Answering Your Dept. Q Questions, Part 2
- Cherish
- Jun 29
- 4 min read
This post on Netflix’s Dept. Q contains SPOILERS for all nine episodes. Please make sure you have already seen in full this wonderful series before reading on.
Hello everyone! June is about to end, and I hope it has been a lovely month for you. For me, well, June has been very busy so far. That is why this questions post is coming a bit later than I intended. But, we are here, and without further ado, let’s answer some Dept. Q questions!
Who threatened Jasper?
I feel like many of us felt a wee bit protective of young Jasper when he was threatened by that thug in a particularly disgusting way, because I saw this question several times. Anyway, to answer your question, the man who threatened Jasper was named Fitz, and the driver of his getaway vehicle was Edmund Solomon, and they both worked for Graham Finch. Recaps of episodes six and seven have more details.
Why did Constable Cunningham circle the necklace on the crime scene photo? What happened to the rest of the jewellery?
These answers are going to be mostly speculative and frankly not based on much solid evidence, but it’s fun to talk about these things so here we go. From what we saw of Constable Cunningham, he was not a particularly diligent investigator. Since Jamie Lingard filed an insurance claim for the necklace, very likely, he needed to get a police report to document the loss, which Cunningham might have provided without really thinking much about it, since other jewellery were missing. When he looked through the case file again following Morck’s visit, he probably circled the necklace because he remembered it and realised he made a mistake. If it were something he wanted to hide, he would have taken the photo rather than highlight the discrepancy.
What happened to the rest of Lila Lingard’s jewellery? Jamie Lingard said the necklace was the only thing of his wife that he had left. He bitterly resented Merritt for taking it. So, we can assume that Harry, who dragged his brother out of the Lingard home horrified at the violence that he witnessed, was able to leave with the jewels. Did it fall into the ocean as he jumped? I don’t think so. I think more likely the Jennings boys rushed home and they told their mother what happened. Harry probably left all or most of the jewels with Ailsa (or she took them). When Harry died, she probably used the jewels to support herself over the years. After all, it would have cost money to keep that hyperbaric chamber operational. Ailsa had a part time job as a bookkeeper at church, but the way young Colin Cunningham relayed that information to Rose after initially forgetting it, I got the impression that that was a relatively new job, perhaps one that Ailsa took when she started running low on funds.
Ailsa emphasised that Harry was a good son. What would make an abusive mother remember her eldest with such fondness over a decade later? I think it was because he left her a windfall. The life that she was able to live was financed by his work that one night.
How did the Jennings get Merritt off the ferry? Were the vehicles not searched that day?
I actually have another question on the way to possibly answering this – How soon after Merritt disappeared was an alarm raised about her disappearance? Remember that William had trouble communicating. He would not have been able to tell anyone immediately that his sister was missing.
In any case, since Fergus Dunbar, the original lead detective, told Morck that he interviewed all the passengers that day, we at least know that the alarm was raised before the ferry docked in Mhòr and the passengers disembarked. The police was already there before Ailsa or Lyle could drive off with Merritt in the trunk. Had all the vehicles been searched along with every inch of the ferry, Merritt would have been found.
What prevented this? Well, from the beginning, Dunbar was focused on the possibility that Merritt fell into the water. Remember what he told Morck – he had divers in the water for weeks, he had officers searching the coastline, he interviewed all the passengers not just in the ferry Merritt boarded but on the other boat that sailed that day. Dunbar was looking for Merritt in the water, not on the boat, even though he later came to the conclusion that a fall would not have been enough to kill Merritt.
Now let’s explore the possibility that the vehicles leaving were given a cursory search. Could Lyle as a ferry employee have waved off his mother, perhaps told someone from the police that the vehicle had already been searched? It’s a possibility. It would be sloppy police work, but again, at this stage, they were not operating under the assumption that Merritt was kidnapped. Also, if the alarm was raised pretty late into the ferry ride, that would have delayed the call to the police. Many of the passengers would be rushing to leave after waiting a long time, which would have placed pressure on the policemen to allow them to disembark.
Why didn’t Morck arrest Finch for arranging the attempted murder of Kirsty Atkins?
Well, the Crown could not nail Finch for the murder of his wife. How much more difficult would it have been to go after him for the attempted murder of a young woman with no connections and a criminal record? Besides, Kirsty made it clear she would not testify, ever. The best that Morck could do for her was to make Finch think twice about having her killed once she was out of jail.
Who killed Anderson and shot Hardy and Morck?
We don’t have the answer to this yet. Hopefully, the show will be renewed soon, and we could have more details on the Leith Park shooting.
That's it for now. As of this writing, there is no word yet on a series renewal. I refuse to lose hope. Let’s keep promoting Dept. Q and look forward to the most excellent news soon!