Kate McLennan and Kate McCartney return with a crime-themed Kath & Kim in Deadloch
Deadloch will make you laugh, cry, think and make you move to Tasmania. If you loved Blue Heelers and A Country Practice then cancel your weekend plans.
If you loved Blue Heelers and A Country Practice then cancel your entire weekend plans. Deadloch is here.
Think of it as Maggie Doyle fanfic. That’s if our favourite female cop had survived, dumped PJ, discovered she was gay and moved to Wandin Valley for a fresh start.
Deadloch is a small-screen masterpiece created by two of our sharpest, most talented comedians, Kate McLennan and Kate McCartney.
To understand Deadloch – a rollicking, murder mystery set in rural Tasmania – and the dopamine this new series induces, one must binge the previous work of “the Kates”.
The pair is this generation’s French and Saunders, our new Gina Riley and Jane Turner.
Just like Kath & Kim, Deadloch offers a brilliant reflection of contemporary Australian life. The Kates don’t appear on screen in Deadloch, but those who are familiar with their searing dialogue and punchlines, which leave you winded from laughing, will notice this is a trademark McLennan and McCartney production.
The subject matter is dark and gritty. Gender and racial stereotypes are addressed with a sly style and no one, and nothing, is safe from skewering. But there are legitimate laughs at every beat and in every interaction. It makes you think, laugh and guess what’s next at the same time.
It starts with the death of the local footy coach, whose naked body washes up on shore in a sleepy, yet rapidly gentrifying, seaside town and is discovered by two young locals, one of whom is affected by at least “six UDLs”. The local cops arrive – led by Dulcie Collins (played by Rake and Wentworth’s Kate Box) – and begin the investigation.
One of the juniors on the case, played by Tonightly’s Tom Ballard, forgets his uniform as “I think I can still make yoga”. Another (played by Nina Oyama of Utopia fame) decides to cancel her wedding dress fitting when it appears nothing is as it seems.
“Ahhh! I loved that c--t like a brother,” a bloke says when told the news of the death. “He was your brother,” Collins replies.
A detective from out of town is then dispatched to solve the case after the Commissioner is caught up tending to a PR nightmare involving a wombat vomiting on Princess Mary, as Collins – Deadloch’s senior sergeant – tries to hide her new assignment from her loving, earnest wife (played by the luminous Offspring and Queen Kat, Carmel and St Jude alumnus Alicia Gardiner).
After the man turns up dead, the narrative threads start weaving together, and around two very different detectives.
Deadloch is an eight-part series that Amazon will roll out over the coming weeks. Here’s hoping contract negotiations with the Kates and the executives of the US streaming service are in the works or at least used as fodder for their next venture.
“It was quite controversial,” McCartney says. “It was a real talking point. We all had a hand in creating this document that had footnotes and citations, where we explained the Australian cultural context for using ‘c--t’ and how borderline innocuous it can be. We explained how it fit in the rhythm of our writing. We invoked Shakespeare. And Amazon read it and said, ‘That makes sense’,” she deadpans.
“I like to think of Deadloch as an orchestral piece of writing,” she adds. “From the cerebral wordy humour to fart jokes or someone falling over, we cover a few bases. There is the use of swearing as well – it is blue and crude and we got to do something interesting and different by fusing this all together. The formula is very Australian.”
You can’t binge this type of comedy. It shouldn’t be rushed; it’s an ossobuco of brilliance with spice and sass that will repeat on you. I found myself recalling lines and jokes hours after watching and bursting into laughter in public. Be on the lookout for a slow-mo, dramatic car scene in episode one. It’s a pastiche of Working Dog-esque crafted humour, tailored and executed exquisitely for modern Australia.
After watching it you’ll understand why “Oi! Hobart’s the other way!” should be a new tourism slogan for the Apple Isle. Deadloch has more zingers than a hungover Millennial.
Excuse the heavy use of food to illustrate the brilliance, but it’s how I came to discover McLennan and McCartney.
The duo burst on to the internet (after meeting virtually on Twitter) and went viral back in 2015 with their online cooking program, The Katering Show.
The pilot about a Thermomix – the kitchen fad before airfryers arrived – or as the Kates explain, “the type of expensive kitchen appliance your rich mother-in-law gives you as a wedding gift because she doesn’t think you can cook” also included a parody of the I Quit Sugar diet before being spun out into two successful seasons.
The Katering Show still has more than 100,000 subscribers on YouTube and the series, which charts the journey of “a food intolerant and intolerable foodie”, has clocked up millions of views.
From there they moved more mainstream with Get Krack!n which aired on the ABC back in 2018, when the national broadcaster (and any local linear network to be honest) cared about actual comedy and biting satire.
Get Krack!n lampooned the morning breakfast TV scene so savagely it’s still shocking Kochie and Karl didn’t sue over Matt Day’s cameo as the male co-host.
The Kates starred as dead-eyed, strung-out TV presenters who jump between topics including assisted suicide, meditation, throw pillows and sarongs.
It was stupidity jacked up on too much caffeine. It was genius, bonkers and off the wall.
But at its core was a boiling hot rage about the treatment of women. All women and minorities. They handed over the show to actors and proud Indigenous prodigies Miranda Tapsell and Nakkiah Lui for the final episode. What transpired was something that should be studied and lauded for years to come.
Tapsell and Lui assumed the Kates’ on-screen personas and filled their shapewear as fill-in hosts.
“I just want to stop being mistaken for Deborah Mailman,” Lui said. “Be the Aboriginal Sonia Kruger,” whispers Tapsell.
From there, Tapsell and Lui worked against guests and crew who painted their faces white, made them show off “colonial hellscape mudrooms” and asked for their support for a white nationalist party.
In the program, Tapsell coached Lui, tired of being perceived as an “angry blak woman”, in the necessary compromises: “Don’t ever ask for anything. Say sorry all the time. Order cupcakes for the crew so they like you. Be bright, be breezy. Don’t make a white lady cry.”
That’s the brutal brilliance of McCartney and McLennan. Waves of emotion come to the fore with them, be it in sniffles of satisfaction for them saying the things we all think, or tears of laughter.
Deadloch is streaming now on Amazon Prime.
