Dept. Q Episode 8 Explained: The Why

Cherish
9 hours ago
7 min read

Recapper’s Note: This is a very spoilery episode, so I flipped the usual order of these recaps. If you’d like to read the brief episode summary first, please scroll way down.

Full Recap and Review

Why are you here? That was always at the heart of Merritt Lingard’s captivity, this demand that she searched her soul for the original sin that brought her to that horrible place. Four years, and she never came close. She named various names in her past, most of them people she came in contact with as a prosecutor, yet the names were never right. In the end, it was Merritt’s captor who broke, who gave her the clue that allowed her to solve this riddle.

But first, her deep regrets. There was Harry Jennings, her teenage boyfriend, who apparently got the idea of breaking into her father’s house from her. Merritt was desperate to get away from Mhòr. She told Harry that just one of her mother’s diamond rings would pay her rent for a year. She just needed to survive until she turned 18; by that time, the trust fund her mother’s family set up for her would come into her control.

She mused at how easy it would be to get just one ring. Her father kept her mother’s jewelry in an unlocked box. But, she could not do it. Her father would know immediately that it was her.

Harry seriously considered it. Was there a night William would not be home? Her father? The cat was out of the bag, and Merritt could not put it back in, though she tried. As difficult as her home life was, it was nothing compared to Harry’s. Apparently, the burning of their house was not due to his younger brother Lyle playing with matches. Their mother Ailsa was flicking lit cigarettes at their father whilst he slept.

How could Merritt have known that her venting at her boyfriend would lead to her brother getting so viciously attacked that though he survived his injuries, he never again would have a normal life? Merritt saw Harry drive off her father’s house that night. She found the bloodied William on the floor, the box that contained her mother’s jewelry open on the floor.

There are flashbacks to help tell a story, and there are scenes deliberately repeated to emphasise one. We got both in this episode. Out of all the scenes we have already seen, why repeat a minor morning after tiff? As with the greatest of mysteries, the answers are often in the mundane. One lover steps back, the other is hurt, one lover takes two steps forward, the other backs off.

‘Sorry Sam’, Merritt had whispered as she remembered him. It was the same scene we saw back in Episode Four, when Merritt was telling Sam that she would be gone for a while. She said she was going to Mhòr to see her father. She acted annoyed at Sam asking questions, and he snapped back. But this time, we got a longer scene; Merritt came back. She asked him to join her and her brother. They would be on the 10AM boat; she’d like him to meet William. Just when it looked as though Merritt was giving Sam what he wanted, an opening into her life, an offer of closeness, he closed off. He could not take what she offered.

Was Sam Haig helping or hurting Merritt? The Q squad puzzled over the question that was Merritt’s dead lover. He went to court every day, presumably for Merritt, yet he also gave information to Graham Finch’s lawyer that could hurt Merritt, that is, if we believed the lawyer’s claim. Why was he spending so much time at Godhaven in the middle of the Graham Finch trial? There was also the impossibility of Sam being at two places at the same time, with Merritt at the Prince’s Garden, and Paul Evans’s wife at The Spivey Inn. The answer could only be that there were two Sam Haigs.

The Sam Haig Paul Evans knew was the real Sam Haig, the investigative reporter, the one who died in a supposed accidental fall. The Sam Haig that Merritt met was Lyle Jennings, Harry’s younger brother, and the kid Sam beat up when he was 17 to the point that one of his eyes turned black.

Sam, the real Sam, according to Terry Dundee at Godhaven, was anyone he needed to be to get what he wanted. If the police suspected that his death was not an accident, there was a long list of people who could have done it. When he came to Godhaven, he said he was writing a book about his time there. He stole the video that Dennis Piper later found in his laptop during his visit. Just from Terry’s observations of Sam, we could see how Lyle Jennings could have felt comfortable impersonating him. Apart from their shared childhood history, they also possessed the same volatility, and the ability to mask it.

Lyle as Sam approached Merritt as part of this horrific plan with Ailsa, but his strong feelings for her were real. When he carried the sedated Merritt back into the hyperbaric chamber after kicking the h out of her, he did so tenderly. He told her he gave her a painkiller with her sedative. He told her he loved her, kissed her, took that necklace that Merritt always wore, the one from her mother. And when he heard Merritt whisper ‘Sorry Sam’, a small demonstration that she thought of him, he returned the necklace that she had been asking for.

