Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Mystery Road: Origin’ On Acorn TV, A Prequel To ‘Mystery Road’ Featuring A Young Det. Jay Swan Coming Back To His Hometown

The character of Jay Swan has been a compelling one because of the many layers to his life. He’s a top detective who is constantly battling personal issues as well as the fact that his Aboriginal background means he constantly has to prove himself. In a new Mystery Road prequel series on Acorn TV, we see a late-twenties version of Swan as he returns to his hometown when he gets a promotion to detective.

MYSTERY ROAD: ORIGIN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A dusty road in the Australian Outback. A car drives towards the camera. An older man stands by the side of the road.

The Gist: Jay Swan (Mark Coles Smith) is coming back to Jardine, where he grew up with his rodeo star father Jack (Kelton Pell), for a new job. As he and Jack, whom he hasn’t spoken to in years, drive into town, they come upon a robbery at a gas station. A cop stops and thinks he’s the suspect. Only when the chief, Peter Lovric (Steve Bisley) pulls up does he tell his constables, Max (Hayley McElhinney) and Cindy (Grace Chow) that Jay is the newest officer on the force.

He’s actually come because he’s passed the detective’s exam and is waiting for that promotion. He’s the youngest to pass, but he also feels that he’s getting the job because of his Aboriginal background.

On his first day, he rear-ends a woman named Mary Allen (Tuuli Narkle) in his car; he finds that she doesn’t have a license but needs to drive to take her mom for cancer treatments. So he gives her a temporary driver’s license — a note on a piece of paper. It’s there that we see the year is 1999.

With Cindy he investigates a robbery at the house of Abe (Toby Leonard Moore), the local prosecutor; Jay notices not much was disturbed or taken, but sees a fingerprint on a poster. This is after he spent time in court with Max, who testifies in a case against a nursing mother; the defense attorney, Anousha Savaa (Salme Geransar) completely embarrasses the senior constable on the stand,.

Abe wonders why such a good lawyer has settled in Jardine. It turns out that she’s looking into the cold case of a teen’s death a decade earlier, a case where Mary is intimately involved.

Jay is definitely attracted to Mary, but also has to deal with his father still trying to ride his waning fame — he was a rodeo champion 30 years earlier — into goodwill that covers over his gambling and drinking problems. And the robbers they encountered outside the gas station aren’t done threatening Jardine.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Mystery Road: Origin is a prequel to the 2018-20 series Mystery Road, with Smith playing the young version of Swan. Fans of the franchise know that Aaron Pederson played Swan in both the two seasons of the series and the original 2013 film the series was based on.

Our Take: Mystery Road: Origin follows the same pattern as the original series, where Swan has to unravel a mystery while dealing with an increasingly messy personal life. It’s definitely a slow burn, but one that’s worth it given the rich world writer/director Dylan River and his staff have created around the younger version of Jay Swan.

A character coming back to his or her old hometown is always a plot device that has potential for lots of different stories, given the fact that the character’s past is right there in front of them. It’s no different for Swan; he has to deal with his father Jack and his various issues, issues which likely was one of the big reasons Swan left Jardine. At the same time, he seems to be drawn to Mary, whose involvement in the cold case murder that Anusha is looking into will complicate a burgeoning relationship.

River and his writers do a good job of layering in those issues with the robbery ring that seems to be infiltrating the tiny town, which is happening at a time when the town’s overwhelmed police force likely would have problems handling such a case. How Swan is able to balance handling the case with everything else going on will be the key to the series’ success. It helps that Smith brings the same intensity to Swan that Pedersen did for two seasons, knowing that he has an uphill battle due to his Aboriginal background and how he grew up.

Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.

Parting Shot: The same shotgun-toting robbers who knocked over the gas station come to the pub where Swan is meeting his friend; Max is there, in uniform, but is completely overwhelmed by them. “They have my belt,” a scared Max tells Swan after the robbers leave.

Sleeper Star: Tuuli Narkle’s character Mary is positioned as a match for Swan, and it seems like she gives some good banter in the first episode.

Most Pilot-y Line: When he looks for Jack, Swan encounters his drunken brother Sputty (Clarence Ryan). Sputty offers him a pull from his Jack Daniels bottle and when Swan refuses, he asks “Why not?” “It’s too easy,” says Swan. Too easy to give into booze, we’d imagine, though it’s one of those lines that’s supposed to be more profound than it actually is.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Like the original series, Mystery Road: Origin layers lots of stories into a slow-burn story involving Jay Swan’s very complicated life.

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.