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By Jacqui Banaszynski
That phrase has stayed with me for years, since I read John Steinbeck’s last novel, which was cited when the iconic 20th century author was awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature. It is, according to publisher Penguin Random House, “a tale of degeneration, corruption, and spiritual crisis.” I suppose, but I find myself turning and turning it in my mind, seeing layers of meaning that feel just out of reach.
John Steinbeck and William Shakespeare. (You know which is which.)
I also suppose I should be embarrassed that I didn’t know — or didn’t remember if I once knew — that it originally was a line from an even more iconic author: William Shakespeare penned it in “Richard the Third,” his play about civil war in England. But I find that embarrassment is usually time wasted unless I use it as a motivator to learn something, which I did in this case. (Hello, Google.)
That said, I’m grateful I knew that the line is part of classic literature, even if I couldn’t accurately trace its provenance, when it breezed by early in Episode 4 of the 2023 Amazon Prime series “Deadloch.”
Deadloch is a quirky village on the Australian island state of Tasmania. A serious and highly professional Dulcie Collins (played by Kate Box) has moved there with her wife after she left her detective job in Sydney to save her marriage following an affair. When a nude body washes up on a beach, the boy-brass send another female detective — the ribald and highly unprofessional Eddie Redcliffe (played by Madeleine Sami) — to take over Dulcie’s case. Hilarity ensues, as the saying goes. So, too, more dead bodies, lesbian sex, un-woke gender smack-downs and rapid-fire dialog in so many shades of blue that Crayola would blush. IMDb calls it “a feminist noir comedy set against a bucolic backdrop with a rising body count.”
I was not at all certain when I first tuned in. I’m far from reverent when it comes to language or entertainment, but this felt several bridges too far. Something kept me watching, though, and soon enough I fit into Vanity Fair’s neat summary: “This delightful Australian import, originally called Funny Broadchurch, starts off as a spoof before blooming into an addictive, hilarious thriller that stands on its own.”
But back to the focus of these posts, and how this applies. For a hint, check the previous graf to see if you can identify the two literary references tucked therein. That leads me to the delight in noticing that very brief, unspoken moment in Episode 4 of “Deadloch.”
Eddie Redcliffe is without lodging or proper clothing for the town’s upcoming winter festival. She’s bunking overnight at the local outfitters store, and wearing camo and fleece she grabs off the racks. The clerk comes in one morning to open early in anticipation of festival sales. As she rousts Eddie from her camp chair, she is holding a sidewalk sandwich board. It reads:
NOW IS THE WINTER OF OUR DISCOUNT TENTS.
I was so afraid I had imagined it that I hit pause and rewind — twice. There it was, to my spit-laugh delight.
That put me on alert for the other, many refs — pop-culture and beyond — splattered through the dialog. A lot were American; whether we like it or not, media is our biggest export. Many, many more were Aussie slang, much of it that blew by me without real understanding.
No matter. You don’t have to know the Shakespeare/Steinbeck allusion, or many of the others dropped throughout the script of this raunchy comedy, to get a kick out of. But so much more fun if you do. And certainly far more fun for the script writers.