Elisabeth Moss plays the central role of Robin Griffin, a Sydney detective specializing in sexual assault, in both series.

Kip Chapman, Jacqueline Joe, Byron Coll and Cohen Holloway also reprise their Top of the Lake roles in a flashback sequence, with Mark Leonard Winter appearing as Johnno.

Jane Campion originally offered the role of Robin to Anna Paquin, who had worked with her on The Piano (1993), but she declined due to her pregnancy.

But after Moss was cast as Robin, the network pulled their funding before production began, citing a prior agreement to put an Australian actress in the lead.

[20] Gwendoline Christie, a fan of Campion's The Piano, joined the cast in a role written especially for her[21] after sending a letter through a mutual friend.

[22] Top of the Lake was screened in its entirety at the January 2013 Sundance Film Festival, in a single seven-hour session with one intermission and a break for lunch.

Reviews of the first series of Top of the Lake have been positive, referring to it as "masterfully made", "beautiful", "mysterious", "riveting", and "a masterpiece".

The website's critics consensus reads, "Absorbing and deeply atmospheric, Top of the Lake takes edgy, disturbing content and delivers powerful performances with lasting impressions.

Mike Hale of The New York Times criticized the "elaborately introduced plotlines" and described Tui's disappearance as "less a story element than a metaphor for the kind of armed resistance to male hegemony that constitutes the central idea of Ms Campion’s body of work.

The website's critics consensus reads, "Top of the Lake remains impressively idiosyncratic and ambitious in its second season, even if the plot of this six-episode arc isn't quite as tightly wound as its predecessor's.