Lyle at least considered letting Merritt go. Ailsa, of course, had no such plans; she wanted to kill Merritt, even if that meant never hearing what she wanted to hear from her. Lyle begged Merritt to answer that nagging question – Why are you here? – and gave her the clue that finally cracked the puzzle for her, that the last time they saw each other, it was at a funeral. Her captivity was because of Harry Jennings, her high school boyfriend whom she loved, the boy who attacked her brother William into a coma, the boy who died.

Ailsa blamed Merritt for her son’s death, but her mother’s rage only met Merritt’s defiance. Merritt declared she would never apologise to her or Harry’s ‘psychotic’ brother for what Harry did to William. Merritt stood up straight and spread her arms, ready for the death that she thought would be meted out to her that moment. What she got instead was the sound of someone pounding something heavy on one of the windows. When she went to take a look, it was Sam’s hurt face that she saw, Sam who was her lover, Sam who was actually Lyle Jennings.

With this penultimate episode, we can appreciate Dept. Q's beautifully sprinkled clues throughout the season. The letters L and H that Merritt found inscribed on the wall of the hyperbaric chamber -- Lyle and Harry. Jamie Lingard’s burning comment toward Lyle – that was in reference to the lie that was spread that Lyle burned down the Jennings house. Even Sam’s behaviour toward Merritt when they met at the cemetery made sense; his every word was carefully chosen to make Merritt feel small, unbalanced, uncertain, to remove her natural confidence and convince her she was in a world she did not understand but he did. It was a manipulation. And now Merritt had to process that the man she cared for, the man she almost allowed into her life with William, the man she mourned, was her captor, her torturer.

The Q squad was close. When Morck and Akram spoke to the constable back in Mhòr, he never mentioned that Harry Jennings had a brother. Rose got more information during her trip, but she, too, never got Lyle’s name, nor was she able to speak to Ailsa. But now they knew of Lyle’s connection to Sam, that the Sam Terry Dundee described as a sociopath met his match with Lyle. Just as Merritt seemed truly, finally resigned to her death, the people searching for her had uncovered the name that could lead them to her.

Rating: A

Strays

🔎Morck took Martin’s advice and had been writing down his dreams. One significant dream involved Charlie Bell, the same man he picked out in the lineup but whom he could not identify as his shooter. In the dream, Charlie and the witness who recanted, Caroline Kerr, worked in a garage owned by a local crime boss named Eugene Errington. Errington was Caroline’s baby’s father. Charlie was also Errington’s muscle, and according to Morck, not the shooter but the man in the car (the one with the McDonald’s takeout). In the dream, Morck was part of a raiding team that executed a surprise arrest on Charlie. However, when Charlie mocked Hardy, Morck walked back and shot him.

🔎Morck pinged Dr. Irving’s phone, a scary use of police resources, and found her in a restaurant where she was waiting for a date. I enjoy their chemistry but am moderately concerned they work as an almost couple better than in an actual relationship.

🔎Jasper seemed to be doing better, practicing Tai Chi with Martin, in a relationship with a girl named Gemma.

🔎Merritt’s father Jamie Lingard had been either selling or pawning her mother’s jewelry and using the money to get drunk.

🔎Terry Dundee showed Morck and Akram an interview of Lyle Jennings as a teenager.

Episode 8 Summary:

The Q squad solved the riddle of their conflicting information – of Sam Haig being with Merritt at the Prince’s Garden at the same time that he was with Paul Evans’s wife at The Spivey Inn – these were two different men, connected by their shared time at Godhaven. Sam Haig, the investigative reporter, was the man who died in a purported climbing accident. The Sam Haig that Merritt met was her high school boyfriend Harry’s younger brother, Lyle Jennings. Ailsa Jennings, the Jennings matriarch, blamed Merritt for her son’s death; it was she and Lyle who kidnapped Merritt. Whilst Merritt already had her answers, the Q squad was getting close. Their investigation has now shifted to Lyle Jennings.

Case updates

Leith Park shooting

We only got Morck’s dream, which, if we take as truth, since he fell asleep whilst reading a police file – There is a local crime boss named Eugene Errington who was connected to two people involved in the Leith Park investigation, Charlie Bell and Caroline Kerr. They both worked at Errington’s garage. Morck suspected Charlie was the driver and lookout. Caroline was Errington’s lover and her baby was his too.

Merritt Lingard’s Disappearance

Please refer to the summary above.

You can access Recap Lab's full coverage of Dept. Q via this link.

Writer: Scott Frank

Director: Scott Frank

Original Air Date: May 29, 2025

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