TV-MA, 9 Episodes
Developers: Scott Frank and Chandni Lakhani
Starring: Matthew Goode, Chloe Pirrie, Alexej Mavelov, Leah Byrne, Jamie Sives, and Kelly Macdonald
What a difference a beard can make. Matthew Goode is an actor who has been so well ensconced as an aristocrat on screen you wonder if he takes on a role just so he can show off his pretty face. Look at his dance card. Brideshead Revisited, patrician drama. Downton Abbey, patrician drama. The Crown, patri…you get it. But give Goode a beard and he can go from Toff of the Morning to Snarky McScruff in an instant. He does just that as the churlish Carl Morck in Dept. Q.
As a DCI (Detective Chief Inspector), Morck doesn’t play favorites even in his own department. He is a top-notch investigator, but his interoffice communication skills are lacking. Uncouth would be putting it mildly. When his smug and unremitting arrogance gets a young uniformed officer killed and his own partner paralyzed from a bullet that passes through Morck’s neck, Mr. Scruff carries a heavy burden. The change in his egocentric life comes with it that morality is an actuality and if he wants to unburden himself it would be best to look first into a mirror.
Returning to work after long-term leave, his CO puts Morck in charge of a new department (hence the Q). The task is investigating cold cases. The Edinburgh police force isn’t in a good light, so putting a good faith effort in blowing the dust off some unsolved crime reports is an easy remedy. It’s something they can sell to the public, even if it is just putting a fresh coat of paint over mildew. Speaking of mildew, Morck’s new office is in basement. Boxes of murder books and case files subletting with the ick and grime of shower stalls and rusted toilets. Yeesh. Best to leave the lights on. We wouldn’t want Morck to injure himself trudging down the rung of steps into police purgatory.
They say necessity is the mother of invention. With a cash-strapped department, Morck assembles a crackerjack pair of experienced though untested officers. Cadet Rose (Leah Byrne), with frizzy hair that would make Merida from Pixar’s Brave blush, is a good analyst and tired of being a desk jockey. Syrian refugee and former police officer Akram Salim (Alexej Manvelov) is soft spoken and well-mannered until aggression is warranted. Rounding out the team is Morck’s paralzyed partner, DI James Hardy (Jamie Sives), whose contributions come from his hospital bed as he undergoes rehabilitation. Picking a favorite among these three is tough, but I just love how Manvelov operates in a scene where he’s in the background or when sitting next to Goode in some POS car. Such a joy.
His character also picks the team’s first case – the disappearance of the young, ambitious advocate Merritt Linguard (Chloe Pirrie). Missing for four years and long considered a lost cause in trying to locate, her story takes an interesting course. Accentuating voyeurism through claustrophobic means (scenes with her are shot with a smaller aspect ratio compared to the rest of the series), Linguard’s plight is a revenge abduction by villains who use their surroundings and past means of living to their advantage. Morck and his team go over Lineguard’s caseload and probable enemies made along the way in hopes of finding the real culprits among the red herrings.
Dept. Q is based off the first novel (The Keeper of Lost Causes) in a mystery series from Danish novelist Jussi Adler-Olsen. Switching locations from Copenhagen to Edinburgh, what this adaptation lacks in snowy terrain it makes up for with Matthew Goode’s portrayal as the cantankerous Morck. The last time Goode and showrunner Scott Frank (The Queen’s Gambit) collaborated was back in 2007 with the underseen neo-noir The Lookout. Goode played the leader of a crew that finds itself in a bad way when a bank robbery goes wrong. A lean story with great character work, Goode is in good company 18 years later working with Frank again. The supporting stars are stellar, including Kelly Macdonald as Morck’s police-mandated therapist. Their meetings are obstinately fun and bring out new sides to Morck’s personality.
Whether with the therapist or out in the field, watching Goode is like watching the famous Ben Affleck smoking a cigarette outside his front door meme. Goode makes his sourpuss a cynical charmer and the show is all about its character-first approach. The reason readers and viewers keep coming back to mysteries and procedurals is because of the main character(s). The protagonist’s interplay with others engages and audiences continue to eat it up even as the seasons and novels go into double digits. Watching Morck lose his cool time after time is beautiful.
Over a nine-episode stretch,Dept. Q’sslow start speeds into a narrative about more than a missing person. Institutional incompetence. A robbery and brutal beating that alters the lives of multiple parties. To his credit, Frank has so much confidence in his abilities in distilling Adler-Olsen’s novel over the course of several hours instead of the few given to theatrical films that the writing maintains its sharpness even if our star detective’s face could use a trim.
Grade: B
