[justreadingwords]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Sonny grins. “I’ll soften that up a bit as not to let every criminal element in town know immediately who your soft spot is, yeah?”

five conversations, in the aftermath of the finale.

[justreadingwords]

just because it's right, doesn't always mean it's easy.

[phoebedynevors]

– she always thought that was what made you b e a u t i f u l;

[damnamour]

BUST UP (2026) ― S1E03

[fiercestpurpose]

How to write a plot

Start with woman

Put her in situation

Add another woman

Complicate situation

Almost solve situation, but then…

Another woman!

Complicate situation

[aquila1nz]

Some mostly locational things to know about Bust Up, for those tuning in from overseas, or at least that's how this started but it's ended up threaded with some of my thoughts on the show.

It's filmed and set in the Bay of Islands, specifically Paihia, though they don't call it that on the show. That's 3 hours drive north of Auckland, NZ's largest city. To tourists Bay of Islands is over 140 islands, beaches, watersports, swimming with dolphins, quaint tourist towns. Kororāeka/Russell, on a peninsula a short ferry ride across the bay from Paihia, is the earliest permanent European settlement in Aotearoa. Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840, between Māori leaders and Queen Victoria's representatives is just next to Paihia - we see the long bridge from Paihia to Waitangi a couple of times on the show.

On the flip side, Te Tai Tokerau/Northland is the poorest region in NZ. Those tourist dollars don't easily flow into other parts of the region. Meth is a huge problem (throughout the country as well). Even as Māori have recovered their reo (language), fought for their rights, to reclaim land and to have the treaty honoured, the fallout from historical and ongoing racism is very much felt. Te Tai Tokerau had some of the highest population density pre-European contact, because kumara grew well there, and it still has some of the highest Māori population, even following the large urban migrations of the 20th century. Te Tai Tokerau is where Ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa, the New Zealand Wars started.

So two Paihia/Waitotes, the touristy holiday town that outsiders think of as sunny, always summer; and the darker reality experienced by those who live there year round. Which is signified by the subdued palette of the show, often overcast, slightly muddy colours, just a little grey around the edges.

I'd argue there's a third Paihia that lurks off screen from Bust Up: the mana permeated whenua (land) on which stand Te Tii Waitangi Marae and the Treaty Grounds and the whole community.

Boock and Malane also did the grey skies thing with their previous cop show, The Gulf. Set on Waiheke, a large island that is about 40 minute's commute by ferry from Auckland, historically a place that was farming and hippies and more recently is vineyards and rich people's holiday homes and a dormitory suburb of Auckland, people very much think of Waiheke as sunny with golden sand beaches, but they filmed it to look dark and gloomy on overcast days, very ominous, in line with the dark storyline and the main character's traumatic amnesia.

The Gulf was a very good show but I feel that Bust Up is more leavened by the very Kiwi humour than The Gulf was. The build from single case episodes for the first three episodes, with just the characters as to an ongoing storyline over the last three episodes is also really nicely done.

It's an interesting contrast to the other lighter murder mysteries filmed around Auckland - Brokenwood Mysteries, a more episodic Midsomerish everything is alright in the end, quirky show making the most of its scenic rural Auckland setting, and My Life is Murder, the extremely lightweight Lucy Lawless vehicle that makes summery Auckland look oh so pretty with its saturated colours.

Other details

Writer and producer Paula Boock is best known in NZ for winning the New Zealand Children Book Award in 1998 for Dare Truth or Promise, a YA lesbian novel. There was predictably controversy about the choice with a pastor and politican from the Christian Heritage Party (which never did win a seat in parliament) making a fuss about the award on TV (just for the record he was imprisoned for child sex abuse 7 years later). It was a fantastically good book, at a time when there were very few books aimed at queer youth, rereading it 20 years later it's a tough read and beautiful, at the time it blew my mind.

Waitote means salt water. Wai meaning water is in a lot of placenames. I guess there could be a double meaning in there, locational and a sense of tears, but I think just wai, contextually, or tangiwai are the words more usually used for tears in te reo Māori.

Mihi's iwi is presumably Ngati Porou, since most Māori in the north are, but she may also whakapapa to (be descended from) other iwi as well, a lot of people do.

Road cones/traffic cones have a similar history of being transported to unexpected places in NZ as they do in Glasgow. Getting one onto the top of a Norfolk Pine is a particularly valued prank.

The other writers and directors:

Max Currie is best known for the hauntingly beautiful Rūrangi.

Awanui Simich Pene directed my favourite segment of Waru, she has her own show coming out sometime soon, with a great cast.

Annette Tahitahi Fifield and Holly Hudson's IMDB links from Bust Up are not connected to their other work, Holly is an actress and scriptwriter, Annette has stage and screen writing credits under Annette Morehu.

[justreadingwords]

This is to me the moment where their entire trajectory changes.

Mihi asks Deb to stop, and Deb does, and from that point onward, Deb tries to move on. Does it go great? No. But she tries. She accepts that whatever is between them, it's not enough to make Mihi want to actually be with her.

But in order to get to this point, in order to get Deb to back down, Mihi has to admit the truth.

