Australian comedy slash crime noir series Deadloch has returned for a second season bringing back our favourite characters for our outrageously funny adventure.
While the first season saw loud and brash Detective Eddie Redcliffe heading to cold and dark Tasmania to solve a murder, butting heads with local detective Dulcie Collins. This time round the tables are turned, Eddie has returned to her regular stomping ground in the far north and Dulcie is the one having to acclimatise.
As the series hit our screens on Amazon Prime we caught up with stars Madeline Sami and Kate Box, who respectively play Eddie and Dulcie.
OUTinPerth co-editor Graeme Watson asked the pair what it was like returning to these characters now that the tables had been turned and Box’s character was now the “fish out of water”.
“I was pretty spectacular and really nice to for Dulce to have to need Eddie’s guidance so much – just for basic survival, and hydration, and directions. You throw them both into this whole new town that is so beautifully built and very different from Deadloch.” Kate Box said. “It was just an utter joy. It was sweaty joy.”
Box said given the choice between filming in the cold of Tasmania or the heat of the Northern Territory, she’d opt for the later, while Madeline Sami was also enthused about the time the cast and crew spent in the Top End.
“Darwin is a very magic place. It just feels insane there. I feel it’s also like we’re all in this together. Everyone talks about how hot it is, and how they’re going to survive. It makes for kooky characters too – like everyone you meet there, or every place you go. The sunset is incredible, and the food is so good. It just feels like a very place that’s very alive. We all really loved shooting up there.”
This time round the new setting gives the show an opportunity to introduce some really loud, outrageous and unique characters. Box says one of her favourite things about the new season is the character of Eddie makes a lot more sense when you see where she comes from, and who she’s grown up around.
“One of the things I really enjoy about Season Two is it really puts Eddie in context. Eddie was so out of context in Tasmania. It almost feels like she’s more mellow than a lot of the other characters.
“You just go ‘Oh, I get it. Now I get it. You came from this.'” Box said.
“It is a place that you have to be hardy.” Sami said of the new setting. “It is a little bit full of cowboys the Northern Territory, it’s loose, it really makes, and it makes Eddie make sense.”
The actor is also proud to be in a show created by two women, that has women as all the main characters. The series is written by Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan, collectively known as the Kates. They previously had success with Get Krack!n and The Katering Show for ABC TV.
“For a long time women were pigeonholed into certain roles in film and television, and certainly women over their 40s weren’t given lead roles.” Sami said.
Box chimes in and comments that there was a lot of truth in comedian Amy Schumer’s sketch where she describes a female actor reaching their forties and discovering it’s classed as their “last fuckable day”.
“It is that period of time until you become like a mum, or you get a few wrinkles, or you get gray hair and then you can start playing the mum.” Box said. “But once you’re not the ingenue.”
“It does feel like there’s been a shift for women led TV shows, which is great, and more diversity obviously is also great.
“I just feel feel lucky to get into your 40s and get to be playing kind of the most complex and interesting characters. It feels like we’ve made it, we finally made it.”
The full season of the six-part crime comedy is available to stream globally on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories.
