Detective Carl Morck of the new series Dept. Q isn’t particularly easy to get along with. It’s not his fault — well, maybe it’s his fault a little. Morck is a notorious figure in his adopted home of Edinburgh, Scotland, an English detective who gets under the skin of everyone around him. It may not sound like much of a compliment at first, but Dept. Q writer/director Scott Frank (The Queen’s Gambit, Godless) knew exactly which actor to call: Matthew Goode.

“I’ve been working with him since 2006,” Frank tells Tudum. “Matthew just felt like this guy. I was writing with him in mind. I knew that he could do this and that he would lend this undeniable intelligence with his flintiness, but that he could also be emotional without being sentimental.” 

Justin Downing

“This is the second time that he’s given me a role I don’t think anybody else would’ve cast me in,” Goode tells Tudum. “In The Lookout [Frank’s 2007 directorial debut], it was a Kansas criminal bank robber, which I don’t really scream. And in this, again, I wouldn’t have necessarily seen that in myself to play this kind of role.”

But, of course, there’s more to Carl Morck than meets the eye. “There’s a kind part to him that’s there,” Frank teases. You just might have to scratch the surface more than a little to get to that kind part — especially as Morck recovers from a tragic on-duty shooting that leaves him scarred, a young police constable dead, and his partner paralyzed. Upon returning to work, he’s put in charge of a brand-new police unit: the Department Q of the show’s title, tasked with investigating cold cases as part of a PR effort for the Scottish police force. 

As Morck dives further into his new responsibilities, he’ll discover secrets as dark as a Scottish loch — and a team of misfits who just might help him shed some light on the subject. Read on for more information about Dept. Q, and stay tuned when the show hits Netflix later this year.

Can I see a trailer for Dept. Q?

Yes! You can check out a trailer for the series at the top of this page, and catch a glimpse at the show’s new key art below. 

Justin Downing

What is Dept. Q about?

Dept. Q is an adaptation of the novels of the same name by Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen. The series revolves around Carl Morck, a former top-rated detective in Edinburgh assigned to a new cold case whilst wracked with guilt following an attack that left his partner paralyzed and another police officer dead.

“When we join the story, a 16-year-old case up in Aberdeen has been solved,” Goode says. “The optics of that look really good, because right now they’re lacking finance and crime figures are going up. So Kate Dickie’s character — the boss of the police force — her higher-ups say, ‘Let’s form a cold case unit.’ ” 

Of course, Carl’s promotion to the forefront of Department Q isn’t necessarily a compliment. “She puts Carl in charge because she can keep an eye on him in the basement,” Goode laughs. 

Frank has been living with Adler-Olsen’s books in mind for more than two decades. “There was just something about it,” says the writer/director. “The title, this notion of something called Department Q, stayed with me. And so I met with the author while I was shooting A Walk Among the Tombstones in New York, and I’d actually had the books for a couple of years by then.” 

Frank wasn’t sure exactly when he’d be able to work on Dept. Q, but Adler-Olsen was happy to wait. “He said, ‘I trust you’ and that he’d always hoped I would end up writing and directing it.” Now, Adler-Olsen has gotten his wish: Frank wrote or co-wrote all nine episodes of Dept. Q, and directed six. 

Jamie Simpson

Who’s in the cast of Dept. Q?

The cast of Dept. Q includes: 

• Matthew Goode (Downton Abbey, Stoker) as Detective Chief Inspector Carl Morck
• Chloe Pirrie (The Game, An Inspector Calls) as Merritt Lingard
• Jamie Sives (Annika, Guilt) as Detective Chief Inspector James Hardy
• Mark Bonnar (Operation Mincemeat, Unforgotten) as Stephen Burns
• Alexej Manvelov (Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, Chernobyl) as Akram Salim
• Leah Byrne (Nightsleeper, The Last Bus) as Detective Constable Rose Dickson
• Kate Dickie (The Witch, Game of Thrones) as Detective Chief Superintendent Moira Jacobson
• Shirley Henderson (Bridget Jones’s Diary, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) as Claire Marsh
• Kelly Macdonald (No Country for Old Men, Gosford Park) as Dr. Rachel Irving
• Tom Bulpett (Father Brown, Casualty) as William Lingard

Goode has nothing but good(e) things to say about his castmates. “[Scott] assembled one of the finest casts I’ve ever gotten to work with,” he tells us. “It’s just an incredible playpen for an actor.”

He’s especially effusive about his three counterparts in the titular Department Q. “Leah Byrne is a stone-cold star,” he adds. “I felt like I've known Jamie [Sives] for a long time, we just get on so well… Alexej [Manvelov] is joy, pure joy, capital J.”

Dept. Q is a procedural mystery, but above all, it’s about a group of unlikely colleagues bouncing off of one another. “If you watch a show like Cheers, you’re not watching it because you’re interested in a bar in Boston,” Frank says. “It’s not the situation that makes you watch it, or the comedy. It’s these people.” 

Where is Dept. Q set?

Dept. Q is set in Edinburgh, Scotland and the surrounding area — a shift from the novels’ setting of Copenhagen, Denmark. “I hadn’t really seen a show in Edinburgh before, and it’s a beautiful city,” Frank says. “When I went to go look at the city, I was like, ‘Okay, this is amazing. It’s the perfect combination between the modern and the medieval.’ They’re there side by side and it just works in such a lovely way.”

“Scott brilliantly transposed it from Denmark to Scotland,” Goode says. “Edinburgh is smaller than Copenhagen, but both are big port cities. [With its] gothic architecture, and it being the judicial center of Scotland, it’s just a really lovely fit.”

The setting also offers an opportunity for Goode’s DCI Morck to clash with his surroundings. “Because of Matthew, I realized the main character is going to be English, not Scottish, and that it would be really fun to play up his loathing of the Scottish people for no other reason than his ex-wife was Scottish, so he takes it out on everyone else,” Frank says. (Netflix is deeply sorry for inflicting DCI Morck on Scotland and its citizens.)

When will Dept. Q be on Netflix?

Dept. Q is now streaming on Netflix.