Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Jack Irish’ Season 3 On Acorn TV Finds Guy Pearce’s Ex-Lawyer Investigating A Police Conspiracy

Since Jack Irish, created by Andrew Anastasios, Matt Cameron and Andrew Knight based on Peter Temple’s novels, has established itself over three movies and two previous seasons, the final season of the Australian drama feels like being among old friends. And that will feel that way even if you’ve never seen the show before. Guy Pearce plays the title character, a former lawyer who is traumatized by his wife’s murder and he decides to become a PI, getting involved in cases that expose Melbourne’s more seedy, criminal elements.

JACK IRISH SEASON 3: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A man is let out of prison. Waiting for him is his girlfriend, but also watching is an officious-looking man in a suit. When he opens the trunk to his girlfriend’s car, he sees a gun in a gym bag.

The Gist: The guy who just got sprung sees the gun and realizes he’s got work to do. He goes up to a guy ordering burgers at a drive-thru and shoots him in the head. Detective Barry Tregear (Shane Jacobson) is called to the scene to investigate, and gets a sinking feeling when he realizes that the victim is not only an ex-cop, but one he used to work with years ago.

Jack Irish (Guy Pearce) meets his friend Cam Delray (Aaron Pedersen) at a horse ranch while Cam’s boss, Harry Strang (Roy Billing) looks over a horse he owns. Cam has taken some time off after his father died, but he’s back and Jack needs Cam to help him get Harry to sign the estate papers Jack was hired to update.

Tregear receives vague threats from an internal affairs detective named Phil Maitland (Gary Sweet), telling him that the cop was killed might not be the last, and that he knows what Tregear and those cops did years ago. Fearing for his life, Tregear asks Jack to stake out another former cop, Mick Khoury (Robert Rabiah) that he knows will sell him out for nothing. Jack watches Khoury all day but isn’t as discreet as he thinks; Khoury bashes out Jack’s passenger window and asks who sent him.

When Jack tells Tregear, the cop has a heart attack. When he finally comes out of a coma, he tells Jack that the people who are after him have something to do with the murder of his late wife Isabel (Emma Booth) a decade prior. Jack visits his former law partner, Drew Greer (Damien Richardson), to see the files related to Isabel’s murder; being back in his former office and seeing the file, of course, brings back the memories of how she was killed by an enraged former client who killed himself right in front of Jack.

After yet another return of his dad’s friend Wilbur (John Flaus) back to his nursing home, Khoury, hiding in Jack’s car, puts a gun to Jack’s head and demands he drive to a shipyard. Jack somehow gets out of that sticky situation. But the next morning, he gets an ominous voicemail from Tregear, who had just been released from the hospital.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The entire Jack Irish series, dating back to the TV movies made from 2012-14. As far as other shows are concerned, it has the vibes of a cable series like Damages or a network series like The Good Wife, which meld the main character’s continuing storylines with cases that take multiple-episode arc.

Our Take: The ensemble on Jack Irish works well together, and Pearce — recently seen charming Kate Winslet in Mare of Easttown — inhabits Jack so comfortably that you forget that it’s not often that you see Pearce play the well-intentioned but troubled antihero. The connections Jack has made over the years are present in this final series, including Linda Hiller (Marta Dusseldorp), his on-again-off-again, whom he goes to for help in Episode 2.

He also has to connect to Sami (Marcus Bagdas), his 5-year-old son that’s a product of a one-nighter with Evie Mansour (Nicole Nabout), who works at Wilbur’s nursing home. Wilbur and his roomie Eric (Terry Norris) have been regaling Evie with tales about Jack’s father, and she is rightfully concerned that Jack will become the “mean drunk” his dad was.

What we appreciated is that the case Tragear was embroiled in is a good entryway to Jack’s story, even at this late date. And the surrounding characters are so intriguing — we want to see more of the Cam-Harry dynamic — that we want to dive back to the beginning (the movies and all three seasons are streaming on Acorn TV; see the link below).

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: After getting Tragear’s ominous voice mail, Jack goes to the cop’s house, and he’s shocked by what he sees.

Sleeper Star: Gary Sweet, who plays Det. Maitland, is the embodiment of a cop who loves being part of the “rat squad.” He doesn’t care what other cops think of him and he’s as dirty as they come. It’ll be interesting to watch Jack and Linda trace the current murders — and maybe some past ones — back top him.

Most Pilot-y Line: There’s some light comedy in the show, and one character, Brendan O’Grady (Bob Franklin), seems to exist only for that. His connection to the show’s past is the one that’s going to be the most head-scratching to new viewers.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The final season of Jack Irish benefits from a cast and writing staff who have lived with the main characters for nine years. And, while the first episode is a good entryway into watching this season on its own, it definitely benefits the new viewer to go back and watch the series from the beginning.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream Jack Irish On Acorn TV