What to watch this weekend: Dept. Q, starring Matthew Goode

I am writing this a few minutes after I finished binge watching all nine episodes of this excellent series on Netflix. The beat of that final song I have yet to identify is still in my head. I am sitting here trying to parse out how Dept. Q, with a case that went to some dark places, managed to end on an intriguing and even uplifting note. With some deft writing, strong performances all around, and a setting that very much felt like it powered the narrative, Dept. Q stood out amongst the many streaming crime dramas. 

Matthew Goode, who admittedly was my primary reason for watching this show, starred as DCI Carl Morck, recently returned to service after surviving a shooting that killed a young police officer and partly paralysed his partner DI James Hardy (Jamie Sives). Already a known pain in the bum even before he was emotionally scarred by the shooting, his boss Detective Chief Superintendent Moira Jacobson (Kate Dickie) exiled him to the basement (the shower quarters) to head up a newly opened unit tasked to investigate cold cases. Working for him was Akram Salim (Alexej Manvelov), a Syrian refugee whose calm deadly skills proved a highlight of this series, and Detective Constable Rose Dickson (Leah Byrne), a young officer still emerging from a breakdown after being involved in an accident. 

The first season (the first, because I am confident there will be a second season, and hopefully more) juggled two cases, the shooting Morck was involved in, and the cold case, the disappearance of Merritt Lingard (Chloe Pirrie), a young ambitious prosecutor who went missing four years ago. Morck may not have been the most popular guy in the office (and they cast Matthew Goode?), but he was a good detective, and the team he assembled more than ably supported him. He also got ample help from his therapist Dr. Rachel Irving (Kelly Macdonald), whom he dodged at first but eventually came to seek out.

There was a throughline of trauma amongst the main characters, but there was also this smooth undercurrent of healing that was handled adroitly so that it grounded the series with a sense of hope without tipping into sentimentality or becoming saccharine. Morck’s lodger and stepson give him more human moments outside of the brash cop who did not care about most things. 

The nine episodes flew by, interrupted only by the brief mysterious disappearance of the entire series from Netflix. As of this writing, there is no explanation yet on what happened. It was rather fun, though, to be on Twitter and scroll through the tweets of confused Dept. Q viewers, myself included, wondering what on earth happened.  

If you are looking for something to binge watch over the weekend, I highly recommend Dept. Q. The nine episodes were enough to flesh out the mystery and give the main characters some standout moments, whilst also being short enough to finish with enough time to spare for any other weekend tasks you may have. What I love about mysteries is that there tend to be answers; in this case, the journey just happened to be a breeze too.

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