So, for those of you who haven't watched The Lord of the Rings trilogy and don't know, New Zealand is an incredibly prepossessing place. It's full of majestic mountain ranges and enormous, crystal clear lakes. It's a place full of an innumerable amount of possible backdrops for the wonderful cinematography of Adam Arkapaw. It's also a place whose allure makes for a striking juxtaposition with the shocking violence perpetrated within Top of the Lake. Whether it be the rape of an innocent 12-year-old girl, the cruel and unrelenting misogyny, or the murder of the universally unliked real estate agent, Bob Platt (the discovery of whose body ends the previous episode and begins this one), despite its overwhelming beauty, the small town of Laketop, New Zealand is populated with highly secretive and volatile people. But of all its natural aesthetics, perhaps the most significant to this episode is the lush, expansive forest that takes up much of the small town's acreage. You see, most of what Top of the Lake's second episode concerns itself with is hunting. Nearly everyone in this episode is being hunted or is hunting for something.
Apart from the deer's head from the title sequence that finds itself in both Dectective Al Baker's (David Wenham, Faramir from Lord of the Rings of all things) office and on the wall of the local bar, Robin spends most of the episode hunting. Of course she, like the majority of the community, is still searching for the disappeared Tui to no avail. But she is also looking for love. Not in the Urban Cowboy sort of way, mind you, but in that she's trying to sort out her feelings for Steve, her dull detective fiance, and for mysterious third son of villainous Matt Mitchem, Johnno, with whom she shares some clear history and, after this episode, perhaps an even clearer present.
There's also the various characters in the women's commune of "Paradise" who are all hunting for something, be it hope, salvation or, in the case of Bunny (Genevieve Lemon), a little bang for her buck. The way Bunny nonchalantly lays her money (what looks like 20 Australian dollars) on the table, not caring which of the gentlemen take her up on the offer to satisfy her needs, provides some much needed, albeit pretty dark, comic relief in an episode filled with its fair share of horrific occurrences. I mean, she doesn't even look at who the guy is! She just tells him to get in the shower and gives him 7 minutes to get the job done once he's out. Initially I thought it might be a way of taking back control of her sexuality. But as she explains to the now twenty dollars richer Kiwi, anymore time together and she runs the risk of forming an emotional attachment. Is this something she's formulated herself or is it something GJ has imparted? If it is in fact GJ, this surprisingly practical advise seems to deeply contradict what the strange guru frankly imparts on Robin later in the episode: "All the bitches here are searching for love. When they don't find that, enlightenment... They don't find anything. Not one of them."
Then there's the cabin in the woods style horror movie that is Robin's home-invasion of another hunter - the frighteningly intense and exceptionally named pedophile bartender, Wolfgang Zanic. It's hard to believe that Wolfgang is responsible for Tui's disappearance. His creepy cabin complete with his own private arsenal and photos of children make his involvement a bit too obvious. That being said, that doesn't make the sequence any less harrowing. From the moment, outside of his dog pen, that Robin asks Zanic "Who are you feeding?" rather than "What are you feeding?" the shotgun in her face seemed inevitable. And although she managed to escape without any real damage, something tells me there might be consequences for phoning Johnno for help rather than one of her fellow officers.
Elizabeth Moss is particularly strong in this episode. As I saw hints of in the first episode, the character of Robin Griffin is incredibly subtle. At the very end of the episode, she invites Johnno in for tea. She is already dealing with the near-death experience at Wolfgang's cabin and then Johnno declines. There is a slight hint in her eyes that she might simply crumble into a heap right there in his car. But instead she just smiles and quickly exits with a breathless "Okay" and an offhanded "Thanks." Likewise, when she deals with the nefarious louts in the local bar she is understandably upset. As they talk about having sex with sheep and Taiwanese women, she is angry, disgusted. But although she feels an intense hatred for these men, she has impeccable control over her emotions. (The only outward expression she gives being when she turns a particularly nasty individual who accuses Tui of lying into her own personal dartboard.)
The only visceral reaction we really get from Robin is when she revisits the odious residence of Matt Mitchem. Almost at the onset of their conversation, Matt asks Robin if she'd like to take the recently "drowned" Bob Platt's dog off his hands. No one wanted it, he explains, and he thought it would fit in with his plethora of other pooches. But it has already bit him and harassed some of his other animals. When Robin declines, Matt promptly shoots and kills the dog causing Robin to instinctively recoil in terror. Is this simply another way for Campion and company to show us how evil Matt is? Or is he sending Robin a message like those bastards in the bar who ask her if she's a lesbian and a feminist because "No one likes a feminist except a lesbian."? Perhaps Matt is showing Robin that he can be nice, (Immediately after killing Platt's dog, he goes over and begins affectionately petting a chihuahua that he got for Tui.) but that he has no problem taking out a nuisance that keeps harassing him and his family.
Much like Wolfgang, I have a hard time believing that Matt Mitchem is involved in Tui's rape and her disappearance. Throughout these two episodes, the series has tried its damnedest to show us how evil and suspicious Mitchem is. There's the seemingly secret room behind the bathroom in his home, Tui's aforementioned chihuahua that made its way home even though she didn't, and the fact that Mitchem says "No One" loves Tui more than he does - the same phrasing, you'll remember, that was on the scrap of paper Tui scrawled out for Robin at the police station. Like Wolfgang, it all seems way too obvious, too red herring to actually turn out to be much. But if not Matt Mitchem or Wolfgang, then who? For now, I'm laying my money down on one of the Mitchem boys rather than daddy dearest. And of the three, the seemingly good-hearted loner Johnno is at the top of the lake, if you will (and even if you won't).
Until next time, what did you guys think?
