Review

Detective Robin Griffin is still searching for Tui, who remains hard to find. Distracting the local Police is the apparent suicide of Wolfgang Zanic, though even a glance at his cabin would indicate murder is more likely. Even Police Chief Al can't sweep this one under the carpet, though the rest of the Force seems blissfully unaware of what is staring them in the eye.

Meanwhile Matt Mitcham seems to be coming apart at the seams. He hits on Bunny for a date, and when she proves uninterested he takes out Anita. Complicating things for Matt is the local biker gang who deliver some very solid drugs, the women's collective, and Tui still missing. Matt however isn't the only one teetering, Robin's past comes back at her full force leaving Al wondering if she is becoming obsessed with Tui and is losing her edge and reading things into the situation that aren't there.

Another excellent episode that underlines the isolation of the location, the dominance of the surrounding mountain ranges, and of course the ever present Lake to good effect. At this stage we are still unclear whether or not Tui has been abducted by person or persons unknown. On the bright side we can cross Wolfgang Zanic and Matt Mitcham off our list of suspects. Wolfgang because he is dead and a full search of his property on Eel Creek finds nothing untoward, Matt because he gets up one night thinking Tui has return. Of course as the episode unfolds we discover Mr Mitcham might have the odd Roo running loose in the top paddock. The scenery is good to watch and the unfolding drama is pretty engrossing.

During the course of The Edge of the Universe we get a lot of detail on why Robin Griffin fled with her mother from the area for Sydney. Back story involves a gang rape and a daughter, watch the episode to find out more. Robin might just be unravelling as she views Tui's situation as being very similar to events in her past and is reading why too much into some things. It culminates in Robin striking back at a person from her past, that's going to have consequences down the line no doubt.

In not dissimilar fashion Matt Mitcham is unravelling as well. During a drug trip he shows a pretty violent misogynist side and verbally abuses various members of the women's collective. Seems Matt's destiny is somehow tied to the Collective, and not just due to him believing they have settled on his land. For no apparent reason he turns up at Paradise wanting to date Bunny, who isn't interested, takes Anita out for dinner and somehow ends up discussing metaphysics with DJ, now that just seemed surreal to me. Matt pretty much killed the real estate agent, and would be high on my list of suspects in the "suicide" of Zanic, with Detective Al in his pocket he is literally getting away with murder. I'm expecting some sort of an implosion in the Mitcham manor by the end of the series. Nice work by Campion and fellow writer Gerard Lee in tying in the mental disintegration of two diametrically opposed characters.

Robin Griffin does get a lead on Tui however via her phone and text messages and surprisingly some video tapes found at Zanic's place. She's after a kid wearing a hoodie and finally tracks him down, following him into the bush, where she promptly losses him in amongst the trees. The kid was clearly carrying something so the implication is Tui has "gone bush" rather than been abducted, well at least that's the idea I took from the episode.

Surprisingly the amount of plot development that takes place down the pub, Campion and Lee really nail the rural kiwi pub culture. Without giving too much away Robin confronts one of the men who raped her and glasses the prick. Johnno manages to pull her off before it can get completely out of hand but notably no one else was bothering to help the bloke getting the sharp end of the glass. As stated above somewhere there are going to be repercussions for Robin, you can't go around glassing patrons in bars without Police involvement. I've actually been in remote pubs in Kiwiland and yes they are definitely male centric and yes Top of the Lake is pretty realistic in portraying the atmosphere, though there's probably a bit more of a smoke haze hanging around the real ones.

I was quite surprised that Detective Al tried to explain Zanic's death as suicide considering the graffiti in Zanic's cabin and the half arsed attempt at a suicide note, though notably Al is earning his payments from Matt Mitcham. I was further surprised when the Police officer used his revolver to shoot the rope Zanic was still swinging on, seemed slightly overkill to get the body down for mine. Anyways under New Zealand law a complete autopsy is required which should, in my humble opinion, point to Zanic having been murdered by parties unknown.

I guess the other major revelation was Matt Mitcham has a drug laboratory hidden away under his house, accessible via the shower recess which proves to be a trap door. This would explain the light seen in episode two and why exactly Matt has a couple of "cleaners" visiting each day. I was somewhat confused when the bikies showed up with the powder, wouldn't the local Science dude be creating that, here all he did was make pills out of the powder via one of those machines that confectionary manufacturers have to form powder lollies.

The Edge of the Universe was more about fleshing out a couple of the major characters to no doubt provide motivation for the second half of the series, than moving on with the search for Tui who remains elusive. There's any number of directions the miniseries can turn in from here, though some major confrontations would seem to be brewing, and you get the feeling things aren't going to end nicely for a couple of people. I'm simply intrigued to see where we might be going and am looking forward to the next episode. Recommended mini-series, dramatic, great to look at, and developing some fantastic concepts and sub plots.