Addressing the ‘why now’ question of Merritt Lingard’s abduction in Dept. Q
- Cherish
- Jun 24
- 4 min read
WARNING: This post includes SPOILERS for all nine episodes of Dept. Q. If you have not yet watched the series, please do yourself a favour and start immediately! It is one of Netflix’s best shows in recent years.
No, I am not yet over Dept. Q. It is such a brilliant show that weeks later, there remain elements of it that could still be explored. Amongst the lingering questions about the Merritt Lingard abduction is -- why now?
By now, I mean four years from the start of the series, when a young, ambitious prosecutor disappeared aboard a ferry that was supposed to take her and her brother William back to their childhood home in Mhòr. More specifically, what made the murderous mother and son team begin targeting Merritt, until they finally, successfully abducted her on that fateful day?
The roots of the hell that Merritt suffered for four years were planted 12 years ago, when she was a teenager anxious to get away from her father, and dating a young man who had massive family issues of his own. Harry Jennings, along with his brother Lyle, were horribly abused by their mother Ailsa. Years later, Merritt would uncover the inscriptions L and H inside the hyperbaric chamber where she was kept prisoner. She was not its first occupant, not the first who was tortured within its confines. Harry and Lyle suffered there in their youth.
Merritt’s strong desire to leave Mhòr had her fantasising about taking even one diamond ring from the stack of jewelry her mother left her father. When she reached 18, she would have access to the trust fund her mother’s wealthy family set up for her and William. She just needed enough money to get by until then.
Almost immediately after the words were out of her mouth, Merritt changed her mind. For one thing, her father would immediately know she was the culprit. But the idea was already out there. Harry was already thinking about how he would do it. On the night that Merritt thought her father and brother would be out, Harry broke into the Lingard home and attempted to steal the jewelry. Only, William was home.
William hit who he thought was a stranger thief, but immediately stopped when he realised it was Harry. But, Harry’s mentally disturbed younger brother Lyle had followed him. It was Lyle who brutally attacked William.
William survived and came out of his coma, but he had developed aphasia, and had trouble communicating. The boy with the promising future was now gone. Harry fled from the law and died in the process; he jumped off the ferry into the water as the captain and the first mate approached, according to Constable Cunningham.
Ailsa blamed Merritt for her son Harry’s death. She had 12 years to stew on that anger. Meanwhile, Merritt went to university, then started working as a prosecutor. She and William lived a very quiet life; their house was in an isolated place. Merritt was so careful that she even used a credit card under her mother’s maiden name to check in at a hotel with her lovers.
What woke Ailsa and Lyle’s anger? The show did not answer this outright, but it placed a few clues that could be summed up under one question -- why did we spend so much time on the Graham Finch case when he had nothing to do with Merritt’s abduction? My admittedly speculative answer? Because it was Merritt’s involvement in the Graham Finch case that placed her on the radar of Ailsa and Lyle.
Merritt was a fairly junior prosecutor. Whilst she was lead prosecutor of the Graham Finch case, her boss Stephen Burns had Liam Taylor supervise her. It was very likely that the Graham Finch case was Merritt’s first big, press-covered case.
Now we know from Merritt herself that Lyle posing as Sam Haig went to watch the Graham Finch trial and sat behind Lord Advocate Burns. But, even before the trial started, there already would have been press around the case. Graham Finch was a wealthy and powerful man. The death of his wife and his subsequent murder case would have been well covered by the press. Merritt would have been announced as the lead prosecutor at some point before the trial started.
It was very likely that Ailsa and/or Lyle saw Merritt or heard her name mentioned in relation to the Graham Finch trial. Old wounds awakened, and Lyle started stalking her. He began laying the groundwork on what would ultimately be a successful plan to abduct her. Merritt stepped into the limelight because of her career, and her past found her.
Chloe Pirrie was mesmerising as Merritt Lingard. The layered writing of Merritt – the determined, the defiant, the guilty – along with Ms Pirrie’s performance prevented the show from sinking into depressing depths even through the worst of Merritt’s captivity. That the missing was one of the mystery’s strongest characters made Dept. Q all the more compelling.
Revisit the brilliance of Dept. Q via Netflix, then come read our finale recap here!