Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
The first season of Top of the Lake, Jane Campion‘s slow-burn Aussie crime drama, is a feat of storytelling driven home largely thanks to its transcendent star, TV queen Elisabeth Moss. Its honest, fearless depiction of gender relations and the terrifying and often disgusting truths of what women face every day – including a stunning analysis of rape culture – allow it to stand out from pretty much any other crime series out there. That’s without mentioning the intimate, painfully honest glimpse of our protagonist’s disturbing inner turmoil. Moss’ turn as Detective Robin Griffin, a determined young woman who survived a gang rape as a teenager and now solves crimes to perhaps protect other women from her fate, is uniquely harrowing. It’s rare that the lasting effects of trauma are ever truly delved into on television, and with the series’ second installment, Top of the Lake: China Girl, Campion demonstrates once again that she understands trauma better than most storytellers currently working today.
You don’t have to have watched the first season to comprehend the happenings of China Girl. The season kicks off four years after the devastating events of New Zealand and the disappearance of Tui Mitcham, and finds Robin back in Sydney, attempting to tackle her own demons to create a fresh start. Robin, having shot Sergeant Al Parker, who was running a child sex ring and raped Tui, is racked by post-traumatic stress disorder and does her best to pick up the pieces. If this isn’t enough, there’s also the recent revelation that Matt Mitcham was her own father, making Tui her sister, and the fact that Robin’s own biological daughter is now 17 years old and has reached out to her via letter.
There’s a lot that happens over the course of China Girl, but in short, the season chronicles Robin’s investigation into a murder of an Asian sex worker who washes up on shore as she also comes to terms with her daughter Mary’s engagement to a married 41-year-old brothel worker, forms a relationship with Mary’s parents, and uncovers the twisty truth that makes this crime much more personal than initially anticipated. There are a lot of layers to the happenings of China Girl, but a one important thread that connects them all is the breathtaking depiction of Robin’s trauma.
Robin is a woman who seemingly can’t catch a break; she’s still dealing with the brutal reality of her gang rape as a teenager, of the child she gave up, of the man in power she trusted using his power to abuse children (and her). She’s certainly not the first female lead to ever battle these kinds of horrors, but Top of the Lake manages to subvert any archetypal conventions and instead create a fully fleshed out, complex woman. Robin is all of us and none of us; every trauma is individual, but millions of women just like her have suffered all these fates and more – and fight their way through the agony and repercussions of every wrong ever done to them every day.
The truly astonishing thing about the way Robin’s painful past is handled on Top of the Lake is that she’s never confined to any one box. She isn’t relegated to playing one part, channeling one emotion, or to hiding her suffering from the world. She bends and breaks, she snaps and gets physical with people who have wronged her, is reduced to tears, holds in or lets out all rage and fury inside of her at moments that make sense – or make no sense at all. Robin is imperfect in the same way trauma is. Some days are easy. Some are impossible. And that’s exactly what Top of the Lake: China Girl tells us in every scene.
No matter which character on China Girl is forced to bear it, trauma is never exploited as a plot device or portrayed in a reductive, textbook-like fashion – it’s fluid and complicated and totally messy. There are no rules. This is why Top of the Lake is so singularly impactful and moving; Campion has an emotional comprehension that seems to effortlessly translate on screen and produce truly remarkable stories. China Girl is just the latest demonstration of just how powerful these stories can be.
