IT’S TIME FOR A RETURN TRIP TO THE ‘TOP OF THE LAKE’
Jane Campion’s acclaimed murder-mystery series returns to SundanceTV for a second season,
China Lake, airing on three consecutive nights starting Sept. 10. Elisabeth Moss ( Mad Men, The
Handmaid’s Tale) returns as Detective Robin Griffin, who moves from her native New Zealand to Sydney to rebuild her life and reconnect with Mary, the daughter she gave up at birth, who was the product of a rape. (She’s played by Campion’s daughter, Alice Englert).
Her case: An Asian girl’s body washes up on Bondi Beach, and Robin learns that “China Girl” didn’t die alone as she tries to solve the crime in a seedy side of Sydney.
“For me this season is so much about motherhood,” Moss said. “Robin has to figure out how to be a mother to Mary, who is a stranger to her,” after being adopted by a woman named Julia (Nicole Kidman). But as usual, “the most important thing to her is to solve this case.”
Rounding out the cast: Gwendoline Christie ( Game of Thrones’ warrior Brienne of Tarth) as cop Miranda Hilmarson.
For Christie, it was a change of pace playing an “intensely vulnerable, intensely emotional” character who “doesn’t have a lot of success in her life, both professionally and personally.”
Lake marks a return to TV for Kidman, who’s an Emmy nominee for HBO’s Big Little Lies. And she’s up for more, including a comedy if someone offers her one. “At this stage of my life, I’m up for anything.”