New Netflix show from Queen’s Gambit creator is gorgeous, well acted—and stupid.

This text accommodates spoilers for Netflix’s Dept. Q.

Thrillers and homicide mysteries usually get knocked for neglecting character and elegance in favor of plot, however the reverse is the case with the brand new Netflix sequence Dept. Q, primarily based on a sequence of books by the Danish crime novelist Jussi Adler-Olsen. Created by Scott Frank—whose adaptation of Walter Tevis’ The Queen’s Gambit utilized the identical elegant consideration to a far superior novel—Dept. Q is superbly shot, well written, and replete with high-quality performances, all in service of a moderately silly story.

Adler-Olsen’s bestselling however decidedly mid novel sequence, starting with 2007’s The Keeper of Lost Causes, encompasses a surly Copenhagen police detective, Carl Mørck, who’s assigned to a brand new chilly case division after he instigates a raid that leaves one policeman useless and his accomplice disabled. The Netflix sequence transposes the setting to Edinburgh, with Matthew Goode solid as Morck, now an Englishman amongst a sea of Scots, which appears to additional sully his temper. Within the first episode, Carl sulks via a compulsory session with psychologist Rachel Irving (Kelly Macdonald), who notes that his “superiority complex” has been recorded in his official file. Whereas there should be a moratorium on the shopworn detective present trope of the compelled remedy session, Rachel offers nearly as good as she will get, at one level decamping to her desk to eat a sandwich after her affected person insists that he’s completely high-quality.

A pair of police division misfits is assigned to assist Carl in his basement workplace—Rose (the irresistible Leah Byrne) and Akram (Alexej Manvelov), a Syrian refugee whose manifold and generally disturbing expertise present one of many sequence’ working jokes: Simply what did the unflappable Akram do again in his homeland? Carl has a troublesome boss, performed by Kate Dickie, who berates him for his unhealthy perspective however retains him on as a result of he’s so good on the job, and a messy home scenario that, as is so usually the case with detective exhibits, offers an occasional and unwelcome diversion from the primary investigation. Carl’s assholery can be extra irritating if the sequence took him in any respect critically, as a nobly brooding crusader for justice, say. As an alternative, everybody round him shrugs his snits off as if he had been a misbehaving adolescent.

The primary episode intercuts Carl’s story with that of Merritt Lingard (Chloe Pirrie), a pushed prosecutor who loses an enormous case when she fails to persuade a jury {that a} native crime lord murdered his spouse. This means that Merritt, too, will quickly be becoming a member of Division Q. The twist comes when Merritt disappears whereas taking a ferry together with her mentally disabled brother, and viewers be taught that this occasion occurred 4 years previous to the formation of the chilly case division. Merritt’s missing-person case, it seems, is the primary thriller the division will got down to clear up. Though she is broadly presumed to be useless, the episode’s ultimate scene reveals Merritt to be imprisoned in a steel cylinder, a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, managed by shadowy figures who deal with her with processed voices over a loudspeaker.

It’s with this weird type of torture—Merritt’s tormenters preserve turning up the air strain whereas grilling her about all of the folks she’s wronged—that Dept. Q morphs from a considerably clichéd however well-mounted detective story to one thing extra baroque and foolish. It quickly turns into apparent who has kidnapped Merritt, so watching the detectives chase down crimson herrings feels pointless. Adler-Olsen, who likes to sketch out his feminine characters by describing their breasts, partakes of the sadism of a serial-killer thriller with out deploying an precise serial killer. The Netflix sequence doesn’t linger as lovingly over Merritt’s struggling because the novel does, however this solely makes the preposterous nature of her captivity extra obvious.

In the meantime, the remainder of Dept. Q will get richer and extra satisfying. Even Carl’s classes with Rachel could be enjoyable. “Aren’t you always pissed off at everyone,” she asks him, then provides with the theatrically exasperated sigh of a 13-year-old, “because you’re so much smarter?” Bubbly Rose and the enigmatic Akram brighten each scene they seem in. Carl’s outdated accomplice (Jamie Sives) takes it upon himself to mentor Rose from his hospital mattress. “We don’t know what happened to Merritt,” he tells her, “but she existed in the world. She caused ripples with people, institutions, and these ripples in turn caused patterns in her life. It can be useful to see if these patterns change after one ceases to exist.” It’s not usually {that a} detective sequence pays a lot consideration to any precise principle of detection, not to mention expresses it so eloquently.

The extra genuine the remainder of Dept. Q involves really feel, the extra ludicrous and rudimentary the central “mystery” seems. How is a nasty outdated woman dwelling in a trailer on a derelict waterfront in a position to afford to run a hyperbaric chamber all day each day for 4 years, with out anyone noticing? Who holds an individual captive for that lengthy—4 years of feeding, washing, disposing of waste, and so forth.—solely for revenge? Even the Depend of Monte Cristo would tire of that routine. How does Merritt not go mad in what’s primarily solitary confinement? This factor of the plot feels as if it belongs to a completely totally different present, the sort of present that couldn’t care much less about making Carl and his colleagues believable folks dwelling plausible and fascinating lives.

A large amount of expertise went into Dept. Q, and the perfect components of the sequence—the recent supporting characters, the humor, the damp stony streets of Edinburgh—would naturally carry over to a second season. To make the sequence unmissable, Frank want solely jettison Adler-Olsen’s crude and creepy plots and provide you with a few of his personal. He’s actually intelligent sufficient to do higher.