The Gone returns to the seemingly peaceful, yet often lethal, rural New Zealand community of Mount Affinity, reuniting Irish detective Theo Richter (Richard Flood) with DS Diana Huia (Acushla-Tara Kupe). This cross-national partnership, a key draw of the initial run, now stays rooted in the region after the first season’s shocking finish.
That earlier case, built around the disappearance and tragedy of Irish couple Ronan Garvey and Sinead Martin, looked resolved, with former mayor Ken Armstrong and his sister Valerie implicated. The second season reopens the wound and signals that Mount Affinity’s quiet never lasts.
Richter readies a flight home and then reverses course when his former partner in life, journalist Aileen Ryan (Carolyn Bracken), vanishes. Her case links to an old local terror, the decades-old Goatman murders, a buried threat that pushes into the present.
New Victim, Familiar Traps
The device that brings Richter back, with Aileen disappearing on the cusp of their flight, tests plausibility. In an era of serialized television shaped by seamless continuity, the choice reads like a visible mechanism designed to keep the central pair in play. The move caters to the demands of a returning streaming title and signals where the show places its commercial bets.
Aileen’s work threads the mystery to history. Her digging into the Goatman killings points to a copycat pattern or a revival of long-dormant violence. Detectives locate her abandoned car and rifle shells near a cabin, a concrete trail that steadies the procedural spine.
The investigation advances with patience. A vast, sparsely populated landscape slows each step, and the tension compounds once a second missing Irish person enters the file. The truth about Aileen lands later in the run and shifts the case into a homicide frame. The working theory turns to an active Mountain Murderer, and the season steers toward a suspect who arrives as a genuine surprise.
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Layers of Local Reckoning
Season two invests in the aftershocks of the first investigation, echoing a broader TV shift toward stories that track trauma beyond the initial case. Sinead Martin’s ongoing pain surfaces publicly through social media rage and clashes with her mother, Judge Hannah Martin, where public and private grief collide. Sinead finds support in Ginge, and both characters carry fresh loss.
This focus on those scarred by the violence balances the evidence board and keeps the show’s moral center with the community that lives with the damage. Consequences follow the perpetrators as well. Valerie remains under house arrest and faces resentment from her mother, Michaela, while Ken answers to fellow prisoner Frank Pastors. These prison scenes extend the chain of harm and show how violence reshapes every room it enters.
DS Huia’s thread about Māori identity and her mother’s death sits off to the side at first. A final image in the premiere ties the Goatman case to Māori symbols and signals a coming engagement with colonial history and indigenous experience. Smaller disputes among Wiki, Buster, and Ginge, rooted in long-standing tribal tensions, sit near the edge of the main plot and sometimes diffuse the show’s concentration.
Place, Pace, and Prestige Identity
The New Zealand landscape stands as the show’s marquee presence, rendered in high-definition imagery that pairs lush terrain with isolating distance. The setting builds a mood of beauty laced with threat and defines the series more than any single clue. The story features Irish investigators, though the creative DNA reads as a New Zealand production, with the Irish duo acting as catalysts that spark the local narrative. The international co-production model chases reach across platforms and territories and risks turning the Irish angle into a standard blow-in template.
A quick, self-aware beat arrives when Richter refuses allegiance to His Majesty, a needle-sharp nod to historical frictions. In the tradition of rural mysteries such as Top of the Lake, past secrets suffuse the present and shape every path through Mount Affinity. Season two spreads its attention across continuing character fallout and a new case that enters with a visible nudge. The show still carries enough dramatic pull, and the visual craft stays strong, to keep it an engaging streaming crime watch.
The Gone is a joint New Zealand-Irish crime drama television series. Season 2 of the series premiered in 2024 in New Zealand and Ireland, with a UK premiere on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer on July 31, 2025. The six-episode season continues the story of Irish detective Theo Richter and New Zealand DS Diana Huia as they investigate a new disappearance in the rural town of Mount Affinity. The series is known for its atmospheric mystery set against the stunning New Zealand landscape. It is distributed by RTÉ and TVNZ in its originating countries and is available on BBC iPlayer in the UK and is expected to be on Acorn TV in the US and Canada.
Credits
Title: The Gone
Distributor: RTÉ, TVNZ, BBC, Acorn TV
Release date: 2024 (NZ/Ireland), July 31, 2025 (UK)
Running time: Approximately 51 minutes per episode (6 episodes)
Director: Peter Burger, Dathaí Keane
Writers: Anna McPartlin, Michael Bennet
Producers and Executive Producers: Timothy White, Reikura Kahi (Producers), Steve Barr, Laura Beetz, Michael Bennett, David Creen, Yvonne Donohoe, Katie Holly, Dermot Horan, Karl Zohrab, Anna McPartlin (Executive Producers)
Cast: Richard Flood, Acushla-Tara Kupe, Carolyn Bracken, Rachel Morgan, Michelle Fairley, Vanessa Rare, Scott Wills, Wayne Hapi
Director of Photography (Cinematographer): Dave Cameron
Editors: Darragh Moran, Bryan Shaw
Composer: Mahuia Bridgman-Cooper
The Review
The Gone Season 2
The Gone Season 2 successfully pivots to a new, historically-linked mystery, maintaining the central dynamic between Richter and Huia in the stunning but treacherous setting of Mount Affinity. While the re-involvement of the Irish detective feels contrived and the narrative pace sometimes drags, the season excels at examining the pervasive trauma of its supporting characters. The series is a visually strong New Zealand production that delivers enough dramatic weight to hold viewers despite a slightly scattered structure.
PROS
- The New Zealand landscape is beautifully shot, creating a compelling atmosphere of isolation and danger.
- Effectively explores the continuing trauma and emotional fallout experienced by the Season 1 survivors and peripheral characters.
- The introduction of the "Goatman murders" provides a solid, intriguing connection to the town's darker past.
- The partnership between Richter and Huia remains engaging and central to the show's appeal.
CONS
- Richter's forced return via Aileen’s disappearance feels structurally weak and convenient.
- Attempts to service multiple supporting character arcs can dilute the focus of the main mystery.
- The investigation's momentum is occasionally slow, especially in the early episodes.
