Who says a show about a child journalist can’t be great?

Home before dark is a brilliant series, and we can’t wait for season 2.
In this ten episodes series, we follow a 9-year-old girl Hilde Lisko who moves back to her father’s hometown with her family, where she will stir up a story from the past in search of the truth.
This series is loosely based on the true story of Hilde Lysiak, a 13-year-old journalist youngest member of the Society of journalists, who founded the Orange Street News with her father’s help.

What’s fascinating about that show is that it freshes the old crime mystery drama story by having a little girl as the real detective while avoiding being both preachy and cheesy. Home before dark intertwines the family drama and the mystery story in ways that pushed Hilde to the extreme, as she is trying to salvage her family that she sees crumbling under the weight of the secret of something that happened 30 years ago. We go back and forth between the present and the past in a very Spielberg atmosphere. All that drama is dilute with some funny moments. Indeed, Hilde and her friends and their actions at odds with the conventions don’t fail to make us laugh.

People often compare Hilde to Veronica mars as she is fierce, impatient, funny, driven, resilient. But Hilde reminds me of a mix of another famous character Sherlock Holmes from the BBC drama and Scout from to kill a mockingbird. Just like Sherlock, Hilde does not miss a clue, knows that she can be annoying but work it to her advantage; people around her would probably sigh a lot, but at the end of the day, she is infuriatingly right. Hilde’s relationship with the people close to her is often source of conflicts, especially with her older sister Izzy. But love and benevolence always prevail. And Hilde’s innocence, just like Scout’s character, reminds us that no matter the conflicts in which they find themselves, children are a unifying force. They aren’t as clueless as we might think. Sometimes adults can be wrong being lost in their games of the politically correct.

Home before dark is more than just a show about solving mysteries. It is a story about living, how one can keep on living with guilt or pain. It is a tale about a broken town and broken people.
Hilde’s obsession with the truth reveals the worst in the people around her, but it’s also the best chance that they can get in the hope of salvaging themselves.

With twists and turns, the series manages to keep us on the edge of our sit, even if we are grown ups watching a little girl solving a mystery. It is how good this show is! We are looking forward to seeing what other stories Hilde will cover in The Magic hour chronicle.