## SPOILER ALERT ##<\/strong><\/p>\n The brothel Puss helps run, where “China Girl” worked, is also an illegal surrogate “farm”. \u00a0It caters to Australians so desperate to have a baby they don’t really check the girls’ backgrounds.<\/p>\n The supervising cop on the investigation just happens to have used one of the brothel girls as a surrogate for the child his mistress wants to have. \u00a0He KNOWS his surrogate is a prostitute because he has frequented the place.<\/p>\n His mistress,\u00a0Miranda (Gwendoline Christie) just happens to be Robin’s partner on the police force investigating the China Girl murder.<\/p>\n This is too much coincidence to sustain credibility.<\/p>\n When is coincidence a good thing? \u00a0K.M. Weiland<\/a> describes it beautifully:<\/p>\n “At some point in almost every story, there is going to be something coincidental that kicks off the plot. What is it that first brings the protagonist and antagonist into opposition? Often, it\u2019s a coincidence:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n All of these things just\u00a0happen<\/em>. Although there are some causal dominoes leading the protagonists\u00a0up to a few of these examples, there\u2019s not enough\u00a0cause<\/em>\u00a0in play here to let any of these moments avoid being coincidences.<\/p>\n And yet they still work. Why? Because they only make things harder\u2013and more interesting\u2013for the characters. You\u2019ll also note these major coincidences are pretty much the\u00a0only<\/em> major unexplained coincidences in their stories. It\u2019s not on Pixar\u2019s list, but we could add to their above rule:<\/p>\n Only one major coincidence per story: early in the story.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n That’s a rule to live by. \u00a0For another of my blog posts<\/a> on coincidence click HERE<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Save<\/span>Save<\/span><\/p>\n Save<\/span>Save<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" #ThinkpieceThursday – Contrived coincidences make Top of the Lake: China Girl lose credibility<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7897,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,49,128],"tags":[561,343,25,26,1437,1354,95,593,1438,27,28,30,31,1101,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,1439,1440,41,42],"class_list":["post-7646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies-character-development-screenwriting-screenplay-script-blog","category-television-character-development-script-scriptwriting-tv-blog","category-thinkpiece-thursday","tag-australia","tag-bbc","tag-character","tag-characters","tag-china-girl","tag-coincidence","tag-crime","tag-drama","tag-elizabeth-moss","tag-emotional-toolbox","tag-etb","tag-film","tag-films","tag-jane-campion","tag-laurie-hutzler","tag-movies","tag-nine-character-types","tag-screenplay","tag-screenplays","tag-screenwriting","tag-script","tag-scripts","tag-scriptwriting","tag-top-of-the-lake","tag-top-of-the-lake-china-girl","tag-tv","tag-writing"],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/top-of-the-lake-ep-1.jpg",379,213,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/top-of-the-lake-ep-1-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/top-of-the-lake-ep-1-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/top-of-the-lake-ep-1.jpg",379,213,false],"large":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/top-of-the-lake-ep-1.jpg",379,213,false],"ttshowcase_normal":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/top-of-the-lake-ep-1.jpg",125,70,false],"ttshowcase_small":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/top-of-the-lake-ep-1.jpg",75,42,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/top-of-the-lake-ep-1.jpg",379,213,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/top-of-the-lake-ep-1.jpg",379,213,false],"Image Size 500x500":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/top-of-the-lake-ep-1.jpg",379,213,false],"woocommerce_thumbnail":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/top-of-the-lake-ep-1.jpg",300,169,false],"woocommerce_single":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/top-of-the-lake-ep-1.jpg",379,213,false],"woocommerce_gallery_thumbnail":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/top-of-the-lake-ep-1-100x100.jpg",100,100,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Laurie Hutzler","author_link":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/author\/admin\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"#ThinkpieceThursday - Contrived coincidences make Top of the Lake: China Girl lose credibility","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/la-et-st-top-of-the-lake-china-girl-review-20170909.jpg\")
<\/a>Teenaged Mary,\u00a0(Alice Englert)\u00a0<\/span>is the long lost daughter given up for adoption by Robin (Elizabeth Moss) the cop investigating the “China Girl” murder. \u00a0Mary just happens to be sexually and romantically involved with the killer, nicknamed “Puss” (David Dencik).<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n\n
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