Courtesy of Netflix
“Dept. Q” features an irritable detective (center), Syrian ex-cop (left) and PTSD-struggling redhead (right) in a thrilling crime series.Editor’s Note: Minor spoilers for “Dept. Q”; the show also includes graphic accounts of torture, so if that makes you uncomfortable, avoid it.
Seconds pass quickly and the air pressure increases exponentially, reaching closer and closer to oxygen toxicity; two underfunded detectives scramble to find the right speed to depressurize the tank without it being lethal.
“Dept. Q,” a thriller Netflix series set in Scotland about a police department specializing in unsolved cases, is based on a book series by Jussi Adler-Olsen. The series was released in late May and was renewed for a second season last month.
The series has 10 books, the first of which follows the released season. The titular Department Q specializes in solving cold cases that have been static for a long time — specifically those with high visibility — to garner funding from the government. The case covered in the first season is about a kidnapped prosecutor, Merritt Lingard, deemed missing after the previous four-year search.
Her case is tracked by a British cop (the only Brit in a crowd of Scots) who is shot in the neck at the beginning of the series in an unrelated case — an injury that he personally struggles with throughout the show.
While the cop, D.C.I Carl Morck, is rude and difficult to work with, he’s unsurprisingly skilled at solving cases and analyzing crime scenes, which is why he’s picked to lead the new department. The first few episodes lay out his situation, the resources he’s given to work with (which aren’t very good) and his sidekick — a former Syrian cop named Akram.
In general, the character development in the series is very skillfully presented. Morck struggles with his Scottish accent, his stepson Jasper — who his flight-attendant ex-wife dumped custody onto him for a ‘stable home’ — and even therapy as he fails to open up and accept professional mental health feedback.
Akram’s character is also complex. He uses unforgiving torture techniques to get answers but on the surface seems careful and well-organized.
Even evil-seeming characters are developed — the Lingards’ maid hates Merritt but cares for her disabled brother, William. Merritt herself is strange — she’s secretive and isolated, with eccentric friends we learn more about.
The show’s writing is largely satisfying. Insanity, impersonation and eccentricity are all pieced together precisely to craft an exciting ending. The show runs on multiple timelines at once as well — while Morck is solving the mystery, we get to watch Merritt’s side of the story and how she unravels herself and finally understands her familial predicament.
The multiple timelines functionally create dramatic irony, as we, the viewers, are able to solve the mystery just minutes before the detectives do, making every plot turn all the more surprising.
However, at times, the series seems a bit repetitive with unclear motives. The time spent solving the mystery feels unnecessarily lengthened and near the middle, it feels like extra characters are added with no clear purpose. Perhaps, though, it demonstrates the point of precision in solving a mystery — even the smallest details matter, especially if they don’t make sense together at the moment.
To remedy this feeling, the producers have said they’re considering reducing future seasons’ lengths to six episodes from nine to make the plot more compact and digestible.
As more people discover the series, I predict it’ll become one of the most streamed — it was already No. 1 on Netflix’s global charts in June.
Overall Rating: 5/5 Falcons
