Black Snow is a Police Procedural series streaming on Stan in Australia and airing on AMC in the United States. It stars Travis Fimmel and Jemmason Power.
Way back in 1994, seventeen-year-old Isabel Baker was murdered in the small town of Ashford. The murder remained unsolved until 2019, when a time capsule was unearthed containing a lock of her hair and a ominous statement from her stating that she expected one of her friends to kill her. With the case suddenly re-opened, it falls to Brisbane detective James Cormack to investigate it, with the reluctant assistance of Izzy's cynical sister Hazel.
This series contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents:
- Cormack's father used to beat him, his brother, and their mother. One night, his dad beat his mom to death and his brother run away in fear, never to be seen again. Because of his own experience being abused, Cormack is able to recognize that Anton had also been abused by his father Victor.
- Victor killed his son's girlfriend in front of him, forced him to keep silent about it, and at the climax tries to kill him.
- Accomplice by Inaction: Anton witnessed his father murdering Isabel, but never spoke up because he was completely under his father's thumb. Hazel and Kalana are disgusted with him for staying silent all those years, just as he is disgusted with himself.
- The Bogan: Billy and Tasha Hopkins are a brother-sister pair of dimwitted louts (Billy's an ex-con, while Tasha's a junkie) who take advantage of the re-opened investigation into the murder of their high-school classmate to try and blackmail the Wolcott family, whose patriarch is a suspect in the murder.
- Bullying a Dragon: In "Sugar Sugar", Billy Hopkins tries to blackmail Chloe with a videotape of her father arguing with Isabel about his use of slave labor. She points out that he's a parolee who is illegally squatting on her family's property and therefore it would be really easy to discredit him. He then ends up dead at the end of the episode.
- Camera Fiend: Teenage Hector always has a video camera in hand to record things for the time capsule project. Billy stole this camera the night of Isabel's murder. After getting out of jail for an unrelated crime, Billy plans to use footage of Isabel arguing with Steve Walcott as blackmail.
- Character Tics
- Cormack often sits with his legs crossed.
- Hazel snapping an elastic band against her wrist whenever she feels upset or stressed.
- Chekhov's Gun
- There's a secret compartment in the back of the van where Isabel hid Niman and Kalip's passports.
- Chloe buys a torch for the road trip that Isabel later uses to find her way in the dark when she goes looking for Niman and Kalip.
- Niman left his work boots behind. Isabel put them on when she went searching for him and Kalip, leaving her own shoes behind as a clue.
- Commonality Connection: Hazel becomes more open to Cormack after learning that he had a brother named Ritchie who vanished the same night her sister Isabel was murdered.
- Company Town: Most of the jobs in Ashford are supported by the Walcotts' sugar mill, which makes them an important and well-respected family in the area.
- Consistent Clothing Style: In the 90s and present day, Billy wears dark sleeveless tops and pants with a shirt tied around his waist, representing how he hasn't matured at all since then.
- Crime After Crime: Victor probably didn't intend to kill Kalip, but after Kalip died from his injuries he cold-bloodedly murdered Niman, Izzy, and years later Billy in order to cover it up.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Cormack's abusive father murdered his mother in front of him when he was a boy. His brother ran off in panic at this and has never been seen again.
- Destroy the Evidence: In the present day, a mechanic finds Niman and Kalip's passports in Chloe's van, which had Isabel had stolen from Steve's office 25 years earlier. Rather than inform the police, Chloe burns them.
- Dirty Cop: Sergeant Troy Turner, the Chief of police in Ashford, is well aware that Wolcott Industries employs undocumented workers from Vanuatu, but he doesn't care, because Wolcott pays him to look the other way.
- Disappeared Dad: Anton is Kalana's biological father, but never admitted it because he conceived her while cheating on his then-fiancee. He becomes her football coach as a chance to get close to her.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Victor attacked Niman for going into his house and picking up his infant daughter, even though Niman handed the baby over and walked out when Victor told him to. In the present, he claims Niman had been threatening his daughter and he acted in self-defense. Victor then attacked Kalip for trying to defend his brother.