It's the first present tense statement she makes about Deb. She's admitted that she fucked up, she's admitted that she loved Deb, she's apologised for hurting her, but she's still claiming it's all in the past.

And then she says "I know that you know me" - and that does sound a lot like "I know that I love you" in this context. She admits that she needs Deb stop, because she can't keep pretending that Deb is wrong.

So Deb does, and grieves.

Meanwhile Mihi can't escape the truth she faced.

Her entire facade, the veneer she's been so carefully maintaining, crumbles.

Suddenly, she's out here asking the difficult questions, "can we still work together?", saying "we should talk tomorrow", and that's before Deb gets attacked in any way.

After that, it's bitching at Sonny, buying cheese toasties and asking Deb to stay the night (apparently forgetting the fact that she has a whole ass husband at home), it's "I still care about you" and cursing in her car because she can't deal with the box of emotions she opened back up.

[unnaturalequilibrium]

Whoever did the music for this show is a little bit sadistic and I applaud them. There were so many scenes that had the perfect music overlay to amplify the emotions portrayed with an almost alarming accuracy. Like this scene where they straight up tore my heart to shreds on behalf of Deb. The way that the music played into that wistful, dreamlike and sad letting go as the pain begins to drizzle before it eventually takes hold (at the end of the episode when she cries alone in the dark).

It's so well done though, with the way this is the climax of an entire episode of Deb being denied. I mean the scene even starts with a shot of Give Way-sign. One event after the other through the whole episode to drive home the point that Mihi could never be hers again, that whatever they had it is now dead. First, Mihi straight up telling her she loves Milan and treating that as a full stop. Then the Sarge informing her in a very straightforward way that there can be nothing between Mihi and Deb or she will be forced to report them. So even if there wasn’t the wall Mihi had put up, the circumstances are still against them, personally and professionally. Whatever they had in the past, the present does not have room for it: one event linked to the next - all of them forcing Deb to accept that as an undeniable reality. Only for it to peak in this scene. It’s kind of the final rejection and the moment it so clearly sinks in for her. She sees an echo of a future in which she is an outsider looking in. Mihi’s future is with her husband, with a family of her own and behind that white picket fence of which Deb is trapped on the wrong side of. It’s just the final nail in the coffin, extinguishing the tiny little flame of hope “lesbian seagulls” had lit inside of her. Hope slashed, dream dead and the pain on her face as you see her realise it is intense. Makes your own eyes a little watery in sympathy for her.

But what I also love is the other side of that coin. For what Deb sees is one facet, she sees reality through a very specific Gaussian blur. She sees the happy smiling family that could be. What she doesn’t see is that Mihi’s nephew is actually a buffer between Mihi and Milan. In that moment he is what links them together, because the actual bond between them is struggling to hold its strength. Deb sees the picket fence, but what she doesn’t seem to realise is how weather-worn it is, how the paint is chipped and that the murky wood beneath is exposed. Deb doesn’t acknowledge that they step through that gate towards her, or that the kid rides off with her and Mihi, that they leave Milan behind. That part doesn’t click for her.

Or the way that Deb’s socially awkward response to Milan telling her “I hope you feel better soon” and him receiving a “you too, man” becomes it’s own echo of what is to come. An all thumbs comment which accidentally highlights what none of them have yet to acknowledge out loud, that he has already lost his marriage to a relationship that was never properly ended, merely put on hold.

It’s funny how metaphors work like that, the statistics of emotion – they can be used to tell whichever story you want them to, but for the main part your view of them are going to be coloured by your confirmation bias. Deb thinks she’s lost whatever second chance she had with Mihi, so that is what she sees. She doesn’t see the crumbling marriage, the divide or the choices made which further the newly formed abyss.

Also, it’s fun to compare Mihi’s reaction in this to how she reacts when Deb has her house broken into. The whole “It’s cool, Milan - Roger will take care of you, I need to scram” to “You are coming with me – fuck what my superior tells me”. Often the most telling choices are the subconscious ones. But that's in the future, because in this specific moment and in this specific scene, fuck me I felt bad for Deb as you watched her give up her final strands of hope.

[justreadingwords]

I love this analysis, Debs trajectory in this episode is phenomenally well written and acted.

The shift for Milan in this scene is also interesting to me, the way throughout this episode we slowly see him realising that there’s something much bigger afoot here. For him, this starts out being about honesty and communication in his marriage, obviously something Mihi's not great at even when it’s not about Deb. There’s some insecurity about her sexuality in there as well, but it’s, to him, not really about Deb. (I think the whole "is this something you need?" - "what, Deb?" - "Deb, other women?" exchange is is very telling there. Mihi and Milan are having two entirely different conversations.)

But then there’s this scene, where Deb, says "you too" and you can tell that she feels genuinely bad for him. And I think that’s the first moment where he realises that there’s more going on here than he's seen so far.

Deb, who, as OP said, is heartbroken by Mihi's behaviour and can't see, in that moment, how chipped the paint on the picket fence is, is still the person who knows Mihi best. And even through all her own pain, she knows that Mihi isn't choosing Milan, not in any way that matters, she's choosing a certain type of life. A life she's too scared to have with Deb.

