Charming Aussie comedy whodunit Darby and Joan returns for a second season
As the weather continues to get colder in the Northern Hemisphere this winter, Acorn TV flips the script and begins heating things up from Down Under. That’s right: Darby and Joan is back for a second season of comedic romps around Australia while trying to solve a murder mystery.
In the very first episode of the show, which is set and filmed in Queensland, Australia, two unlikely characters meet while sharing a bad day. Joan Kirkhope (Greta Scacchi, Emma), a retired English nurse, has been travelling the outback alone in an RV, looking for clues that could help her make sense of her late husband’s (John Waters, Offspring) mysterious death when Jack Darby (Bryan Brown, Cocktail), a strange but charming local, crosses her path in a way that would suggest the intervention of fate. As the two quite literally collide, flipping Darby’s truck over, Joan offers the man and his travel companion, a dog named Diesel, a lift. The pair soon come to realize they may be able to help one another.
As they get to know each other more during their ride back to safety, Darby, an ex-detective in the area, decides to put his investigative skills to good use to help Joan grapple with her feelings in the wake of her husband’s death. But, when a clue leads them to a beautiful waterside party and a suspicious death puts a stop to the festivities, the new friends have a new objective: investigate the event to find the truth. Was the death an accident or a murder?
“I’m an Australian cop who’s running from a series of things that have happened to him and is trying to get away from everything,” Brown told Boston Herald reporter Stephen Schaefer during a Zoom interview before the release of the premiere season. “They crash and have to share a ride together. I thought that was a very good combination of concept and characters. Here we are able to deal with a mystery and a couple of people who are mysterious in their own way.”
Throughout the first season, Darby and Joan learn more about each other while investigating additional cases, including a theft at a banana farm, a scuba dive sabotage, a potential arson, a missing person and an “ominous threat from [Darby]’s policing days” (per IMDb).
Now headed into its second season (or “series,” as is said in Australia and the U.K.), Darby and Joan have formed a bond that can be seen by everyone around them, including Darby’s ex-wife, who has arrived in town to conduct an investigation of her own. Unfortunately, Darby is her chief interest and she isn’t backing down without a fight.
The good news is that Joan discovered the answers she had been looking for with regard to her late husband at the end of the first season and cleared his name, so now she has all the time in the world to help her new best friend meet the same happy fate. It is also entirely possible that her friendship with Darby will evolve into a full-blown romance — something fans have been prepared for since the very first episode of the series aired in August 2022.
Created by Phillip Gwynne (Australian Rules) and Glenys Rowe (The Castanet Club), the new season of Darby and Joan co-stars Melanie Zanetti (Bluey) as Arianna Malgeri, Alicia Gardiner (Deadloch) as Gillian Novak, Debra Lawrance (Please Like Me) as Anna Bairnsdale, Doris Younane (McLeod’s Daughters) as Yvette (last name unknown as of writing), Joel Pierce (Love and Monsters) as Greg Jones, Savanna Crasto (The Psychology of Beauty) as Pia Davies and Mackenzie Curtis (Rock Island Mysteries) as Jess Wright. It is also likely, although not confirmed, that Nudge and Kobe will return to share the role of Diesel.
The idea for Darby and Joan originated about a decade ago, according to CJZ CEO Matt Campbell, but if the title sounds familiar, that may be due to a much earlier source.
“The Joys of Love Never Forgot: A Song,” written by Henry Woodall and originally published in London’s The Gentleman’s Magazine in 1735, referred to “Old Darby, with Joan by his side,” and described the specific type of bliss that comes with aging peacefully alongside someone one cares for. By 1890, the poetic couple had been referenced in several works, including a double portrait titled Darby and Joan by British impressionist James Charles, and in an 1811 letter from Lord Byron to writer and educator Francis Hodgson.
Knowing the history of the character names certainly provides credence to the rumours that Jack Darby and Joan Kirkhope may be falling in love. But only time — and time dedicated to the show — will tell.
Darby and Joan, streaming Monday, December 30, on Acorn TV