Top of the Lake · Season 1 · Episode 6 · 15 April 2013
S1E6 She's Gone
THE MOMENT The final image of Robin is one of the most quietly devastating endings in crime television of the 2010s.
The finale delivers the investigation's conclusion without the catharsis a conventional crime drama would provide - which is the point. Robin's case closes, but the community's rot remains, and the show argues that justice and resolution are rarely the same thing.
Full episode analysis below. Spoiler-light verdict above.
Updated
Top of the Lake Season 1 Episode 6 'She's Gone' aired April 15, 2013 on Sundance Channel as the season finale. Season 1 holds 95 percent on Rotten Tomatoes from 44 critics; Metacritic 87. Common Sense Media's assessment of 'artful stillness and palpable sadness in almost every frame' is most fully realised in the finale, where Jane Campion resolves the Tui investigation without providing the catharsis that conventional crime drama would make mandatory. The case closes. The community's rot remains. The distribution of consequences makes clear that justice and resolution are different categories of outcome. The final image of Robin - Common Sense Media's 'collective performances are firmly must-see territory' most concentrated in Elisabeth Moss here - is among the most quietly devastating series endings in crime television of the 2010s: specific, earned, and formally complete in its refusal of comfort.