Return of award-winning ABC favourite is as moving as it is gritty

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Mystery Road: Origin (season two) ★★★★

It’s been three years since the first award-winning season of the Mystery Road prequel that saw Mark Coles Smith step into the role of the younger incarnation of Detective Jay Swan, played in the original series (itself a film spin-off) by Aaron Pedersen. The first Mystery Road: Origin explained Jay’s backstory, especially his bitterness and his struggle with walking between cultures. Last season’s ending hinted at Jay’s future (some of which, of course, fans already know), and the journey towards that is continued in this second instalment, which is set some six months later.

Jay and his wife Mary (Tuuli Narkle) are embarking on a fresh start, having moved to Mary’s mother’s Country, a fading timber town called Loch Iris, shaded by the region’s towering karri trees. They are now carers for Mary’s young niece Anya, and Mary, now pregnant, has started work as a nurse at the local hospital. Jay, who comes to town after Mary and Anya, is joining the local police force (which consists of precisely one other cop) as a detective.

But before he even arrives in Loch Iris, Jay is forced off the road by a car driven by a visibly shaken Indigenous boy, Swayze (Aswan Reid), who is reluctant to reveal who or what he’s fleeing. So Jay takes Swayze into town where he’s headed to meet his new colleague, Sergeant Paula Simmons (the always incredible Robyn Malcolm). Simmo, as she’s known, isn’t at the police station, but at the local pub – where, when she’s not fishing, she can usually be found. Jaded and aggro, Simmo is unimpressed with Jay even before they’ve met; his reputation as a blackfella copper who has risen through the ranks precedes him.

It’s the year 2000 – a new century, the year of the Sydney Olympics and there’s hope in the air ahead of a wave of political action with the Sydney Harbour Bridge March for Reconciliation. But the long shadow of history hangs over Loch Iris; it might be a new millennium, but the local Indigenous population still deal with racism, and its white inhabitants with denial.

Robyn Malcolm as the jaded local police Sergeant Simmo.

Jay, no stranger to animosity, gets off on the wrong foot with almost everyone, but especially Simmo, who has all but given up pretending to care about her local community, even though it seems she might once have been an idealist. She’s dismissive of Jay’s worries about Swayze, and when a young girl goes missing from the caravan park, she’s equally unbothered; Jay – or “Boney” as she calls him – simply doesn’t understand the way the town works, she tells him.

Then, when Mary, who was born at the local hospital, long linked to the Catholic Church and its orphanage, looks up her records – held in a mysteriously locked room that is off-limits – it sets off a course of action that unravels the town’s long-held secrets, in a storyline that echoes real life.

This season features an entirely First Nations writing team – including Jada Laberts, Steven McGregor and Erica Glynn – with direction from Wayne Blair and Jub Clerc. And while it’s a different direction from the neo-Western vibe of Mystery Road: Origin’s first instalment, it’s no less cinematic.

Alongside the murder of a local man, who several people have reason to knock off, and seemingly dodgy goings-on with the local child protection unit, Jay is drawn into the decades-old secrets of the town, which is haunted by ghosts of the Stolen Generations. This prequel, which also stars Clarence Ryan, Helen Morse and Luke Carroll, is gritty and moving.

Mystery Road: Origin (season two) premieres at 8.15pm on September 21 on the ABC and ABC iview.

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