whether it’s the flu or a cold or now with Covid, makes my homesickness worse too. All I want is my mum to sit on the couch and watch TV with me until I fall asleep, or my nana to make me stewed apples. Sometimes it’s easy to pretend I don’t live 10,000 miles away from home, but when I’m not doing great, I feel every one of those miles in my bones.
One way I try to soothe my homesickness is by consuming Aussie content – media, food, sports. So when my mum told me about an Aussie show about “a town of lesbians solving murders” that she loved, I obviously had to check it out.
Deadloch is an 8-episode feminist noir made by and starring queer people. And watching it, you can really feel those gay vibes.
Aesthetically, Deadloch looks and sounds like other popular Nordic Noir murder mysteries. With the arctic blue hues, birds eye pans of a moody coastal landscape, and an eerie musical score, it fits the mold of The Bridge and Broadchurch perfectly. It’s in the writing and the characters that creators Kate McLennon and Kate McCartney (aka The Kates) take the Nordic Noir tropes and subvert them. For one, it’s bloody funny. (Apparently, the original title of the show was Funny Broadchurch, which explains the satirical twist.)
The two detectives on the case are Dulcie Collins and Eddie Redcliffe. Dulcie, the local Sergeant in the small town of Deadloch in Lutruwita (Tasmania), is a lesbian who is by-the-book when it comes to her work. She’s married to Cath, a kooky animal-lover who needs constant reassurance and check-ins about how they’re both feeling (so gay.)
Eddie Redcliffe is brought in from Darwin to help on the case. She has questionable personal hygiene, swears like a truck driver, gets everyone’s names wrong, and wants to close the case ASAP so she can get the hell out of “Satan’s f*cking snow globe.”
The town of Deadloch itself is going through a culture war of sorts. Since a female Mayor (Doctor Mayor Rahme) was elected five years prior, the town has gotten a lot gayer. There’s an all-female choir singing ‘I Touch Myself;’ a new lesbian-owned pub called the Bush Wolf that serves houre d'oeuvres; and a week-long ‘Feastival’ bringing “lesbians from the mainland” to see performance art and Amanda Palmer.
The old guard in town are resistant to these changes, to say the least. Their kingdom is the local footy club (checks out), and they resent being told what to do by a “Mayorette,” “Inspectress,” or any woman, for that matter. They comfortably throw out homophobic slurs and misogynistic insults, and it is made very clear that they are oafish, outdated bullies desperately grasping for power.
Underneath these current tensions is the history between the indigenous community and the white colonizers of Lutruwita. There’s a great storyline about two Palawa cousins and their relationship with the wealthy, white matriarch of the town, but I don’t want to spoil too much. (If I had one criticism of the show, it would be that there wasn’t enough Tammy and Miranda.)
Deadloch pokes fun at the usual crime drama tropes from the start. Within the first few minutes of episode one, Dulcie calls her male superior about the naked body on the beach, and his immediate response is to ask, “Has she been sexually assaulted?”
After Dulcie informs him that the victim is a man, he replies, “This sort of thing, you just presume it’s a woman.”
This is the theme of the series: when it comes to Deadloch, don’t “presume” anything.
No one is who they seem, everyone has a secret, and the twists and turns don’t stop until the very end.
What’s most refreshing about this female-driven crime drama is that the marginalized characters don’t end up as victims, nor are they the butt of jokes. The girls, gays and theys, the Palawa teens, the women of Deadloch, they are the protagonists through and through. Any joke made is one they are in on.
I’m on my seventh rewatch, and it just gets better. The writing is superb, the kind that makes me wish I was in the writers’ room with The Kates, watching the magic happen. The show brings me comfort and reminds me of home. Not because of the murders, obvi. But because I know these people. Hearing that Aussie slang, even the curse words, and that familiar twang in their voices, it’s like music to my ears. I never thought I’d say that – growing up, all I wanted was to get out. But the older I get, the more I appreciate where I came from.
I need you to watch it, not just because more viewers boosts its chances of getting a season two, but because I am in desperate need of Deadlochers (Deadheads? Lochheads?) to talk to about every twist and turn and iconic Eddie moments!
Fair warning, this show won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. If you don’t like dead bodies or swearing, this show is definitely not for you.
Do yourself a favour and watch Deadloch. All 8 episodes are on Amazon Prime now. Oh, and if you aren’t familiar with Australian accents? Turn on those subtitles.
It’s January, why not set yourself up for a year of queer book recs,
sapphic culture essays, and photos of my cats?
IT’S BEEN OVER 100 DAYS.
Contact your reps to demand a ceasefire:
Find a protest to attend wherever you are in the world.
And remember to keep sharing and amplifying Palestinian voices. Don’t stop talking about Gaza.
None of us are free until all of us are free.
ICYMI…
Previously, on Stacks & Spoons: