Top of the Lake is one of 2013's best shows.

Top of the Lake: Season 1

9/10

Rape and sexual assault are the two most unreported crimes in our society. According to RAINN (Rape Abuse and Incest National Network), 44% of all sexual assault and rape victims are below the age of 18. The saddest part is that only 6% of all rapists will spend a day in jail.

12-year-old Tui Mitcham quietly rides her pink bike out the driveway a ways down to the nearby lake. The day is grim, there is a fog in the distance, her face is blank, void of emotion. Welcome to Queenstown, New Zealand. Tui slowly glides deeper and deeper into the lake's ice cold water until she is shoulder deep. "The water will kill you!" says a concerned teacher, racing off the school bus that passes by. A suicide attempt? No. She just wants to feel numb.

Tui is four and a half months pregnant. How on earth could this have happened? An expert in child protection, Detective Robin Griffin (Elisabeth Moss) is called in to take the case, and when it comes to children, Robin is our favorite kind of female detective. Driven by pure empathy and her own traumatic childhood experiences, she will stop at nothing to preserve a child's innocence. She is driving a dangerous course though, as Queenstown is the very birthplace of her hellish scars. When Tui goes missing, Robin is not only forced to rediscover her past, but to uncover the small town's long-buried and extremely unpleasant secrets.

There isn't a whole lot of evidence to uncover here, but rather an extreme depth in several characterizations. And that is the show's ingeniously sensitizing way of unfolding the mystery. There are several people we naturally stereotype when we are first introduced, but through each episode, we are constantly realizing there is something more to consider in order to solve the crime. Tui's father, Matt Mitcham (Peter Mullan), is old, mean and sexist. He lashes out several times at a group of women who have moved to a piece of land where his mother was buried, called Paradise. He abusively worships his mother's grave and takes his anger out on any female he encounters. He must have committed the crime. His henchmen-like sons are quite suspicious as well. And then of course there is the local but alienated town pedophile. In today's society, pedophiles are considered the scum of the earth, but after Robin engages in an emotionally riveting confrontation, we can't help but empathize with this troubled man. He only wants to "love child, not hurt him."

There is really only one place that we feel is safe in Queenstown, and that is the women's recovery camp in Paradise. The women here are broken and troubled, most of them from relationships with men. Naturally, these weakened women have gone to Paradise to follow a spiritual leader, GJ (Holly Hunter), whom they look to for all the answers. Ironically, GJ gives off a more pessimistic and arrogant vibe than we would expect from such a figure. She gives advice and claims prophecies through a sort of depressive, existential belief. Yet all this is meant to be enlightening. And it is. Give up, let go, who cares, stop thinking, just be, just do. Though perhaps it is the uncompromising surety of herself that makes her so admirable. Her confidence is inspiring.

Top of the Lake puts under the microscope an excellent commentary of the modern-day nuclear family and the disturbing sexual encounters involved. The husband, the wife, the mother, the father, and the children are all at war. It is up to us to break free from the never-ending cycle of abusive family relationships. Our family is what we make it.

Elisabeth Moss won the 2014 Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Mini-Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television for her portrayal of Detective Robin Griffin, and the show was also nominated for Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television. It was nominated for several Emmys and justly snagged one of them for Outstanding Cinematography for a Miniseries or Movie. In my opinion, Top of the Lake is one of TV's best productions of 2013.

Top of the Lake is available to stream on Netflix Instant.

"You know there's a Maori legend about this lake that says there's a demon's heart at the bottom of it. It beats, it makes the lake rise and fall every five minutes...It was this warrior that rescued a maiden from a giant demon called Tipua. And he set fire the demon's body while it slept and burnt everything but it's heart. And the fat melting from the body formed a trough. And the snow from the mountains ran down to fill it to form this lake." -Johnno Mitcham (Thomas M. Wright)