Cold Case

Jane Campion on Top of the Lake’s Relocated Return…

- James Mottram

It was meant to be a one-off. But after the sensational response to Jane Campion’s sublime 2013 procedural Top Of The Lake, the show is back. Four years on from our last encounter, time has not been kind to Detective Robin Griffin (Elisabeth Moss). “She’s in a super-dark place,”  says Moss. Single, drinking heavily, living in a shared apartment in Sydney: only Robin’s work is keeping her from a full-on breakdown.

“I don’t think that’s an unfamiliar place for any woman or any person to have, at a time like that in their life, where they don’t know how to get out of a trough,” says Campion, who reunited with her writing partner Gerard Lee to craft six new episodes. “To start with her there, and try to see her claw back a life, for me was an interesting beginning. A dark beginning. Perhaps a difficult beginning.”

Noting how unusual it is to begin a second series with a character at their lowest ebb, Moss didn’t take much convincing to return to the character, after Campion asked if she was interested. “I said, ‘Yeah. Let’s just make sure it’s darker and more fucked up and challenging than the first one!’ What’s the point of doing another one if you can’t go somewhere else and you can’t be more challenged by it?”

CITY OF LOST CHILDREN