A Goode detective with a rotten attitude

DEPT. Q, A NETFLIX CRIME DRAMA FROM THE QUEEN'S Gambit writer-director Scott Frank, presents itself as a show about difficult people.

- JUDY BERMAN

Carl (Goode) solves cold cases from a grimy subbasement

Its antihero, Edinburgh police detective Carl Morck, has just come back to work after being shot in the line of duty—while berating a young cop who was killed before Carl could finish his rant. Body-cam footage of the shooting, along with an already irascible reputation, ensures his return is anything but triumphant. The premiere also introduces Merritt Lingard, a prickly prosecutor whose hostile cross-examination of a man she's sure murdered his wife infuriates her colleagues.

There's great potential in the entwining of these “good guys” with bad personalities whose obsessive pursuit of justice has left them isolated and embittered. If only the show's many plot twists didn't restrain its parallel accounts by limiting viewers' perspective on Merritt (Chloe Pirrie). Frank, adapting a series of novels by Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen, is ultimately more invested in Carl. That in some ways disappointing choice does set up a detective series with the potential to run for many seasons without getting old, thanks to characters and performances richer than we normally see in this overcrowded genre.

As portrayed by the charming Matthew Goode (