Reckless ★★★★

Fargo comes to Freo in this sardonic Australian thriller, which serves as a blackly comic reminder that it’s not the crime that leads to downfall, it’s the increasingly precarious attempt to cover it up. A sunny noir told with a First Nations perspective on both sides of the camera, Reckless keeps you confused and tense – you laugh while the protagonists dig themselves a deeper hole, then you’re crazy.

For native siblings June (Tasma Walton) and Charlie (Hunter Page-Lochard), a rare family function together is too much. Their excitability is evident when he drives them home in her car one night after a relative’s wedding. She is a successful lawyer, who uses the word “responsibilities” to drunkenly draw a comparison to his situation as the owner of a record store. He retaliates with “too tidy” but doesn’t get to enjoy the digs, because at that moment, in a quiet suburban street, they hit a pedestrian and send them flying.

“He’s probably just winded,” June insists, which is one of the first indications that the show isn’t afraid of dirty humor or characters of questionable morals. Outlined by the looming red glow of brake lights, Charlie and June go back and forth on what to do. He wants to call the police but she wants to cover it up. Using the law as a means of terrifying persuasion, June outlines where they are headed: prison for Charlie, as the driver; professional disgrace and bankruptcy for her, as the drunken car owner.

The two eventually move the body back inside, and learn that the elderly victim’s name is George and he had a terminal cancer diagnosis. Gives a rationalization from June: “We gave him the gift of a quick death.” A certain gallows humor is always present, but it is accompanied by a farcical drag story as the pair try to stay one step ahead of trouble.

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June’s strongest line to Charlie – a single father separated from his young daughter’s mother – is that contacting the authorities means that “you’re just going to be another absentee black father in prison”. Race is never far from the surface, but it’s as much about how June and Charlie view the Indigenous community and wider Western Australia – unsurprisingly, it’s very different – ​​as it is a rallying cry. They are, first and foremost, liars who rush from one meeting to the next.

Their heritage does come with telling grace notes, such as Charlie calling June “the white sheep” of the family. Reckless was adapted by writers Kodie Bedford (Mystery Road) and Stuart Page (Total control) from the Scottish drama Guiltand it is reminiscent of the original series in its strong sense of place and the realization that threats can lurk at every turn for the guilty. Charlie soon falls in love with George’s English cousin, Sharne (Jessica De Gouw), who has the first suspicion about the cause of death, but curious neighbors also soon give way to more malicious types.