TL;DR – This is a solid mystery that does not outstay its welcome. It hits hard at the start but does lose some energy throughout.  

Disclosure – I paid for the Stan service that viewed this series.

Warning – Contains scenes that may cause distress.

Scrublands Review –

If there is one setting that Australian literature loves to explore, it is a small town. They litter the continent, becoming part of a country’s tapestry, but can also be insular places full of secrets. This juxtaposition creates the tension that can be mined for drama, which we see today.  

So to set the scene, one Sunday morning, Father Byron Swift (Jay Ryan) was greeting his parishioners at the end of a service when he dips back into the church only to return with a rifle and murders five people in front of the screaming masses fleeing the carnage. One year later, journalist Martin Scarsden (Luke Arnold) arrives at Riverside to discover why a man of the cloth became a mass murderer. But no one in town is talking, are they just upset about the torture porn, or is there something more going on. We will be looking at the series as a whole from here, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

Scrublands is a series that explores the collective trauma of a town. How do you go on when such an event creates such a fracture point? How do you rectify the man you knew, their actions, or the accusations made? Did a man get caught in his sin and act out, or was there more to it? Are people closed off because they don’t want to be returned to that day, or are they trying to hide something? Should you leave the past in the past or shine a light on it? It creates the groundwork for something fascinating to explore, even before the end of the first episode twists it all again.

From a production perspective, you know why they set this in a small town because it is stunning to look at. Every establishing shot in this series is another painting of the rugged outback. The harsh beauty of the outback works well as a foundation for a town that is long past its prime, even before the tragedy. It is a town that time left sometime in the 1980s, and hopefully, you will get wifi … maybe, cellphone reception … sometimes. It is a place that buries its secrets, and you can hide a lot under the rust.   

The series’ structure will be familiar to anyone who has watched a murder mystery like this, such as The Dry. In that, we are moving through two different timelines. We have the investigation run by Martin that is slowly pulling the threads of this quaint town and its secret underbelly. While this is happening, we jump back in time to see all the different dominoes that led to a mass shooting that one Sunday morning. This type of narrative has the bonus of allowing you to cut between the past and present, making it harder to lose the story’s momentum. But then it could feel forced when the journalist from outside just happens to be the one person who finds the dead bodies hidden away for over a year.

The question then becomes, is the mystery enough to keep you going? And I would say yes. The four-episode structure is just enough to hit all the twists you need before it spins out of control. I think you will get a rough outline of that mystery by the end of the first episode, even if it lacks details. I am not sure the ending matched its build-up, but it still worked. Running out of steam, thankfully, is the only major issue, and it is a common issue in narratives like this when you need to stop and explain the whole mystery to those who might not have worked it out. Also, they kind of skimmed on the war crimes part of the narrative, which was a shame.

In the end, do we recommend Scrublands? Yes, we would. It was a solid outing, and while not every part of the mystery worked, it was still compelling throughout. Add in some stunning scenery and a solid cast, and you have an engaging four episodes that do not outstay their welcome. If you liked Scrublands, we would recommend to you Deadloch.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen Scrublands yet ?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.    

Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Scrublands
Directed by – Greg McLean
Written by – Felicity Packard, Kelsey Munro & Jock Serong,
Created by – Felicity Packard
Based On – Scrublands by Chris Hammer
Production/Distribution Companies – Nine Network, Vicscreen, Abacus Media Rights, Easy Tiger Productions & Stan
Starring – Luke Arnold, Bella Heathcote & Jay Ryan with Adam Zwar, Victoria Thaine, Alison Whyte & Robert Taylor and Sara Terry, Martin Copping, Stacy Clausen, Zane Ciarma, Duke Larkin, Fletcher Humphrys, Adam Morgan, Scott Major, Ben De Pagter, Nicholas Bell, Ella Ferris, Genevieve Morris, Ferdinand Hoang, Pauline Grace, Luke Ward, Kylah Day, Eliza Matengu, Liam McCarthy, Freya Stafford, Lucia Sault, Zane Blumeris, Toby Truslove, Sarah Roberts, Louisa Mignose & Anthony Sallman
Episodes Covered – Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3 & Episode 4