‘Shame and trauma’: Why this murder mystery series just got a whole lot darker

There’s a body on the kitchen floor with blood pooled all around it. A trail of bloodied footprints leads up the hallway.

It’s a confronting scene but for Luke Arnold, who plays investigative journalist Martin Scarsden in the series Scrublands, it’s a repeatable puzzle. He not only finds the body, he does it over and over again while filming the one scene, feigning surprise every time. So, how then, does he do it?

“To walk into a room with a body on the floor and pretend that you don’t know there’s a body on the floor, and that your partner [in the show] is also there holding a bloody knife, it’s a lot,” says Arnold, laughing.

“There are some elements like that, that are easier to write on the page and when you’re actually in the character’s head [as a reader] you go, ‘Oh, this all makes sense’. But there’s sometimes an extra hurdle that comes when you’re watching on screen, especially at the beginning of a show, the audience’s BS meter is going very quickly, and they’re trying to work out is this person acting in a way that feels believable?

Arnold and Luke Carroll (left) play estranged childhood friends in Scrublands’ second season.

“Because if too early [in the scene], the audience is going, ‘Why did they do that?’ it can be hard to get them back. So it is both trying to very much go through the moment-by-moment reality, while also having your own BS meter going, of what’s going to look right, what’s going to feel right to the audience.”

Facing death is Arnold’s speciality in Scrublands, the drama series adapted from Australian author Chris Hammer’s bestselling crime novels. In season one, it was a mass-murdering priest in the small NSW town of Riversend, while in season two, it’s the death of an old school friend that confronts Martin in his hometown of Port Silver on the West Australian coast.

“In season one, it’s not Martin’s story, he’s the audience’s eyes through this, but he’s not personally connected to the mystery,” says Arnold. “He’s the journalist coming into a town to find the truth, which is very fun to play. That was very comfortable for me.

Heathcote plays the troubled Mandy Bond in Scrublands.

“Where this time around, it’s like, ‘Oh shit’, this is all his history, all his shame and trauma. He’s gonna sometimes be ugly and sometimes be emotional. There’s a lot more stuff to tackle here than season one, so it was more exciting but also a bigger acting challenge.”

Hang on, playing a journalist is exciting? Surely taking on Michael Hutchence in the miniseries INXS: Never Tear Us Apart and the pirate John Silver in Black Sails was way more thrilling? Both roles definitely involved more bandanas and leather than the average journalist sports.

“They’re the dream roles,” he says, laughing. “You always say in drama school, ‘I want to play a rock star, a pirate and a journalist’. Martin, in some ways, is the rock star version of the journalist, the foreign correspondent who speaks truth to power.

“One of my favourite things about Martin is that the moment he encounters someone who thinks they’re untouchable or above it all, he just can’t help but start sticking it to him. A little extra part of him comes alive when there’s some potential asshole, or a powerful person comes in, and there’s a real joy in knocking them down a few pegs.”

Season two of Scrublands peels back more of Martin’s complicated life. He’s still with Mandy Bond (Bella Heathcote), who he met in season one when it was revealed she was having an affair with the priest, but, once again, trouble follows the young mum, who is found holding a bloody knife at the scene of the opening crime.

Arnold as investigative journalist Masrtin Scarsden in Scrublands.

“It’s tough with those two,” says Arnold. “They both come in, not quite ready to open up completely to each other. They both still have got some secrets. If you’ve read book three, you know that Mandy maybe even has some more secrets that aren’t out there yet. So they are doing their best in a very strange situation.”

That wild plotting of coincidences – dead childhood friend, a partner linked to a murder – is what drives so much crime drama. So little of it is plausible, but it is delivered with such conviction (think of every death-riddled small town in Britain) that audiences willingly overlook the ridiculous in return for a bit of entertainment.

And while Scrublands does rely on such coincidences – Port Silver is yet another small town stuffed with intrigue – it finds its strength in the way it deals with emotion. In season one, Martin is battling the ghosts from his days as a war reporter, while the townspeople are dealing with drought and the fallout from the shooting. In season two, it is Martin’s lingering grief over the death of his mother, the separation from his family and the disintegration of a childhood friendship that root the story in reality.

“I think most men my age and younger have probably seen in their fathers, and the men of that generation, how you can just let relationships fester, and disappear just from neglect,” Arnold says. “You’re like, ‘You guys really like each other, you mean a lot to each other, but no one’s picking up the bloody phone.’

“It’s still a thing that happens even in our generation, but I do think we’re a little better at it … but those older generations, it can sometimes be really heartbreaking, where you know that there were these really strong friendships that were just kind of left to rot for no good reason except men not wanting to open up and make the first move.”

As for where the story will go next on screen – the third book in the series, Trust, is set in Sydney and revolves around Mandy’s disappearance – Arnold has hopes it will continue. “Spending too much time overseas is becoming less and less appealing,” he says. “Nothing was luckier than those times when I’d get flown overseas to work on stuff, it was fantastic. But it also means you have to keep your entire life on hold. And that was great in my younger days, and I’m feeling a little more homebound now.”

Scrublands streams on Stan from April 17. Stan is owned by Nine, the publisher of this masthead.

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