Playing Gracie Darling Review: Tropey Mystery Has Its Moments But Remains Unimpressive

Playing Gracie Darling Review: 27 years after the disappearance of her best friend Gracie Darling, Joni is haunted by the past once again after Gracie’s sister disappearances under mysterious circumstances. This time, however, she refuses to let things slide and delves deep into the haunting mystery that once left her traumatised.

The series has 6 episodes, each with a runtime of around

Playing Gracie Darling Review

In Playing Gracie Darling, a young woman’s disappearance left her friend group, especially her best friend Joni, devastated. However, when the past comes back to haunt her, things get more and more dangerous as Joni desperately tries to get to the bottom of the mystery. The Australian miniseries, first aired on Paramount+ in August 2025, excels at bringing supernatural creepiness to a small town. The direction is both nice and unsettling, and the show plays with our minds, making us feel as though someone is constantly watching us, whether we are in the forest paths or empty rooms.

The series attempts to transcend conventional ghost stories by introducing additional layers of guilt, trauma, and grief, which add a layer of tension and fear to the supernatural atmosphere. It slowly peels these different layers back and tries to give us something more, reminding us that decades-old memories can haunt a person far more than ghosts and demons. The internal conflict of science & supernatural and scepticism & fear adds a different and thoughtful dimension to the storytelling and gives it a new edge.

There are also moments when the storytelling leaves space for doubt as we are forced to question whether the threats are purely supernatural or if there is a layer of human intervention in the entire ordeal. The questions are abundant throughout the runtime as we further ask whether some of these fears are real or simply the mind playing tricks on the characters. The ambiguity keeps viewers guessing and leaves space for an uneasy tension that is hard to shake off.

That being said, I found Playing Gracie Darling to be somewhat average. Although there are attempts to differentiate it from others, the series is, in the end, full of obvious occult tropes, and the genuinely creepy atmosphere can’t save it from itself. The familiar tropes tend to get on my nerves at this point, as I can’t help but roll my eyes at every turn. Seances gone wrong and mysterious disappearances seem to be the bedrock of these shows, and it’s become predictably annoying at this point.

Moreover, there are several subplots in the series that are brought up to add layers and mystery, but are eventually forgotten about. The need to add broader undercurrents is quite a welcome change, but it doesn’t do anything beyond that. There is no attempt at meaningfully using these subplots for the broader storyline, and thus, you feel sort of cheated by them. Further exploration could’ve been fruitful, but they ended up being half-baked and underdeveloped.

Lastly, I found the performances to be good, but the characters lack depth by a long shot. While Morgana O’Reilly’s Joni is an engaging protagonist, the same can’t be said for others. Some of the central characters lack a lot of depth, which results in the show suffering because they exist simply to push the mystery forward rather than to build relationships that make the story whole.

Final Thoughts

In the end, Playing Gracie Darling is fine. It’s a quietly unsettling and psychologically layered mystery that explores guilt and trauma well. However, it requires more depth from both the characters and the subplots to make the story feel whole and lived in, rather than just another mystery thriller trying to be something it’s not.

What are your thoughts on Playing Gracie Darling? Let us know in the comments below!

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