General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20264 min read

Irreverent

Irreverent is a 2022 Australian-American comedy-crime-drama television series in which a Chicago criminal mediator flees to Australia and hides in a small Far North Queensland reef town by posing as its new church reverend. The ten-part series was created by Paddy Macrae, produced by Matchbox Pictures, and streamed on Peacock in the United States and Netflix in Australia and New Zealand.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Premiere	November 30, 2022, on Peacock (US); also on Netflix in Australia and New Zealand³^•¹
Format	10 episodes of about 46 minutes each; one season, status ended²^•⁴
Premise	Criminal mediator Paulo Keegan, after a mediation gone wrong, assumes the identity of Reverend Mackenzie "Mack" Boyd in the fictional town of Clump²
Lead cast	Colin Donnell, Kylie Bracknell, Ed Oxenbould, Tegan Stimson, P.J. Byrne, Wayne Blair³
Key crew	Directors Jonathan Teplitzky and Lucy Gaffy; composer David Hirschfelder; production company Matchbox Productions⁵
Reception	Metascore 65 (generally favorable); 57% Tomatometer and 93% Popcornmeter; IMDb rating 7.1/10⁶^•³^•⁷
Age rating	TV-14⁸

Spoilers

Premise and story

The series follows Paulo Keegan, a criminal mediator from Chicago who flees the United States after a mediation goes bloodily wrong, leaving him with a bullet wound, a large sum of illicit cash, and the hostility of his former employers.²^•⁹ He surfaces in Clump, a small, eccentric beach town in Far North Queensland hundreds of miles from phone reception, and assumes the identity of the town's new reverend, Mackenzie "Mack" Boyd, a name that is not his own.²^•³

To stay alive, Mack must keep the town believing he is a devoted man of God while searching for an exit strategy before the Chicago mob catches up with him.² His series-long goal is to gather enough money to buy a new identity, and each episode combines a weekly problem in the town with progress on that larger scheme.¹⁰ Early episodes establish the pattern: Mack tracks down the real reverend while officiating a wedding, enters the illegal "chop-chop" tobacco trade to raise money, and works to save the church from closure.¹¹ The season builds toward the arrival of the Chicago mob in Clump in the finale, "The Last Breakfast".¹¹

Cast and characters

Colin Donnell, an American actor and Broadway performer, plays the fugitive who poses as Mack.¹² The ensemble around him includes Kylie Bracknell as Piper, the town's by-the-book police officer; Ed Oxenbould as Cameron; Tegan Stimson as Daisy, who quickly works out that the faux reverend is not who he claims to be and becomes his partner in the tobacco-smuggling operation; Wayne Blair as Peter, the mayor and church enthusiast; P.J. Byrne; and Susie Porter as Agnes, who runs the chop-chop smuggling operation.⁸^•¹³

Production

The series was created by Paddy Macrae, who wrote alongside Andrew Knight, Andrew Anastasios, Angela McDonald, and Darlene Johnson, with Debbie Lee, Andrew Knight, and Paddy Macrae as executive producers.⁵^•¹⁴ It was produced by Matchbox Pictures, an NBCUniversal International Studios company, for Peacock in the United States and Netflix in Australia and New Zealand.¹

Filming in Queensland. Principal photography began in September 2021, starting at Village Roadshow Studios on the Gold Coast before moving to Mission Beach and the inland townships of Tully and Silkwood.¹⁵ The production was supported by the Australian Government's Location Incentive and by Screen Queensland's Production Attraction Strategy, which offers incentives for productions spending at least AU$3.5 million in the state; Irreverent was the third NBCUniversal production to film in Queensland under that strategy.¹⁵^•¹⁴

Reception

Critical response was mixed to favorable. The series holds a Metascore of 65 on Metacritic, based on four critic reviews, two positive and two mixed.⁶ On Rotten Tomatoes it has a 57% Tomatometer from seven reviews, against a 93% Popcornmeter audience score.³ IMDb users rate it 7.1/10 from about 1,900 ratings, with the most ratings coming from Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand.⁷

Reviewers divided over the same qualities. John Anderson of The Wall Street Journal called it a good-natured 10-part series that relies on the abundant charms of its cast because its circumstances are comedic and clichéd.⁶ Luke Buckmaster in The Guardian found it "very funny and bingeable", praising Donnell's fusion of bravado and bewilderment while noting that some second-half plot twists felt rushed.¹³ Travis Johnson of Flicks judged it easy and enjoyable but largely forgettable, arguing it lacked a singular point of view about faith or the city-country divide.⁹ The Insights Magazine review framed it as a redemption tale about a crook coming to terms with the transformative power of doing good.¹⁰

The series ran for one season and is listed as ended.⁴

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Scripted television and comedy series › Drama and prestige series (individual series) › Crime and thriller series › Organized crime and heist series

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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