Dept. Q Review – Matthew Goode Sheds His Polite Charm in a Gritty, Brilliant Crime Drama

It must be both a blessing and a curse for an actor to have a face that fits one very specific kind of role. For some, it’s a career-long gift — a ticket to typecasting that guarantees steady work. For others, it’s a slow artistic death. Matthew Goode, long admired for his patrician features and quietly smouldering charm, has spent much of his career as the poster boy for period drama refinement — from Brideshead Revisited’s Charles Ryder to Downton Abbey’s Henry Talbot and even The Crown’s rakish Lord Snowdon.

But in Dept. Q, a dark and deeply atmospheric adaptation of Jussi Adler-Olsen’s Danish crime novels, Goode finally breaks free of the corseted drawing rooms and stately homes. Under the deft direction of Scott Frank — the creative mind behind The Queen’s Gambit and countless Hollywood scripts — he plunges into a psychological thriller that is as much about guilt and redemption as it is about murder.

A Damaged Detective in a Bleak New World

Goode plays Carl Morck, a detective with a flair for solving cases and a disastrous attitude toward everyone around him. Arrogant, abrasive, and insufferably sure of his own brilliance, Morck’s hubris leads to catastrophe when a routine raid goes wrong. A young officer dies, his partner is left paralysed, and Morck himself is nearly killed by the bullet that rips through his neck.

The aftermath finds him broken — physically and morally. Put on indefinite leave, Morck is left to stew in guilt and self-loathing, emotions he has no idea how to process. When he returns to duty, the brass tuck him out of sight in a newly minted “cold-case department,” a bureaucratic stunt meant to placate public scrutiny of the Edinburgh police.

His new post is a literal and figurative descent: the so-called Department Q occupies a damp, dimly lit basement beneath the main station — an exile befitting the department’s unwanted commander. The move from Adler-Olsen’s original Copenhagen setting to a brooding, gothic Scotland works perfectly. The granite cityscape, rain-slicked alleys, and gloomy skylines give the show a haunting new texture that feels entirely its own.

Building a Team from the Broken

At first, Morck is alone — a punishment disguised as a posting. But soon, he’s joined by an unlikely band of outsiders: Rose (Leah Byrne), a police cadet recovering from a breakdown and desperate to prove her worth; DI James Hardy (Jamie Sives), Morck’s paralyzed partner, who continues to contribute from his hospital bed; and Akram Salim (Alexej Manvelov), a Syrian refugee and former detective who offers both insight and quiet humanity.

Their first case: the disappearance of Merritt Linguard (Chloe Pirrie), a driven young lawyer who vanished four years earlier under mysterious circumstances. Her story runs parallel to Morck’s investigation — a dual timeline that balances procedural tension with psychological depth. The flashbacks, often chilling and claustrophobic, tread a fine line between empathy and voyeurism but never tip into gratuitousness.

A Slow Burn with Razor-Sharp Edges

What makes Dept. Q so compelling is its refusal to rush. Scott Frank and his writing team, including Chandni Lakhani and Stephen Greenhorn, favor a slow, deliberate pace that allows character and mood to take precedence over cheap thrills. The result is a show that feels lived-in, even literary — a layered exploration of moral decay and institutional rot beneath the polished surface of law enforcement.

Each episode peels back another layer of corruption, trauma, and buried secrets. The series deals not just in crime, but in the failures that enable it — from bureaucratic incompetence to the quiet cruelties of small-town life. There’s a missing necklace, a decades-old beating, and plenty of ghosts, literal and metaphorical. Yet for all its bleakness, the show is unexpectedly humane.

Goode’s Career-Best Performance

Goode is extraordinary. Bearded, hollow-eyed, and simmering with self-disgust, his Morck is a man at war with himself. His sarcasm — scathing enough to strip paint — becomes both armor and self-punishment. The actor relishes every acidic line, while revealing the bruised fragility beneath. It’s a performance that transforms him from the genteel leading man of costume dramas into something raw, dangerous, and magnetic.

He’s ably supported by a first-rate ensemble. Kelly Macdonald shines as Dr. Irving, Morck’s weary but empathetic police therapist, while Mark Bonnar adds a note of eerie ambiguity as Linguard’s mentor — or perhaps her nemesis. Leah Byrne’s Rose brings warmth and vulnerability to an otherwise cold world, and Manvelov’s Akram provides the show’s moral core.

Verdict: A Haunting, Human Thriller

Dept. Q is, quite simply, fantastic television — methodical, intelligent, and unflinching. It’s a slow burn that rewards patience with emotional depth and unexpected poignancy. The direction is taut, the cinematography gorgeous, and the writing razor-sharp. More importantly, it offers Matthew Goode the chance to reinvent himself — and he seizes it with both hands.

A harrowing treat, then, but a treat all the same.