{"id":561949,"date":"2026-03-24T21:48:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T21:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/561949\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T21:48:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T21:48:13","slug":"the-kates-kate-mclennan-and-kate-mccartney-take-crime-comedy-deadloch-to-darwin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/561949\/","title":{"rendered":"The Kates, Kate McLennan and Kate McCartney, take crime comedy Deadloch to Darwin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kate McLennan and Kate McCartney \u2014 commonly known as the Kates \u2014 never expected their black comedy crime series Deadloch to resonate with international audiences.<\/p>\n

The pair behind the satirical cooking web series The Katering Show and ABC TV’s send-up of morning TV Get Krack!n were making a genuine “first run at something” with Deadloch, McLennan says.<\/p>\n

Making the show, set in a fictional small town in Tasmania, was their first time working with such a large budget, and in the space between drama and comedy.<\/p>\n

When the show premiered in Sydney in 2023, they had never even had a glamorous premiere screening before.<\/p>\n

“It was a really fresh experience for us,” McLennan says.<\/p>\n

“We hadn’t expected that anyone else would watch it, particularly in the UK, because The Katering Show, we had the metrics on who watched that.”<\/p>\n

McCartney interjects: “The UK was like, ‘No, thank you, you’re not for us.'”<\/p>\n

But global audiences did watch Deadloch \u2014 it reached the top 10 on Prime Video in more than 165 countries and territories, including the UK and the US.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The cast of Deadloch season two \u2014 Luke Hemsworth, Madeleine Sami, Alicia Gardiner, Nina Oyama and Nikki Britton \u2014 with creators Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan at the premiere in Sydney. (Supplied: Prime Video)<\/p>\n

“We wanted to make something that could sit on an international stage, but we really wanted it to be culturally specific to us and idiosyncratic,” McLennan explains.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I think people like the detail and they like …”<\/p>\n

McCartney finishes her sentence: \u00a0“… \u00a0the universality and the specificity of it. It grounds it.”<\/p>\n

Praised by critics as “dark and dramatic, and often also very funny”<\/a>, Deadloch went on to land five AACTA Awards<\/a>, including best comedy acting for its star Kate Box (Wentworth; Rake<\/a>) and best screenplay for the Kates.<\/p>\n

The show sprang from the hours the Kates spent watching crime dramas like Broadchurch, starring Olivia Colman and David Tennant, while caring for their newborn babies in 2015.<\/p>\n

They decided to make a “funny Broadchurch” that would up-end the tropes of the crime-drama genre, flipping the script on the types of people traditionally portrayed as both protagonists and victims.<\/p>\n

Instead of a grizzled older straight white male detective and his beleaguered woman partner, Deadloch centres on a queer woman, the fastidious Dulcie (Box), and her reckless new partner, Eddie (Madeliene Sami; Double Parked<\/a>), as they investigate the gruesome murder of a young man.<\/p>\n

“The conceit was like, ‘What happens if you make the normal victims of a crime show the protagonists of a crime show and you de-centre men?'” McCartney says.<\/p>\n

“Naturally, that means you create a world of lesbians.”<\/p>\n

Now, as season two premieres, McCartney is yet again in the throes of parenting a newborn (but now she’s obsessively watching The Pitt<\/a>, not Broadchurch).<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Steve Bisley (Mad Max; Water Rats) joins Deadloch season two as Frank, a Barra Creek local with a criminal history. (Supplied: Prime Video)<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Deadloch’s Dulcie and Eddie have travelled to Darwin to investigate the death of Eddie’s former partner, Bushy, and will soon be joined by cop-turned-forensics-expert Abby (Nina Oyama<\/a>; Utopia<\/a>).<\/p>\n

They’re quickly caught up in a new murder mystery \u2014 featuring crocodiles, oppressively humid weather, and a motorised scooter.<\/p>\n

A fascination with crocs<\/p>\n

When the Kates resolved to set season two of Deadloch in Darwin, they undertook a research trip to the Northern Territory, with McCartney booking them into three crocodile tours in one day.<\/p>\n

“Which was a lot,” McLennan says.<\/p>\n

“I regret nothing,” McCartney replies.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Comedian Nikki Britton features in Deadloch season two as a croc tour guide from Eddie’s hometown. (Supplied: Prime Video)<\/p>\n

She even booked them into what they dubbed the “Tube of Doom”, a crocodile dive at the aquarium, actually called the “Cage of Death”.<\/p>\n

“I was so anxious about it, but then when we got there [McCartney] had booked it for the wrong month and we’d missed it,” McLennan says.<\/p>\n

On that research trip, the Kates also visited Bynoe, a small town about 46 kilometres south-west of Darwin, with a population of just 98 people.<\/p>\n

“It’s one pub, and, like, a few caravans,” McCartney says. “There’s maybe one road behind it or something.”<\/p>\n

There, they found a flyer encouraging them to visit the pigs behind the pub, but when they arrived, McCartney noticed another cage.<\/p>\n

“There was like a cyclone fence separating us, and a massive, massive crocodile covered in green slime,” McLennan says. “Like, you could touch it through the fence.<\/p>\n

“The level of safety was insanely non-existent. You could just imagine people having a few beers and jumping over.”<\/p>\n

McCartney admits those experiences have inspired a new-found obsession with crocodiles (her previous fascination was sharks, so there are some throwaway jokes about them in Deadloch).<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

“We got really into the crocs, going up and doing feedings and stuff,” McLennan says. (Pictured: Kate Box and Madeleine Sami.) (Supplied: Prime Video)<\/p>\n