- Due to the Dead: Victor intended to leave Isabel's body in a ditch. Anton carried her to the cemetery and laid flowers on her. He then cut her hair and placed it in the time capsule.
- Ethnic Menial Labor: The Walcott mill relies heavily on migrant workers from Vanuatu, like Ezekiel Iesul.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: There's a scene where Isabel writes "I ❤️ Hazel" on her shoes in permanent marker. A few scenes later, Quinn and Cormack find the shoes and are immediately able to tell that they belonged to Isabel because of the message.
- Flashback B-Plot: The show alternates scenes of Cormack's investigation in 2019 with the last weeks of Izzy's life in 1994.
- Fling a Light into the Future: The finale reveals that Izzy's hair ended up in the time capsule because it was placed there by a remorseful Anton, who hoped that by the time it was found, he would have grown enough of a spine to turn in his dad for the murders.
- Freak Out: Cormack becomes distracted and agitated after getting a call from his estranged father from jail.
- Girlboss Feminist: In the present day, Chloe Wolcott has milked her status as the female boss at a major company for all that it's worth, even as it becomes clear that Wolcott Industries is corrupt. As Cormack's investigation threatens to topple the company, Chloe begins cynically planning to use the scandal to shove her father out of the company completely. Nowhere in her plans is there any mention of whether or not she intends to discontinue Wolcott's use of migrant labor.
- He Knows Too Much: Victor bludgeoned Isabel to death after realizing that she found out he had been keeping Niman and Kalip imprisoned on his property. He later ran Billy off the road to keep him quiet about what happened to Niman and Kalip.
- Holier Than Thou: Among the obstacles to Cormack's investigation is Isabel's father Joe, a deeply religious man who resents any implication that his daughter was troubled.
- I Let Gwen Stacy Die:
- Chloe has been haunted for years by the fact that she angrily dumped Izzy in the middle of town by herself because of an argument, and then lied about it for over two decades because she didn't want anyone to know that she was driving drunk that night.
- Anton watched as his father murdered Izzy right in front of him and he did nothing to stop it. The remorse has turned him into an alcholic wreck who's still living under his dad's thumb two decades later.
- The Illegal: Ezekial Iesul came to Australia illegally, and never actually got a citizenship, so he wasn't on anyone's radar back when Izzy was killed.
- Innocently Insensitive: One of the snippets from the time capsule video shows Chloe Walcott saying that Ashford should have been named after her family, because their mill drove the economy for the region. Isabel, who is descended from people who were enslaved in that mill, can be seen glaring at her.
- Loners Are Freaks: Hector had a rough time in high school and was treated like an outcast by the other kids, save Isabel. He went through a goth phase after watching The Crow (1994).
- Lost Lenore: It's implied that Isabel has become this for Anton, who is still haunted by her death over two decades later.
- Memorial Photo: As Isabel was not available for the unveiling of the time capsule, the organizers had her teenage niece Kalana read her contributions to the capsule and hold her photograph for a commemorative "then-and-now" photograph. Photographs of her are also seen in multiple places in her parents' house.
- Memory-Restoring Melody: Cormack plays a mixtape that was left in the time capsule in order to get an insight into the mind of its author, Tasha, who was one of the suspects in the murder of Isabel Baker. As Tasha's not particularly bright, Cormack doesn't really believe that she's the killer, but when Isabel's sister hears the tape, she's suddenly taken aback, as she remembers hearing one of the songs with the exact same recording defect when Isabel called her on the night she died. It turns out that Tasha gave a copy of the mixtape to Anton Bianchi, and thus Cormack deduces that Anton must have been there, playing the tape in his car, when Isabel died.
- Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: The re-opening of the investigation into Isabel's death leads Cormack and Hazel towards a human trafficking ring at Wolcott Industries and the murder of two boys from Vanuatu.
- Missing White Woman Syndrome: Discussed. The Baker family believes that the police would have done more to solve Isabel's case in the 90s if she was white. Additionally, the police don't show much interest in the disappearance of two boys from Vanuatu, instead assuming they chose to hide from the authorities because of their undocumented status. They were never even officially classified as missing.
- Morality Pet: Billy is a shady Jerkass with a criminal past, but he genuinely loves his little sister Tasha and is very close to her.
