Dept Q: An Gutsy Tartan-Noir Winner for Netflix
Get ready to devour this highly bingeable Scottish crime drama.
*light on spoilers*
Surely TV police officers outnumber real ones by this point so you’d be forgiven for questioning whether another police drama is necessary. Based on the Danish novels penned by Jussi Adler Olsen, Dept. Q is Netflix’s fresh take that relocates the insufferable DCI Carl Morck (Matthew Goode) and his new cold-case department to Scotland. The premise may sound recycled but the tight, darkly-comic script and largely multi-layered characters make this a surprisingly original and watchable series. It makes sense, given writer Scott Frank was first offered the screen rights fifteen years ago. After painstakingly troubleshooting various locations, from Boston to various cities in Scotland, he landed with Edinburgh, artfully adapting the popular Scandi-noir series for the lesser known Tartan-noir genre.
Morck leads a mix-match trio of colleagues who’ve been consigned to the basement. Urinals, sinks and dust adorn the walls, making the ‘Slow Horses’ premises look positively palatial. Like Jackson Lamb, Morck hates everyone, but is plagued with guilt after a shooting at a crime scene that left a junior sergeant dead and his partner in (solving) crime DS Hardy (James Sives) paralysed. Morck was shot, but escaped lightly by comparison. This plays out on screen as the opening scene, ensuring a hook that will undoubtedly keep the viewer watching. It is upon his return to work that his boss DCS Moira Jacobson (Kate Dickie) assigns him his new role leading Department Q (Q for ‘shower quarters’?).
Elsewhere prosecutor Merritt Lingard (Chloe Pirrie), whose sullen expression matches that of Morck, has lost a case against Graham Finch (Douglas Russell), a man accused of murdering his wife. She shares caring responsibilities of her brother William (Tom Bulpett) with carer Claire (Shirley Henderson), though not much love is lost between them. And apparently someone else is not fond of Merritt either, as she’s receiving threatening messages from an unknown number.
By the close of episode one, the two strands dovetail. It turns out Merritt’s storyline is four years prior. Shortly after her unsuccessful prosecution, she disappears and her unsolved missing persons case is the first on Dept Q’s agenda. We, as the audience, know she is alive, held captive in a pressure container, but her captors’ identities remain a mystery. Is Finch responsible for Merritt’s fate or do answers lie further in Merritt’s past?
Our characters are complex, with varying degrees of trauma emanating from their personal and professional lives. From Morck trying to shield his stepson from danger, to DS Hardy being confronted with realities of family life with paralysis, every opportunity to explore their motivations is utilised. Even the superficially unlikeable Morck, Moira and Merritt had moments of softness. Testament to this, nine episodes is insufficient to explore all characters in as much depth as we may have liked, but Dept Q is of course based on a series of books, so the hope is for Netflix to commission subsequent seasons to delve deeper. And in an era of prequels and sequels, I wouldn’t be surprised to soon see a spinoff solely focused on Akram (Alexej Manvelov) (a favourite of mine!), whose past remains an enigma.
Kelly McDonald excels as Dr Irving, Morck’s work-mandated therapist. This is a useful plot device to flesh out our protagonist, with Morck’s standoffishness exaggerated by contrast to the therapist’s gentle probing. However I enjoyed Dr Irving -albeit unconventionally- opening up herself, demonstrating to Morck how it is done. Heavy hints point towards romantic feelings between therapist and client, underlined when her date turns out to be a lookalike of Morck. Nothing comes of it yet, but I’m sure that’s the direction we’re heading!
Despite an impressive performance by Chloe Pirrie, Merritt left me slightly confused was Merritt. Whilst garnering sympathy at times, her cold demeanour didn’t chime with her role as a prosecutor, resolute on justice. How had she arrived at that point, from the antagonistic teenage goth we meet in flashbacks? Perhaps the trauma of her brother’s attack had lent her the strong sense of justice we see in the courtroom, except this didn’t extend to her home life, where she retains the bitterness of her teenage years. A sympathetic take could be that Merritt is a woman of contradictions, but it felt more like plot had been prioritised at the expense of character when it came to Merritt.
Dept Q doesn’t shy away from gruesome violence that had my jaw dropping to the floor at times, yet it is not used gratuitously. The gritty Scottish setting felt authentic, as did the Scotticisms littered throughout. In contrast to the largely realistic feel, the pressure tank was a tad too far-fetched for me, but easy enough to put aside for the sake of the plot. And given the positive reception of the series a quick Google will show, I am not alone in finding this a highly watchable Netflix original. Sure, it’s not a Slow Horses, but given Slow Horses is hidden away on AppleTV, many will come to this with fresh eyes: they will have the privilege of watching without the intrusive comparisons that will inevitably be made by Slow Horses fans, like myself. Netflix has bagged a winner here.