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Belle Gibson, like a great snake oil salesman, said that healthy eating could cure cancer. Clearly she was lying. But she may also have been deluded.
Ted Conkaffey is a disgraced American ex-cop with a less-than-ideal family life. To escape his reality, he leaves his wife and daughter and goes to North Queensland, a small town in rural Australia, best known for its wildlife tours.
Unfortunately, it seems there’s crime in North Queensland, too.
Amanda Pharrell is a North Queensland native, though not many other locals like her. When she was 16, she murdered a classmate and went to jail for 12 years.
Now she works as a private investigator, and she just got hired to find a rich woman’s missing husband. Unfortunately, Pharrell told the client that she works with a police consultant, which she does not.
If only there were a disgraced ex-cop with nothing better to do than to fill that role….
In Season One, the unlikely duo finds that the apparent death of the rich woman’s husband may be connected to Pharrell’s friend, Lars, who allegedly committed suicide.
Both Lars and the client’s husband were eaten by crocodiles, but new evidence may suggest that both of them were dead or dying before they even hit the water.
To solve the murders, Pharrell and Conkaffey must beat the local police to the crime scenes, work in secret and face their own past.
In Season Two, the duo is still at it, solving another double murder before the local police that uncovers an illegal drug trade and a familial grudge.
Troppo’s premise feels a bit like a twisted MadLib.
An [alleged child sexual predator] and a [murderer] team up to become [private investigators] to figure out why [Australians] are [dying].
Basically, it seems like in The Land Down Under, everyone’s got a problem, not just the dead people.
When the local police find the ex-con and an American outlander meddling with their case in Season One (turns out the rich woman went to the police first), they try to do anything in their power to solve the case before Conkaffey and Pharrell … and in that quest, they dig up some nasty dirt on Conkaffey.
The charge of sexually assaulting a young girl follows Conkaffey around like a stench. Conkaffey insists he’s innocent, but the charges against him were dropped before he could prove his innocence in court.
In Season Two, the private investigator duo is still fighting their individual pasts, and those charges against Conkaffey still linger. The local police, still bearing a bit of a grudge from being beat to the case solution in Season One, is determined to prove Conkaffey’s guilt.
Meanwhile, though Pharrell managed to prove that she was not solely responsible for the murder for which she was charged, she still struggles with her guilt.
Our protagonists’ respective pasts bring up some very mature topics (child sexual abuse, drugs, violence). And their present investigations aren’t so clean to watch either.
Along the way, we see and hear characters getting drugged; we witness some gruesome murders by knife, fire, venom and crocodile; and we hear about some inappropriately aged sexual activity and sexual infidelity. A fair bit of R-rated language seems to stretch, if not shatter, the show’s TV-14 rating as well. And in Season Two, Pharrell begins a relationship with another woman.
Conkaffey’s family life is certainly not one to emulate either. The allegations against him made his wife uneasy, so Conkaffey left her and their daughter for a time. When Conkaffey was ready to be a part of their family life again, he discovers it won’t be so easy. She’s heard the allegations and now mistrusts her dad. And, while she’s still excited to see him, she doesn’t show him the same level of respect anymore. While the show could’ve repaired this family relationship, it instead showed Conkaffey deciding the best course of action is to continue to live away from his family with only sporadic communication with his distant daughter.
All those content problems make Troppo a hard show for families to navigate. Seems that crocodiles aren’t the only things here that can bite.
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at [email protected], or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
Just as Conkaffey is starting to get settled into life under the radar, he gets a knock on his door. It’s Pharrell, hoping he’ll help her solve the disappearance of Jong Min, a rich woman’s husband.
As the two begin their investigation, they learn a little bit about one another’s pasts and start to butt heads in their investigative tactics. But they find their first lead.
Meanwhile, local law enforcement takes an interest in Conkaffey and assures him that he won’t get away with any sexual misdeeds in North Queensland.
In addition to those discussions about Conkaffey’s past allegations, we also hear a conversation about Jong Min’s potential infidelity.
In the opening scene, we see someone in nothing but underwear and shoes. We see a poster with a drawing of a penis on it alongside a vulgar phrase. Jong Min’s daughter shares a quick kiss with her boyfriend.
We also learn about Pharrell’s past as she candidly tells Conkaffey that she killed someone when she was 16.
We see a man get eaten by a crocodile (blood colors the water) and his death is ruled a suicide. Conkaffey loads a gun and contemplates suicide but shoots a nearby can instead.
People drink and Pharrell uses a tattoo gun to give herself a tattoo.
We hear nine f-words and 15 s-words. We also hear “h—” five times and “d–k” and “d–n” each once. God’s and Jesus’s names are misused some six times total.
It’s been six months since the events of Season One, and Conkaffey and Pharrell finally get their next case.
A man and a woman are found dead in the mountains with severe burn wounds, the man lying on top of the woman and the woman shirtless save her bra.
Everyone’s first assumption was that some jilted lover burned the love-making couple, but the viewers know the truth.
In the opening scene we see a couple making out in the woods. Both take off their shirts, and the man takes several steps away to grab a condom from his supplies.
Meanwhile a mysterious figure sets a different man, already bloody from blunt injuries, on fire at the top of the cliff and pushes him over the edge. The body falls, hitting and burning the woman to death. We get a good look at both burned faces later.
The man that died? He ran a drug recovery center called “Family Tree Retreat” and his son’s girlfriend hires Conkaffey and Pharrell to investigate his murder when the police refuse to blame anyone but the sometimes-insolent and previously drug-abusing son.
Conkaffey and Pharrell take the case, but Conkaffey has his own problems to deal with, too.
As Pharrell says, Conkaffey’s “the expert on broken families,” and he has an awkward encounter with his wife and daughter at his daughter’s birthday party.
Once more, the police are still trying hard to prove Conkaffey’s guilt in his alleged sexual abuse of a young girl. Conkaffey and the local police have a scuffle in one scene.
We see Pharrell traumatized by her past too, unable to sit in the car she murdered someone in (or any car for that matter). We also see Pharrell trying to make a connection on Tinder with another woman.
Characters smoke and drink. We see stone statues of bare breasted females.
One character is tortured with clamps tightening on his reddening hands.
At the end of the episode, we hear a gunshot as a woman shoots at Conkaffey.
We hear 17 f-words and 9 s-words. We also hear “h—” four times, “d–n” twice, and “b–ch” and “c–ks—ers” each once. Jesus’s name is taken in vain four times and God’s name is misused once with “d–n.”
Caleb Gottry is the Plugged In intern for Summer 2024. Caleb studies journalism with a minor in music at Texas Christian University, where he will be a junior in the fall. He loves playing with words, listening to and making music, and spending any spare time with friends or family.
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