Netflix’s Dept. Q: Where Guilt Meets Grit in Chilly Edinburgh
If you like your crime dramas with a little more soul and a lot less formula, Netflix’s upcoming series Dept. Q is aiming straight for your queue. The show, set to stream globally on May 29, 2025, doesn’t just toss viewers into another detective’s endless spiral of dead bodies and faint clues—it’s packing real emotional punch, and it’s all set in the fog-draped streets of Edinburgh.
Matthew Goode takes center stage as Detective Chief Inspector Carl. And this isn’t just any cop with a past—Carl is reeling from a nightmare that left his partner in a wheelchair and a colleague dead. Instead of taking the easy road—retirement, desk duty, drowning sorrows—the brass put him in charge of a brand-new cold case department. Cue the weight of unsolved crimes mixing with his crippling guilt.
The genius behind The Queen’s Gambit, Scott Frank, is at the helm, and it shows. Frank never settles for surface-level drama. Here, he plunges into Carl’s daily fight not only to crack impossible cases, but to dig out of his own psychological pit. It’s a character study wrapped inside a procedural, delivered with a moody flair that feels rooted in Scotland’s shadows.
But every tormented detective needs a foil, right? Enter Chloe Pirrie as Carl’s new assistant—a younger cop with plenty of drive, unafraid to challenge her boss’s stubbornness. Their dynamic is anything but smooth, offering up prickly banter, dark humor, and moments where you just know one of them is about to snap. Trailers show the two trading sharp words in empty police basements, disagreeing over clues, and occasionally, cracking each other up in spite of themselves.
Twisted Mysteries and Messy Humans
Dept. Q doesn’t run solo: the supporting cast is stacked. You’ll spot Kate Dickie, known for chilling roles in Game of Thrones and edgy Scottish films, alongside Sanjeev Kohli, usually seen in sharp-witted roles, and Kelly Macdonald, who always brings worlds of feeling to every glance. Together, the team reopens stalled investigations—most notably the infamous Lingard case that once had all of Edinburgh talking.
This is no tidy whodunit. The show digs into what old crimes leave behind, not just for victims but for everyone who failed to solve them. Expect interrogations with suspects who’ve moved on, families clinging to fading hope, and officers grappling with what it means to never close a case. That blend of suspenseful detective work and personal reckoning is pure Scott Frank—if you remember how much you cared about the chessboard in The Queen’s Gambit, wait until you’re rooting for Carl to redeem himself as much as you want the truth out of his cold files.
- Main Character: Matthew Goode plays Carl, a detective haunted by failure.
- Supporting Cast: Chloe Pirrie, Kate Dickie, Sanjeev Kohli, and Kelly Macdonald bring grit and tension.
- Setting: Edinburgh’s stark landscape, where secrets stay buried deep.
- What’s Different? Dept. Q focuses on psychological depth rather than neat endings.
Crime series can get predictable, but Dept. Q promises raw nerves, hidden pain, and a cold case squad full of unexpected humanity. Goode’s Carl isn’t just chasing murderers—he’s racing his own regrets through a city just as haunted as he is.
