Dept. Q (Scott Frank, Netflix series, 2025) & Bodkin (Jez Scharf, Netflix series, 2024)

I’ve got two reviews for you today: First up it is Dept. Q, a new Scottish Noir series by Scott Frank (The Queen’s Gambit) based on a Danish bestseller, about a new cold case department, led by Matthew Goode, in Edinburgh.

Secondly, I pulled from the Archive for Paid Subscribers (350+ reviews) my review of the mystery series Bodkin, which was about a trio of podcasters investigating a cold case in a small Irish town.

I think those two series go very well together, with some similarities, but also a lot of differences.

DEPT. Q (Scott Frank, Netflix, 2025)

Dept. Q is an excellent new British crime series, with strong Nordic Noir influences, based on the international bestseller books by Danish writer Jussi Adler-Olsen.

Yes, those Department Q books were already adapted into films, starring Nikolaj Lie Kaas. They were pretty good, but a lot of material had to be adapted into a couple of hours of screen time, and at times it showed.

This new series, set in Edinburgh, takes the long way round. This first season has nine episodes (ranging between 42 - 71 minutes) and it’s all based on the first book, The Keeper of Lost Causes, so there is plenty of material left for other seasons to follow.

Matthew Goode takes the lead, as DCI Carl Morck, a brilliant detective who is generally considered to be a terrible person. (‘Do you think you are superior to other people?’, he is asked at one point, to which he replies: ‘Well, it’s a low bar.’)

It is a role Goode can really sink his teeth in. Known for roles in period dramas like The Crown, Downton Abbey and The Imitation Game, he is actually very good as the world-weary Morck.

Early on our Carl gets relegated to a new job, after an unexpected shooting which leaves his partner James Hardy (Jamie Sives) seriously injured and a young cop dead.

His boss Moira Jacobson (Kate Dickie) names Carl as the head of a new cold case unit called Department Q. Morck is supposed to get some funding, but his scheming superior uses the money for more urgent causes, so Carl is basically left up shit creek without a paddle. Which is fitting as his new office is in what used to be the urinals of the building.

But even though Carl is riddled with guilt about what happened to his colleagues, he is still smart and cunning, and so after seeing a therapist (played by none other than Kelly MacDonald, from Boardwalk Empire and Trainspotting) he goes back to what he does best: solving crimes.

Carl also manages to put together the semblance of a team: his former partner Hardy is stuck in bed, so he can spend his time reading and deducting. Then there is plucky redhead Rose (Leah Byrne), who was put behind a desk after an accident and is looking for a way to get back into the action.

But first and foremost there is IT-specialist Akram (Alexej Manvelov, excellent), who not only has a brilliant mind, but is also a refugee from Syria with experience in the police force. Even though nobody is quite sure if he was a ‘good cop’ or a ‘bad cop’.

And that’s the beauty of it: none of these people are heroes, some are not even the kind of people you want on the force, but they all strive to make a difference. If only as a way to deal with their own trauma.

And so they dive into their first cold case: the disappearance of an ambitious prosecutor (Chloe Pirrie, looking appropriately weary) who went missing four years ago, and who was also trying to make a difference.

Dept. Q was created by Scott Frank who wrote most of the material and directed six episodes. After scoring big with The Queen’s Gambit I would say he has another hit on his hands, as Dept. Q is expertly done.

It has great actors playing deep characters, with barbed dialogues and a plot that is intriguing enough to keep you guessing, also because the story is fleshed out fully, which doesn’t happen very often.

The atmosphere is appropriately moody and very fitting of a series that can only be described as ‘a great Scottish noir.’

I give it four stars!

BODKIN (JEZ SCHARF, Netflix, 2024)

Bodkin is an intriguing mystery series about a trio of podcasters who try to investigate a cold case in a small Irish town filled with secrets.

‘Are you making the kind of show where you say it’s about one thing, but it’s really about something else?’, American podcaster Gilbert Power (Will Forte) is asked early on while visiting a traditional Irish pub. ‘That’s not really my thing’, he replies, and he may be speaking the truth.

But of course this particular podcast - an attempt to revive his flagging career - will turn out to be different, as Bodkin is the kind of mystery series that looks like it’s about one thing, but it is about many other things as well.

On the surface it’s about something that happened in 1999: the disappearance of three Bodkin residents on Samhain, the Irish precursor of Halloween.

Gilbert is accompanied on his trip from Chicago to the Irish west coast by wide-eyed research assistant Emmy (Robyn Cara), who adores everything he does.

And then there is Irish-Born but London-based Dove (Siobhan Cullen), a hard nosed reporter who is sent back to the old country by her boss at the Guardian because she’s been compromised while undercover on another story.

Dove makes it abundantly clear she doesn’t want to be in Bodkin, especially since Gilbert and Emmy act like they are in a Disneyfied version of Ireland, where people talk about fairies all the time and everything looks amazingly green. Of course, they also order large pints of Guinness, while Gilbert, who has some Irish roots, treats everyone he meets as a possible relative.

Main directors Nash Edgerton and Bronwen Hughes (who once directed the Sandra Bullock-starrer Forces of Nature) make excellent use of the West-Cork locations, so if you like your series to have more color than usual you have come to the right place.

This seven part series - created by Jez Scharf for Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground company - mixes delightful dark comedy with more European-oriented mystery thrills and can also be viewed as a sly commentary on the way podcasts tend to use the tragic stories behind true crime drama for monetary gain.

But to begin with, the local residents aren’t all that easily impressed. ‘Will anyone listen to your show?,’ the podcasters are snarkily asked multiple times. Still, even though the tone of the series may sometimes be deceptively light, there are some decent twists and turns on the long and winding road ahead. Some even have to do with nuns…

Bodkin also works as an acting treat. The main trio all get plenty of opportunity to shine: comedian Forte (of Saturday Night Live) plays it straight most of the time, and Gilbert’s apparent naïveté makes him more endearing than otherwise may have been the case. Cara’s Emmy grows in confidence as the story progresses, while Dove is clearly the most complicated character, with a lot of backstory to be uncovered, and Cullen is simply stunning in every scene.

Additionally, there is a murderers row of supporting actors, including but not limited to Chris Walley as the group’s driver Shean O’Shea, David Wilmot as fisherman Sheamus Gallagher and Ger Kelly as singing barfly Teddy. They are all more multi-layered than you may expect when we first meet them.

I give it four stars!