Our social, cultural and philosophical safety zones are challenged in the unmistakably Australian Scrublands – streaming on Stan. The show epitomises what our writers, actors and producers do best when they are given the funding, time and opportunity, writes Cat Woods.
Scrublands: Season 1
Based on Chris Hammer’s award-winning debut novel of the same name, Scrublands introduces viewers to the remote, somewhat antiquated NSW town of Riversend. The town is a smudge on the map that would have remained an obscurity were it not for the heinous event—an apparently random mass killing—that catapulted Riversend into news headlines. When weary and worn journalist Martin Scarsden (wonderfully portrayed by Luke Arnold) arrives in Riversend to report on the consequences of the event a year later, he becomes inextricably entangled in the lives of town locals.
Arnold, who was exceptional as doomed INXS frontman Michael Hutchence in Never Tear Us Apart: The Untold Story of INXS, is partnered with the inimitable Bella Heathcote (C*A*U*G*H*T, Pieces of Her, Bloom) as his love interest, bookshop owner Mandy Bond. The versatile drama-comedic chameleon Adam Zwar is the hapless town hero, cop Robbie Haus Jones, who is one of the few locals willing to answer Scarsden’s questions. But it is Jay Ryan as the murderous Reverend Byron Swift who is Scarsden’s nemesis and the reason he is in Riversend at all. What drove an attractive, popular young preacher to gun down local men from the church steps?
While Bond accuses Scarsden of engaging in “trauma porn”, she also observes his interest in a used copy of The Year of Living Dangerously, the 1978 novel-turned-film in which a young, Australian journalist is out of his depth in a foreign land he has no real understanding of, and where nobody is who they seem. It’s a suitable reference point for Scarsden’s own circumstances, and redeems him somewhat to Bond. What becomes clear from early in the first episode is that Swift’s “random mass shooting” was hardly random. He aimed and shot five times, taking out five local men swiftly and efficiently. Then, he knowingly aimed his gun at Haus Jones, knowing this would lead to his own “suicide by cop”. So, far from the “puff piece” Scarsden’s editor assigned him, this turns into an exploration of small-town politics, rivalries, hidden violence and betrayals, and intergenerational farming wealth contrasted with poverty, and all of it laced with bitterness and rage.
In a sea of American and British crime dramas, Scrublands is unmistakeably Australian, indulging in the sunburned, sparse landscape of a town forgotten by urban evolution and our broad, lackadaisical dialogue. For fans of Jack Irish, another crime novel-turned-TV series starring Guy Pearce, Scrublands’ Martin Scarsden treads a similar path. He’s a loner with a penchant for throwing himself into dangerous situations heroically, even recklessly. He’s a magnet for troubled, beautiful women. So far, so stereotypical of male protagonists of crime fiction. But, just as Guy Pearce thoroughly transformed into a charming, ratbaggish Jack Irish, Luke Arnold breathes dynamic life into Martin Scarsden.
But, it is Ryan who will haunt viewers well beyond the final fourth episode. He proved his adeptness for dark mystery in Jane Campion’s Top of The Lake in 2013, and more recently as the standout star of Queensland crime caper No Escape. There’s a richness to the talent onscreen that has matured and deepened since many viewers last saw them on Australian series. Ryan, like Arnold, earned his screen apprenticeship through roles in Australian household dramas. Ryan and Heathcote’s classroom was Neighbours, while Arnold spent a year on Home and Away, and three years on Black Sails.
In a sense, Scrublands has provided a fertile ground for workhorse, daily drama stars of most viewers’ youth to converge and really flex their actorly muscles in a story that challenges our social, cultural and philosophical safety zones. Is the Reverend a paedophile, as some locals whisper? Is the heroic small-town cop all he seems? Has Scarsden allowed himself to fall head-over-heels for Bond, blinding him to her possible involvement in the killing?
Scrublands was a meaty, juicily rewarding book with various muscular plotlines running parallel before weaving into each other in the latter half of the story. All the elements were present in the novel to ensure a great screen experience—visceral characters, snappy dialogue, an economically-deprived, battling regional town scarred by political and cultural divisions, and (of course) a love story between two beautiful, damaged people.
What Ryan, Arnold, Heathcote and Zwar have achieved—along with emerging talent Zane Ciarma (as young Jamie Landers)—is a complex, pacy drama that weaves real-life headlines into its clever storytelling. Scrublands epitomises what Australian writers, actors and producers do best when they are given the funding, time and opportunity: craft nuanced, haunting screen experiences that reflect our neighbours, our lives and our experiences back to us, however merciless that may be.
