While the ton may be abuzz at the prospect of a new leading lady gracing our screens for Bridgerton Season 4, it’s still going to be a while before we see our favorite Regency-era family back on our screens. But for those who are eager for more from Yerin Ha ahead of her Season 4 debut as Sophie Baek, the mysterious Lady in Silver who captures Benedict Bridgerton’s (Luke Thompson) heart, Netflix has you covered with The Survivors, their haunting new murder mystery six-episode miniseries which premiered on the platform on June 6. In it, Ha stars alongside The Rings of Power’s Charlie Vickers in a thrilling small-town series that is a must-see.
What Is ‘The Survivors’ About?
From showrunner Tony Ayres, The Survivors follows Kieran Elliot (Vickers), who returns to his hometown of Evelyn Bay, Tasmania, along with his partner Mia (Ha) and their four-month-old daughter Audrey. 15 years earlier, a tragic accident on the day of a historic storm left his brother, Finn (Remy Kidd), and Finn’s friend Toby (Talon Hopper) dead, with Kieran as the sole survivor of their fateful boating trip to the island’s costal caves. Lost in the chaos of that tragic day is the fact that Mia’s best friend, Gabby (Eloise Rothfield) also died that day. Though her body was never found, her backpack washed up on the shore a short while later, devastating her mother Trish (Catherine McClements), who maintains, a decade and a half later, that there is a chance her daughter might still be alive out there somewhere, much to the stress of her surviving daughter Olivia (Jessica De Gouw).
Kieran’s return home for the 15th anniversary memorial is far from stress-free. His relationship with his mother Verity (Robyn Malcolm) is extremely strained, as she blamed him for Finn’s death in the immediate aftermath, and now resents him for moving away to Sydney, and resents Mia for keeping him there. Meanwhile, his father Brian (Damien Garvey) now lives with dementia, which puts an additional strain on Verity. Things aren’t much better in town, as his old friends Ash (George Mason) and Sean (Thom Green) are excited about his return, but Toby’s son, and Sean’s nephew Liam (Julian Weeks), is now all grown up, and also holds Kieran responsible for his father’s death.
Upon their return to town, Kieran and Mia also meet Bronte (Shannon Berry), a newcomer who became fascinated with Gabby’s death, and how the circumstances of said death got lost in the chaos and grief surrounding the accident. Since coming to town, she’s gotten closer with Trish and Olivia, hoping to learn more about Gabby and the day she died, in order to put together a documentary solving the mystery of her disappearance.
Unfortunately, tragedy strikes Evelyn Bay yet again when, the morning after Kieran and Mia’s return to town, Bronte turns up dead on the beach. The presence of DNA evidence on her clothing and in her mouth points to murder rather than another drowning, and the subsequent investigation upends the town, as the police try to identify a main suspect. Given the circumstances surrounding her death, and what she was working on before she died, not to mention the anniversary of the storm, tensions run especially high as everyone searches for answers to not only the present-day mystery, but also to the ones they thought long-buried.
What Makes ‘The Survivors’ Worth Watching?
The Survivors follows the citizens of a town still mired in its own grief, and it never once loses sight of that. Where others might have felt tempted to make the first three deaths in the series tied to a larger mystery, one that extends beyond Evelyn Bay, what makes it so haunting and so tragic is how small the mystery remains, relatively speaking. Sometimes an accident is just an accident, made even more tragic by how avoidable it could have been. Yes, Bronte’s murder was no accident, but her death is the catalyst that forces the town to really confront their repressed grief all these years later.
The small scale of the series and its tragic nature really work thanks to strong performances from the entire ensemble. With the entire town angry, grieving, and traumatized, each character really stands out by how differently they confront said grief. Kieran, the only living witness to the deaths all those years ago, is forced back into a traumatic headspace, made worse by his mother’s passive-aggressive spirals. Mia and Olivia, the two who were closest to Gabby — other than Trish, of course — are the quiet ones who offset the louder expressions of sadness and anger around them, until they, too, are pushed far enough that they snap.
But The Survivors isn’t just six episodes of pure anger. In showing what all these people lost in the wake of the accident — family, friends, community. It also slowly sets them on the road to healing as they all try to separately solve, or otherwise deal with this latest death to rock their small town, and by extension, the three deaths that changed them all 15 years earlier. With how tightly-paced and compelling the series remains throughout, it’s little wonder it has earned a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes.
