It doesn’t sink the ship, but it does make it a mite unsteady. In the back half especially there’s the occasional sense that it’s dragging its feet unnecessarily in service of a preordained episode order. Unfortunately, Black Snow doesn’t quite have the narrative drive to sustain itself over the six episodes that comprise the series. While Alexander England plays Isabel’s former high school sweetheart, Anton, as a man clearly still agonised by her loss (Josh Macqueen is the young Anton). Brooke Satchwell, recently seen in The Twelve, is excellent as Isabel’s now-adult bestie (Annabel Wolfe plays the character in flashback), who gets nervier as more old secrets are uncovered. It’s not just in Isabel’s murder, which cut short a young and promising life every character is weighed down with regrets. There’s a melancholy that hangs over Black Snow, as it pivots between the two time periods and observes the vast gap between what was, what could have been, and what sadly is. He’s a man adrift from his own culture, desperately clinging to faith. Even the fire-and-brimstone Christianity embraced by Isabel and Hazel’s father, pastor Joe (Jimi Bani of Mabo), seems like a desperate coping mechanism. Black Snow’s depiction of the community is perceptive and nuanced, and the generational trauma of slavery palpable. These people are largely descendants of those taken to work in Queensland’s cane fields, their presence in Ashford providing an uncomfortable reminder that the sugar-farming town’s prosperity is rooted in slavery (the “black snow” of the title refers to the ash rain that follows the fields being burned for harvest). This is a little-explored corner of Australian culture. But what sets Black Snow part is the way it takes us into the Australian South Seas Islander community, of which victim Isabel and many of the supporting players are members. These small town crime stories draw from a somewhat limited pool of essential tropes, and series creator Lucas Taylor-along with writers Boyd Quakawoot and Beatrix Christian-deploy them well. Which is all par for the course, but that’s not a criticism.
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