“You go to Darwin, and think, ‘Yeah, sure [crocs]’, and then you leave and it’s like, ‘That’s it for me. I’m gonna pivot hard from sharks directly into crocodiles.”’<\/p>\n

That’s partly why the prehistoric reptiles are all over the new season of Deadloch.<\/p>\n

A crocodile boat tour \u2014 perhaps like one the Kates took \u2014 sets the scene for season two of Deadloch, when unwitting tourists find a dead crocodile containing a severed body part.<\/p>\n

Luke Hemsworth also plays an arrogant celebrity crocodile wrangler, hosting live shows at an aquarium like Crocosaurus Cove, while Eddie is revealed to have grown up in the nearby Barra Creek with a pet crocodile of her own.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Luke Hemsworth plays celebrity croc wrangler Jason Wade, a role that calls to mind Crocodile Dundee and Steve Irwin. (Supplied: Prime Video)<\/p>\n

At the same time, Jabirr Jabirr and Bardi actor Shari Sebbens<\/a> plays Barra Creek’s local Indigenous ranger Miki, who describes crocodiles as her family’s totem.<\/p>\n

“It’s such an interesting thing to be in a place where crocodiles are so sacred, but they’re also everywhere, and there’s this sort of cavalierness with them as well,” McCartney says.<\/p>\n

“They’re so quiet, and they’re so still, and you just think you could just go up and give them a little pat,” McLennan says.<\/p>\n

Putting the Northern Territory on screen<\/p>\n

As the croc tour makes its grisly discovery in the opening of season two, Dulcie and Eddie are being battered by the waves in Darwin’s Wave Lagoon.<\/p>\n

The inclusion of the iconic swimming pool is just one of the local references peppering season two of Deadloch, alongside such mandatory activities as a bowl of laksa on a sweltering day and sighting a vivid sunset from the beach.<\/p>\n

The wave pool scene was something the Kates added after they had already mapped out the show from start to finish.<\/p>\n

“[We thought] we’re only shooting here once \u2014 what have we got to show?” McLennan says. “And we realised we hadn’t included the wave pool in anything.”<\/p>\n

“We wanted to make sure that there was stuff that was quite specific to Darwin there,” McCartney says. “Because people can get upset if their hometown isn’t properly represented.”<\/p>\n

“There are so many people who haven’t been up there as well,” McLennan says. “We wanted to show as many of these places to the audience as possible.<\/p>\n

“Darwin isn’t like Sydney or Melbourne \u2014 it’s really its own thing.”<\/p>\n

The series does more than just show what Darwin and the Top End look like; it also shows how their unique weather can impact people.<\/p>\n

In Deadloch season two, as the humidity ratchets up, tensions boil over. They are also diffused just by talking about how muggy it is.<\/p>\n

“There was a real-time crunch shooting in the Northern Territory because it was like the clouds were descending on us,” McCartney explains. “There was a sense of urgency to what we were shooting.”<\/p>\n

Shooting started in the NT in September 2024, mostly around the town of Batchelor, which has a population of 371 people, before moving to a studio in Brisbane.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Batchelor, where Deadloch season two was shot, is about 96 kilometres south of Darwin. (Pictured: The Kates with the Deadloch cast.) (Supplied: Prime Video\/Kane Skennar)<\/p>\n

McCartney continues: “We set it intentionally at that time, just before the weather breaks, because it does feel …”<\/p>\n

McLennan interjects: ” … with the air pressure and the moisture in the air …”<\/p>\n

“… It’s untenable,” McCartney says.<\/p>\n

There’s some humour in those hyper-local moments, but the show doesn’t shy away from serious issues in the Northern Territory, including the territory government’s promise to be “tough on crime”<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That led the NT to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility to just 10 years old<\/a> and tighten bail laws.<\/p>\n

Measures like this disproportionately impact Indigenous communities<\/a>: In August 2025, 95 per cent of young people in detention<\/a> in the NT were Indigenous. Eighty-five per cent of those young people had not been sentenced and were on remand or had a warrant pending.<\/p>\n

To talk about these kinds of subjects, the Kates invited Indigenous people to the writers’ room, including Larrakia, Yanyuwa, Bardi and Wardaman writer Jada Alberts; and award-winning Gunaikurnai author<\/a> and former police officer Veronica Gorrie.<\/p>\n

“We really wanted to talk to Ronnie about her experience working in the police force, and her dual identity of being a Black woman in the police,” McLennan says.<\/p>\n

“And Jada was really quite instrumental in developing the storylines, particularly with the Miki character and the three kids.”<\/p>\n

The cast, including Sebbens and those three kids, played by Lennox Monaghan (Windcatcher<\/a>), Storm Murgha and Reiden Corpus, also shaped their characters.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Shari Sebbens, known as a theatre director and for her roles in The Sapphires and The Office Australia, plays Miki in Deadloch.\u00a0 (Supplied: Prime Video)<\/p>\n

McCartney feels grateful to all those people and to the Larrakia community for entrusting their stories to them.<\/p>\n

“We will always create space for the story,” she says.<\/p>\n

“But there is no expectation that we get to tell those kinds of stories unless people feel like there’s utility to it.”<\/p>\n

Deadloch is streaming on Prime Video.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kate McLennan and Kate McCartney \u2014 commonly known as the Kates \u2014 never expected their black comedy crime…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,277045,277051,277054,277053,277052,134,277049,277048,277047,277050,277046],"class_list":["post-561949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-deadloch","tag-deadloch-cast","tag-deadloch-cast-season-2","tag-deadloch-season-2","tag-deadloch-season-2-cast","tag-entertainment","tag-kate-box","tag-kate-mccartney","tag-kate-mclennan","tag-madeleine-sami","tag-the-kates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}