Call it Australian noir if you want. Like the Scandinavian variety, only all the action happens on the beach, in blinding sunlight, the detectives cutting about in suits and Ray-Bans looking like something out of The Matrix. It's good, once your pupils adjust.
Deep Water, a dark (but bright) four-part crime miniseries that draws on the real-life, anti-gay hate crimes that took place in Sydney in the 80s and 90s, has taken a couple of years to get here. It first aired in Australia in 2016, but in a way the timing couldn't be better. At the heart of the series is the historical ineptitude of Sydney police – all too willing, it would seem, to turn a blind eye – a theme it shares with the current hit podcast series, The Teacher's Pet.
This one is set in the modern day, with an odd couple pair of detectives investigating the brutal murder of a young gay man in Bondi. Detective Tori Lustigman (Yael Stone, Orange is the New Black) has just moved back to the city with her son. She doesn't take any nonsense from anyone, not the feds and certainly not partner Detective Nick Manning (Noah Taylor, the one who looks like he was born to star in a Nick Cave biopic).
At first, it seems a fairly straightforward case – "angry iced-up, sleep-deprived boxer (the victim's downstairs neighbour) or a jealous lover", Manning summarises. The victim is found to have been using an app called Thrustr (on an iPad no less), a slightly cringe-worthy, made-up version of Grindr, to "meet random men for sex". Their old-school boss, Chief Inspector Peel (William McInnes, better known as Schultz from Blue Heelers), seems all too happy to pin it on the jealous boyfriend theory and go home to watch some rugby league.
Detective Lustigman digs a little deeper, though, and uncovers chilling similarities to an unsolved murder 26 years ago in the same spot. This is where the historical element starts being folded in – quite convincingly, all things considered – and where the show finally starts to hit its straps.
