Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Dept. Q’ On Netflix, Where A Cranky Cop Comes Back From Being Shot To Solve Cold Cases

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We do are inclined to lose our endurance with reveals that take time to arrange its characters and scenario. However there are occasions the place the wait was price it. A brand new crime thriller from Scotland is a kind of reveals.

DEPT. Q: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Physique cam footage from a patrol cop following two detectives as they look at a person who was stabbed within the head. One of many detectives is an entire jerk. Then the patrol cop turns round, sees a person in a ski masks and is shot within the neck. The detectives are additionally hit by the bullet exiting the patrol officer’s neck.

The Gist: The capturing killed the patrol cop, PC Anderson (Angus Yellowlees); one of many detectives, DI James Hardy (Jamie Sives), was left paralyzed. The opposite detective, DCI Carl Morck (Matthew Goode), appears to have survived the capturing principally intact, though the bullet went by his neck. Months later, he’s prepared to return again to work, however as we see in a remedy session with Dr. Rachel Irving (Kelly Macdonald), the capturing hasn’t precisely made him any much less of a jerk.

Morck’s boss, Moira Jacobson (Kate Dickie), finds out from the upper ups on the Scottish police that the cupboard secretary desires to ascertain a brand new division that solves chilly instances, citing the optics of a earlier case that was just lately solved. It comes with an enormous funds. However Jacobson thinks the information serves two functions: It offers her division some much-needed cash and it will get Morck out of her hair. She places him in control of this one-man chilly case division, placing him in a dingy basement workplace on Stage Q.

Within the meantime, Merritt Lingard (Chloe Pirrie) is representing the Crown on a high-profile homicide case, and it isn’t going effectively. Her colleagues suppose she’s not skilled sufficient for the case, and the religion of her boss, Stephen Burns (Mark Bonnar), is wavering. She’s additionally getting nameless threats through textual content message. She additionally tries to protect all of this from her developmentally disabled brother William (Tom Bulpett).

Again on the police headquarters in Edinburgh, DC Rose Dickson (Leah Byrne) brings down bins of proof for Morck to undergo; all he must do is decide one to analyze. When he complains to Jacobson that he wants assist, Akram Salim (Alexej Manveldv), a part-time IT contractor from Syria, is shipped to the basement. Morck finally figures out that Salim is adept at going by the information, and permits him to select the primary case, which is of a lady who went lacking 4 years prior.

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What Reveals Will It Remind You Of? Dept. Q, written by Scott Frank (The Queen’s Gambit) and Chandni Lakhani, gave us sturdy Gradual Horses vibes.

Our Take: The primary episode of Dept. Q is over an hour lengthy, and it takes that point to ascertain what it truly is by displaying us what it received’t be. Certain, Morck is an asshole; his coworkers suppose he’s an asshole, his boss thinks he’s an asshole, and his son thinks he’s an asshole. His therapist is on the fence. The one one who doesn’t is his former accomplice Hardy, however he has his personal difficulties to cope with.

Through the first half of the primary episode, you suppose that Morck goes to be concerned in fixing the capturing that killed Anderson and left Hardy paralyzed. There may be nonetheless going to be a component of that, however for essentially the most half Morck and his ragtag crew are going to be concerned in fixing this girl’s disappearance. And, whereas there's a little bit of a procedural side to this story, it’ll probably lean on the disparate personalities concerned.

Goode units the tone as Morck, who appears to be happiest in one among two conditions: When he’s making different individuals’s lives depressing and when he’s arguing about previous soccer matches. However Goode reveals that Morck can also be self-aware about how shitty he's to individuals, and he’s both accepted this truth about himself or simply doesn’t care. He’s not turning a brand new leaf after being shot. However there’s a humanity to Morck’s shittiness that makes him get deeply concerned in his instances.

We additionally get the sensation that, given Salim’s historical past, he won't be all that fazed by Morck’s dismissive nature, which in fact makes him the right complement to the grouchy detective.

The previous few minutes of the episode is once we get the inevitable tie between Morck’s and Merritt’s tales, and it included a real twist we didn’t see coming. However that twist gave the impression to be earned, for essentially the most half, and we’re trying ahead to seeing how that performs out.

<img style="aspect-ratio:1.77777778;display:block" width="1024" height="576" alt="Dept. Q" class="wp-image-1936673 lazyload" srcset="https://decider.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/dept-q-3_9bf11c.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=300 300w, https://decider.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/dept-q-3_9bf11c.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=640 640w, https://decider.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/dept-q-3_9bf11c.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1280 1280w, https://decider.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/dept-q-3_9bf11c.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1024 1024w, https://decider.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/dept-q-3_9bf11c.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1284 1284w" data-sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 1024px"/> Picture: Netflix

Intercourse and Pores and skin: Nothing within the first episode.

Parting Shot: We see the lacking girl in a bunker, and that bunker is in a warehouse, being overseen by a mysterious determine.

Sleeper Star: We genuinely laughed when Kelly Macdonald’s character, Dr. Irving, sits at her desk and opens her lunch, exasperated with Morck’s stonewalling. The scenes between the 2 will probably be enjoyable to look at.

Most Pilot-y Line: When Morck sees Jacobson directing her squad to unpack all new computer systems and flat-screen TVs, it’s attention-grabbing that he snarks about how his boss is utilizing the funds, however doesn’t fully name her out on it.

Our Name: STREAM IT. Dept. Q spends plenty of its first episode in misdirection mode, however by the tip it has arrange an intriguing case that’s being adopted by an interesting-to-watch group of cops.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about meals, leisure, parenting and tech, however he doesn’t child himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared within the New York Occasions, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Quick Firm and elsewhere.