Top of the Lake Series Finale Review and Series Thoughts

Robin and Tui share a scene on Top of the Lake

Photo Credit: Sundance Channel US 

Top of the Lake just finished airing in my home country of Canada so a few thoughts right after I literally become a ticking time bomb…

*Full Spoilers Ahead*

This has most likely all been written about when the show aired in the US so let’s jump right into the bullets:

• Boy is the atmosphere of this series fantastically dark and somewhat creepy. Every nature shot is beautiful yet utterly terrifying at the same time. I want to take in the sights of this small lake town in New Zealand but boy I would never in my life want to live there at all. Nature, as seen many times throughout the course of these 7 episodes (6 if you watched the original New Zealand version as to make room for commercials each of the American episodes is shorter but there are more so all of the content remains exactly the same save for awkward episode breaks) is very unforgiving and the consequences of it being unforgiving can be very brutal.

• Speaking of nature being brutal the scene where Tui’s best friend falls from the top of the rock cliff is utterly horrifying. Not in a long time has a rush of panic entered me while I was watching something quite in the same way that that specific scene did. The scene was just such a mix of what the series did so well both visually and storytelling wise.

• I never thought I would say this but man did that head fake at the end of the mystery ever work. As much as Matt Mitcham (played super well by Peter Mullan) could have ended up being the father of Tui’s baby the character had been set up to be sympathetic enough that it would have felt like a cop out to have been him. He’s not a good guy by any means but it seemed that Tui was scared of him for other reasons rather than for her being raped. To me it also felt natural for it to be Al all along. It occurred to me about midway through the 4^th or 5^th hour in the scene where Tui’s friend is being bullied in the interrogation room by Al as he’s teaching him roughly how to make invisible tea that the conclusion would feel more natural and haunting had it had been Al. The reason the head fake ultimately works is because the motives of Al are questioned throughout the entire run of the series (like what did he do to Robin when she got drunk and stayed over that night? And was Robin really drunk or did he roofie her?) and that no matter how much we thought that Al could have done it there was always a sinking suspicion (at least in my head) that he hadn’t done it. Also the series didn’t make it into a gotcha moment and never really treated the reveal as much more than a natural conclusion to a well told long form mystery.

• I say this a lot when watching Mad Men but boy is Elizabeth Moss a fantastic actress in every way. This role she may have some better moments than when she plays Peggy on Mad Men. Sure it takes a second to adjust to the Kiwi accent (it’s not that it’s not great it’s just that if you’ve watched Mad Men Moss’ voice is firmly implanted in the mind) but she plays Robin so perfectly in every way. Just the vulnerability of the character as Played by Moss is utterly fantastic and every dark reveal about the character’s past and present are something special. Plus for Moss this seems like a really balsy performance as well as it the character is put through so much throughout the course of the series. It isn’t an easy performance which is why when Moss makes it look easy it’s so utterly fantastic.

• The Holly Hunter and paradise story seemed weird at times but by the end of the series it felt perfect given the subject matter of the series and the state of the characters that inhabit it. Sure there were times where it felt like a different show but Holly Hunter was so strangely still and captivating and by the later part of the series it just all clicked so beautifully. There wasn’t any moment in particular but it just took time for the story to ripen and develop and then something special came out of it.

• I don’t know if it was like this in the US but the cuts to commercial in the Canadian airing of the show were absolutely awful. There were even one or two that cut right in the middle of lines of dialogue! That is really unacceptable and for me it was a bit of a determent that while not the series’ fault managed to throw me off every once and a while.

• Are Robin and Jonnho really not brother and sister? I really can’t trust Al after, you know…

This is truly a fantastic series, one that will most likely be on the top half of my top ten shows come the end of the year. It just got so many things right and had one of the finest and most haunting endings of any long form mystery that I have seen.

That’s just me though. What did everyone else think?