- My Greatest Failure: Ezekiel originally came to Ashford to find two cousins of his who happened to be the sons of a chief back on Vanuatu. The two boys, Kalip and Niman, disappeared in 1994, and Ezekiel spent the rest of his life regretting that he couldn't save them.
- Never My Fault: Victor's final words after he confesses to all the murders to Cormack are to say that everything would have been fine if Niman and Kalip had just done their jobs instead of going to his house for water.
- Not What It Looks Like: Cormack and Hazel, who believe Anton killed Isabel, see him trying to keep Kalana from leaving his shed. He wasn't planning to hurt Kalana, he just wanted to explain why he had been an absent father to her.
- Parting-Words Regret: Several characters said things to Isabel the night she was murdered which have haunted them ever since.
- Anton got upset that she was reluctant to move with him and didn't want to dance, so he yelled at her to fuck off. Then he started making out with Tasha, prompting Isabel to leave the school formal with Chloe.
- Chloe and Isabel had an arguement about their planned road trip, which ended with Chloe calling Isabel a bitch and kicking her out of the van. She later lied that she and Isabel parted ways amicably out of shame.
- Hazel told Isabel to walk home before hanging up on her, not realizing that Isabel was in danger and had called to ask for help.
- Pædo Hunt: Victor tries to claim that he killed Niman and Kalip because they tried to molest his baby daughter.
- Practically Different Generations: Anton has a younger sister who was a baby when he was 17.
- Red Herring:
- For a while it seems like Billy was the one Isabel saw chasing Niman on a motorbike, since he owns one in the present. It was actually Victor.
- Signs point to Anton being Isabel's murderer and having sinister plans for Kalana. Cormack and Hazel rush to Anton's shed to save Kalana, but it turns out he wasn't the killer. He just wanted to tell Kalana that he is her dad.
- Red Right Hand: Hector Ford has a large birthmark on his jaw that made him awkward and self-conscious as a teenager. As an adult, he's grown a beard to hide it.
- Revisiting the Cold Case: Isabel's murder has been unsolved for 25 years. The discovery of a lock of her hair and an ominous statement from her in a time capsule has attracted Det. James Cormack to re-open the case.
- Self-Defense Ruse: During the climax, Victor tries to shoot Anton, pretending to be defending Kalana from him, and possibly intending to blame him for all the murders. Fortunately Cormack is already suspicious.
- Self-Harm: Cormack's first scene has him paying a petty crook to beat him up in an alleyway, and when he gets a phone call from his imprisoned father his response is to burn his chest with the car's cigarette lighter.
- Sequel Hook: The final scene implies that Cormack's missing brother may still be alive.
- Serial Homewrecker: Implied with Anton. After getting beat up in the farm supply store, his father guesses it was done by someone's angry boyfriend or husband.
- Sex for Solace: Anton and Hazel had a brief fling as they bonded over Isabel's death. He is Kalana's biological father. Hazel never told anyone because Anton was engaged to someone else.
- Small Town, Big Hell: Everyone knows everyone in Ashford, which means gossip and conflict spread quickly and people keep grudges for a long time.
- Soapbox Sadie: Kalana regularly vandalizes a statue commemorating Ashford's founder, branding him as a colonizer.
- Teen Rebellion: Kalana Baker has been acting out against her absent mother and strict grandparents by repeatedly vandalizing a statue that commemorates Ashford's founder, scrawling the word "colonizer" all over it with paint.
- Time Capsule: Isabel and her classmates left a time capsule to be dug up in 25 years. The plot begins when the newly opened time capsule unexpectedly yields clues about Isabel's murder.
- Title Drop: The "black snow" refers to the ash that is produced from refining sugar cane.
- Town with a Dark Secret: Ashford has been haunted by the unsolved murder of Isabel for the past two decades.
- What Did I Do Last Night?: Played for Drama. Hector doesn't remember anything from the night Isabel was killed because he got extremely drunk. He woke up the next morning covered in blood and holding Isabel's necklace. It turns out he didn't do it. Isabel gave him the necklace as a gift to commemorate their friendship and the blood was from a fight with Billy, during which Billy stole his camera.
