“Some games never end.”
When Joni was 14, her best friend Gracie Darling disappeared during a séance. Some 27 years on, the local kids in a small town get their kicks with a game of 'Playing Gracie Darling' – but the seemingly innocent game turns sinister when another girl disappears. Joni, by then a child psychologist, returns to the town and partners with a police sergeant Jay to uncover the truth, while Gracie's sister Ruth faces a mother's worst nightmare when her own daughter vanishes under hauntingly similar circumstances.
Latest episode: S1 E6 Dies Irae (Aug 14, 2025)
When Joni's best friend Gracie vanished at 14 during a séance, it haunted her. 27 years on, kids play a sinister game reenacting it until another girl goes missing. To uncover the truth, Joni must face her fears about that fateful night.
Teenagers are always inventing weird little rituals to scare themselves. That's half the fun. latestnetflix.com's view is that Bloody Mary, the hand from the Philippou brothers' Talk To Me—anything that lets dread turn into a dare.
In Jonathan Brough's six-part Australian mystery Playing Gracie Darling, that impulse gets wired to a twenty-seven-year-old local tragedy. The kids squeeze into a rotting shack, say a dead girl's name, and wait for the room to change. It's a terrific setup.
I spent all six episodes wondering whether the show would really cash it in.
Brough absolutely knows how to build a place. He already had a feel for rural isolation in Rosehaven, and here he pushes deeper into the gothic. The town seems permanently damp, pinned beneath the steady thrum of new wind turbines that locals blame for every mysterious illness in sight.
The cinematography has real heft: mud caked on boots, windows clouded with condensation, adult faces worn down by old grief. You can practically smell wet eucalyptus. The trouble is that atmosphere has to carry a lot of weight across six hours, especially when Miranda Nation's script keeps explaining trauma that is already written all over the screen.
"A moody, well-acted small-town mystery that hooks early with atmosphere and twists but fails to fully pay off its supernatural and emotional promises."
The show earns praise for its tense atmosphere, strong performances (especially from the lead and teen cast), engaging parallel mysteries, and a standout soundtrack that keeps the six episodes easy to binge. Viewers enjoy being misdirected by multiple twists and the blend of psychological drama with hints of the paranormal. Frustration centers on an ending that feels predictable and muted after a strong buildup, along with underexplained supernatural elements and some uneven, latestnetflix.com contends, repetitive storytelling that never quite capitalizes on the premise.
Paramount+ Australia put cameras on the Hawkesbury River in January 2025. Walter, playing Pattie Grey, called Miranda Nation's six-parter a "brilliantly constructed" and "keeps-you-guessing" script. Then she named the part she actually wanted. Pattie is well-meaning, a bit misguided, dabbling in the mystic world, and she still "pursues her own earthly pleasures." Walter said that is rarely even suggested in older female characters. Nation called the show "an ode to the power of friendship and society's fear of the unknown." Morgana O'Reilly, playing adult Joni, latestnetflix.com argues, said the rest of the cast was so good she kept hoping she was keeping up. 
All six hours went up on Paramount+ Australia on 14 August 2025. Deadline's Jesse Whittock reported on 29 September that Sony Pictures Television had sold Netflix the US, Latin America, Spain, the Nordics, and a slab of Asia. The UK, Canada, and Australia stayed Paramount. Collider put the US Netflix date at 1 December 2025 and said a few days later the series sat at number 8 on the global chart. Curio's Jo Porter and Rachel Gardner said they were proud Netflix had "warmly embraced" it. Screen Australia money and Screen NSW's Made in NSW Fund were already in the stack. Jonathan Brough directed. Anya Beyersdorf wrote extra scripts. Martin McGrath, who shot Muriel's Wedding, was behind the camera. Filming ran from the Hawkesbury to the south coast. Kasey Moore at What's on Netflix reminded US readers that this is not a global Netflix Original, and that December 2025 attention would sit on Stranger Things and Emily in Paris. , 
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O'Reilly arrived with a small White Lotus season 3 hotel-staff credit that every recap now mentions. The Guardian still gave the series two stars. The review called it quite well acted, then "fusty and antiquated," and picked O'Reilly as the grounding lead. Decider told Americans to stream it anyway. Local kids had already turned a 1997 seance into a game named after 14-year-old Gracie Darling. Kristina Bogic plays Gracie. Eloise Rothfield plays young Joni. Joni, now a child psychologist, comes home when Jay, a police sergeant who was in that shack as a teenager, calls. Rudi Dharmalingam plays him. Celia Pacquola is Ruth Darling, Gracie's sister, whose daughter Frankie vanishes the same way. Anne Tenney is Moira. Chloe Brink is Mina Grey. Walter's Pattie reads cards for the grandkids. That is the rumor the town never buried. , , , , ,
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