REVIEW: The Luminaries – Season 1 Episode 4, “The Other Half”

Television Reviews

*SPOILERS*

“The Other Half” finds Emery in the camp while Anna grabs her bottle of laudanum in preparation for work. That night, Emery pops in at a party to entertain the prospectors, and Anna is present with her coworkers. As chance would have it, Emery is paired off with Anna as the girls are assigned partners. They both sense the rekindled spark, but Anna ultimately ends up with a different man. Distraught, Anna runs away to her hotel room. Emery follows her, wanting to speak with her, but the innkeeper sends him away. In the present, Mr. Mannering asks Anna about the night Crosbie died. She merely denies that she or Emery was involved. Lydia comes to collect Crosbie’s gold, but it has the stamp of Aurora, Emery’s claim. In the past, Anna smokes with Sook. Anna’s innkeeper advises Emery that when they initially met, Anna tricked him, prompting Emery to ask Mr. Mannering if he has any knowledge of such a plot. In the Chinatown camp, an older man gives Anna soup and tells her not to take opium anymore. After she falls asleep, he finds the gold in her dress. Mr. Carver inquires after Crosbie in the prospecting town. He runs into Emery, who foolishly says he knows Crosbie, sending Carver into a rampage on Anna. In the scuffle, Anna is thrown out of her own window, causing her to go into labor. The baby is stillborn, and Anna buries it on the hillside.

In the present, Lydia finds Anna on the beach. Anna tells Lydia she knows how Crosbie died and doesn’t want to be her friend. Lydia goes to Anna’s hotel room and searches for the gold, ultimately finding nothing. She confronts Anna but, again, learns nothing. Anna quits both opium work for Mr. Mannering. In the past, Emery speaks with Crosbie about what happened to Anna. Emery encourages Crosbie to take Carver to court, but he refuses, saying it would endanger Anna. Later, Emery finally stakes his claim as a prospector. Emery comes to Anna’s hotel and apologizes for what happened to her. However, she asks him not to return to the hotel again and goes to Chinatown for a hit. After she falls asleep, the older man steals the gold from her dress. In the present, Lydia asks the man investigating Crosbie’s death to show her the cottage he lived in. There she “finds” an empty bottle of laudanum and a ticket with Anna’s name on it. In the present, Mr. Lauderback is questioned about the murder, Lydia and Anna. In the past, the man who stole the gold from Anna’s dress, Mr. Quee, claims it as part of Emery’s stake. This upsets Emery, who doesn’t want to share the profit with Carver. When Emery wakes up at Crosbie’s cabin, he can’t find him. Francis chides Lydia for marrying Crosbie in the first place. Later, it’s revealed that Anna’s purse was found at the crime scene. Anna’s laudanum dealer confronts her in the hotel, accusing her of framing him. She threatens to shoot him but ultimately turns her gun on herself.

“The Other Half” continues The Luminaries’s trend of overstuffing the plot rather than developing its characters. The two timelines are finally starting to intersect, with some fuzzy details finally adding up. I’m not sure what purpose Anna’s failed pregnancy served in the larger story. It was relevant for less than the length of one episode, and it, predictably, ended in tragedy. If the point of Anna becoming pregnant was to create sympathy when the baby died, it’s redundant and it doesn’t work. Anna has endured plenty of other personal tragedies in New Zealand. And I still don’t like or care about her as a character because she’s a blank slate. Eve Hewson doesn’t bring any personality or charisma to the role, and we know so little about Anna. She came to New Zealand as a naive young woman with big dreams and got swept up by criminals and charlatans. This seems like a sympathetic character the audience should be able to root for, but nothing in the show’s execution works at all. The characters aren’t likable or even interesting, and the story is difficult to follow. I think they should have simplified the story and focused more on the human element and the relationships. Even if the pregnancy and stillbirth were solely included to make Carver even more despicable, it’s unnecessary and unsuccessful. The evil characters are just as unlikable and almost as boring as the leads. For a while, I was rooting for Eva Green as Lydia, but I’m kind of tired of her schtick at this point. She’s cold, scheming, and always ten steps ahead of our hapless ingenue; you know the drill. It’s somewhat frustrating that Emery and Anna both fell for such obvious tricks and empty promises. And, yet again, I’m left annoyed that Anna didn’t take her purse back when she found it. If she had, Lydia couldn’t have used it to implicate her in Crosbie’s death.

I also think these problems are exacerbated by the huge cast and intertwining storylines. As little as I care about Emery, Anna, Lydia, or Francis, I can’t even tell you how much I don’t care about Lauderback or Shepard, the man investigating Crosbie’s murder. This show is less “whodunnit” and more “who cares?” We’re two-thirds of the way into the season now, and so far, there’s so much going on that almost none of it amounts to anything. With such a short season (that’s likely going to be the only season), I don’t know why they’re going so wide with the story. I think The Luminaries would have been served well by focusing more on Anna, letting the audience get to know her before she’s hardened by her experiences in New Zealand. Let us feel more of a spark between her and Emery, making their search for one another feel more warranted. In this episode, Anna is also particularly nasty to Emery when Francis is the one who hurt her and killed her baby. I don’t understand these characters at all, let alone feel sorry for them or want them to succeed.

Verdict: Bad

The Luminaries continues to be a muddled mess beyond the midway point. Too many characters and a confusing storyline don’t do it any favors.