So she does, I think, feel bad for him when she says "you too" and he does see that, you can see the surprise on his face for a second there. This culminates in the scenes later then, him waiting at the door as Mihi hesitates to come in, and the tragic dinner attempt as a try to fix something that he can't fix in the finale.

[damnamour]

BUST UP (2026) ― S1E06

[unnaturalequilibrium]

any deb mihi headcanons you’d like to share?

I don’t really have that many headcanons, I mostly have a lot of questions. I mean it, a lot of them.

Like - how come Deb knows all of Mihi’s extended family, but Mihi has never up until now met “Undiagnosed” and Dad? What's that about? Fear? - no, I doubt that considering the nose boop of "I know what you are" after one look of Deb's towards Mihi. Rita might be a self-medicating with red wine and a thousand wild projects, but she is emotionally bright enough to see right through Deb. So then what? Logistics? In opportunity? Shame...?

On the other hand, in what way does Mihi’s family know Deb? I mean Sonny clearly knew what was up, but somehow I doubt someone who runs away scared “because I didn’t know what you meant for my future” - would be open with her family to an extent they knew what Deb meant to her. Still they know her. How often did she tag along with Mihi when she went home? How often was she bent over a plate of food alongside the rest of them? Who knew why? Who suspected as much?

I want to know how Deb would react if the roles were reversed. I mean we have this woman who straight up steps in between a bank robber and their hostages. Who goes kamikaze cave spelunking because her person is trapped and alone. What would she be like if the woman she loved was put in harms way? A gun to Mihi’s head, a stray punch, a verbalised threat. Would she keep that calm and collected pragmatism or would it break? I don’t really think it’s a veneer with Deb, it’s just who she is. She is the kind of person who steps in between a stranger and danger, and she does it with calm and level-headed motivation. But if you lit a fire beneath her what would happen? If Mihi’s life was put on the line what would Deb do to that line?

And I want to know about Mihi. Why, despite seemingly having a better relationship in many ways than Deb with her family - why is there such a frosty veil between Mihi and her mother? When and how did that relationship slip and side into cordial awkwardness? Was that before or after Deb? Was that part of why she didn’t know what Deb would have meant for her future? Or did Mihi raise that wall herself when she was too scared to be vulnerable and open with who and what she was?

Then according to Mihi they were together for “six months, maybe a bit more-”, but how come they slip so easily back into caring and playing off of each other? Sharing grins, looks, food, ideas. That doesn’t feel like six months. That feels like a relationship that was left brewing for months and months before it turned physical, before it took on a name. It’s a relationship with too much definition, too much character to only have lived for six short months. That ingrained affection and deep caring, even with the “long winter” between them it rises to the top again with an effortless ease. It feels deep, rooted and like it had time to mature before it was cut off at the stem, leaving a dormant core that somehow survives sleeping for a decade and still manages to start growing again. That’s not six months.

I want to know if Mihi ever referred to herself as Deb’s girlfriend. I want to know if that filled her with pride and joy or if it just terrified the shit out of her. Probably a bit of both, if those words ever did actually leave her tongue in a setting with more of an audience then her own reflection in the mirror.

How did they find out that nosebleeds were a thing? One of the reasons it’s so easy to fall in love with Deb even as a viewer is because of her facial expressions. Imagine that, imagine the look on her face as Mihi bleeds all over her. That look of utter befuddlement, dash of fear and then morphing into a sly and rakish grin when it becomes clear Mihi is fine, Mihi is in fact very fine. I would have wanted to see that face.

And did either of them count how many tears were shed? And for how long? Deb had her box of “DON’T!”, but what did Mihi have? An advanced ability to compartmentalise? Impeccable skills of self-denial? Or were there tears? Was there pain? What did it look like? Was it fiery and red? Or was it grey and quiet? How did it feel when everything seeped back in as she put those binoculars to her eyes and spotted Deb in the middle of a bank robbery with a samurai sword in her face? What did that visual stir in her chest as her lips fell apart and a breath was stolen from her lungs?

So no, I don’t really have any headcanons. I just have a shitload of questions. And that's before we even begin with what happens after that finale.

Deb's awesome face tax if you actually read through all of that.

[monsterintheballroom]

Bust Up out on 27th May

The series follows former romantic partners Deb Brighton and Mihi Renata, who are unexpectedly reunited after a decade apart and forced to work side by side as police officers in the small (fictional) town of Waitote, the garden gnome capital of Aotearoa.

[damnamour]

BUST UP (2026) ― S1E02

[damnamour]

BUST UP (2026) ― S1E06

[damnamour]

BUST UP (2026) ― S1E06

[justreadingwords]

there’s something very interesting to me about the fact that mihi, who only has gluten-free bread and low fat milk in the fridge she shares with her husband, is constantly eating cheese toasties and chips with deb

[damnamour]

BUST UP (2026) ― S1E06

[justreadingwords]

Look at these two being young and in love… Mihi looks so soft, heart eyes all the way, Deb too, but with Mihi the difference to a decade later hits harder.

So many open questions about their past. Like, all we know is that they were together for something over six months, Mihi was Debs first girlfriend and they were probably both at police college in Porirua at the time.