TV review: Steve Braunias on Black Hands - guns a weird blip in gripping Bain drama

Some of the Black Hands cast. Photo / Supplied

What was with the revolvers? You don't expect strict attention to forensic detail in any kind of true-crime drama but last night's opening episode of Black Hands, based on the Bain killings, strayed into the territory of the absurd when it put pistols in the hands of police who searched the house on Every Street that winter's morning in 1994 and found five bodies. They even did that thing that you see in every US cop show of holding a gun in one hand and a torch in the other.

Mulder and Scully used to pull that stunt on every episode of the X-Files and always looked mighty cool. To see New Zild constables doing it looked mighty weird.

But it was the only false note in an otherwise beautifully written, filmed, and acted episode. Black Hands went about setting the scene for the killings in a patient and subtle manner. It hinted towards neither David Bain nor Robin Bain as the killer. It played it straight, and it also saved on lighting. Most scenes were played out in a dark gloom of shadows. The central character was neither David Bain nor Robin Bain: it was their big, shabby, dimly lit house.

The kitchen was crammed with preserving jars. There was toetoe placed in vases. In the downstairs laundry, the washing machine shuddered and thumped. Everything looked authentically New Zealand; everything felt horribly tense. But neither David Bain nor Robin Bain was the strangest or most damaged person in the household. Margaret Bain was cast as a total nutter.

"God talks to me," she raved. "He has plans for me!" If there were voices in her head, they gave her some pretty rank advice, such as drinking her own spit as medicine.

Some of the Black Hands cast. Photo / Supplied

As Margaret Bain, Luanne Gordon played her character with sensitivity. Joel Tobeck as Robin Bain was immense: his tics and winces hinted at a fragile, disappointed, but decent man. Richard Crouchley played David Bain as a bit of a wretch but also as someone trying to do his best in a family that was falling apart.

The opening episode was slow going. Good. What happened on June 20, 1994 was a New Zealand tragedy. Black Hands is recreating it with respect, skill, and fairness.