Netflix’s British crime thriller series, Dept. Q, created by Scott Frank, is an adaptation of Jussi Adler Olsen’s Danish book series centered around D.C.I. Carl Morck, a reputed detective struggling with PTSD, and the group of misfits he assembles to solve one of the many cold cases he was handed. After a few recent mishaps, the police department needed an image booster, and what better way to do so than solve cold cases to gain the public’s favor and sympathy? While the idea didn’t sit well with Morck’s boss, DCS Moira Jacobson, she agreed to it when she was told that the department would be granted funding for the same. The department needed the money, and she knew that the only person who would take up the challenge as long as he got his own space was Carl Morck. She wasn’t wrong; Carl was initially disappointed when he realized his department was allocated one of the basement rooms that once used to be a shower chamber, but he didn’t mind as long as he was left unbothered.
Spoiler Alert
What was the connection between the kidnapper and Sam Haig?
Sam Haig, an investigative reporter working on a corruption exposé involving the Crown Office, repeatedly cropped up when Carl Morck and Akram Salim, a former Syrian cop who’d fled his country and settled in Europe, investigated the disappearance of prominent prosecutor Merritt Lingard. It had been four years since Merritt was last seen on a public ferry with her brother, William. While it was initially assumed William had a role to play in her disappearance, after interrogating him, the police concluded he was not involved. Akram, while going through Merritt’s belongings, came across a note signed by ’S’ declaring his romantic interest in her. Upon further digging, they discovered that she was involved with journalist Sam Haig. Their relationship was secretive; they met regularly at a hotel (The Prince’s Garden), and Merritt used her mother’s (Lila Graham) card to pay the bills. Sam was a regular at Benny Beg, a climbing school where his body was discovered. Morck strongly believed that, by digging into Sam’s past, they could solve the mystery behind Merritt’s disappearance.
The owner of the institute, Paul Evans, was Sam’s closest and most trusted companion. He believed it was unlike Sam to climb alone; Paul had always warned him not to do so, and he couldn’t really figure out why Sam disrespected the one rule he’d established in the first place. Paul’s wife, Chloe, didn’t approve of their friendship, and she thought he was a bit of a ‘psycho.’ Paul defended Sam, stating he was a lonely man who didn’t know too many people he could trust, and that he happened to be someone Sam didn’t have to pretend around. While he didn’t mention meeting Sam two days before he fell off the cliff, the truth was gradually revealed towards the end of Dept. Q D.C. Rose Dixon figured there was something Paul and Chloe were hiding from her after she went through a suspicious text exchange between Sam and Paul.
Rose managed to convince Paul that his wife had already shared some vital piece of information with her. Paul confirmed that Sam never mentioned Merritt, but the reason why he’d texted Sam two days before his death had nothing to do with her. Sam was excited about a story he was working on, and when Chloe learned about it, she expressed her relief. She didn’t hesitate to tell Sam that she thought he would end up taking her husband down with him. That led to a big row, and Sam went back to the hotel (The Spivey Inn) he was staying at. As it turned out, after the argument, Chloe went to see Sam at the hotel to apologize, and as much as she hated him, they ended up having sex that night.
But surprisingly, according to the information they’d gathered from the hotel Merritt regularly visited, she was with Sam two days before he died. It was impossible that both pieces of information were true, unless they were dealing with two different people. If the real Sam Haig was with Chloe and Paul, who was spending time with Merritt pretending to be the journalist? Sam had been frequenting Godhaven, the facility he was locked up in as a teenager, before his death, and to understand his connection to the place, Morck visited the facility. He learned that, during Sam’s time there, Lyle Jennings had been stalking him, and he was convinced that Sam was his deceased brother, Harry. Sam couldn’t take it anymore, and he ended up brutally injuring Lyle. When Sam decided to write a story about his time in Godhaven, he regretted his past actions, and he decided to make peace with Lyle. He’d apologized to him, hoping to leave the past behind and move on, but he had no idea that Lyle was still plotting to seek revenge on his brother’s killer, Merritt Lingard.
How was Lyle connected to Merritt’s disappearance case?
Lyle Jennings was the younger brother of Harry Jennings, Merritt’s childhood lover. As a teenager, Merritt was quite the rebel. She didn’t approve of her alcoholic, depressed father, and she missed her mother. She remembered watching her mother leave their house one night, and she never returned. She died in an auto accident in Glasgow. Her mother left her a necklace before she left, and Merritt held on to it forever. Lila Graham came from old money, and the difference in financial status and age impacted her relationship with her husband.
Merritt desperately wanted to escape from Mhor, the island she grew up in, and Harry was determined to help her fulfill her dream. She only needed enough money to sustain herself until she turned 18, after which she stood a chance to get something from her mother’s family. While Merritt loved her brother, she didn’t plan on leaving Mhor with him. She believed William was capable of looking after himself, and she was certain he would figure out his life on his own. Harry had briefly stated that he could never leave his brother with his mom. Everyone on the island knew Lyle was mentally unstable, and Harry mentioned that he didn’t trust his mother after she burned down their house while their father was asleep (later, when DS James Hardy went through Lyle’s file, he suspected that Lyle might have been involved in killing his father). He died in the ‘accident,’ and Harry always felt the need to protect Lyle from their mother. When Merritt mentioned that a few of her mother’s jewelry pieces could help her escape, Harry decided to act on the plan. He figured he could stop by Merritt’s house on Monday, grab the jewelry, and help out his girlfriend. But things didn’t go according to plan.
William was home that evening, and he attacked Harry, thinking he was a robber. According to police reports, Harry had beaten William to a pulp and left him with brain damage that ultimately resulted in speech impairment and cognitive development issues. When Rose discussed the burglary with John Cunningham, the constable who’d chased after Harry that night, he stated that Harry was an aggressive young man, and while there weren’t any prior cases against him, he was apparently a regular pub brawler. The constable suspected Harry was responsible for a string of robberies. Apparently, Harry had made it to the ferry, and when the captain approached him, he jumped off the ferry and died. But the truth was far from the official report that was filed. Harry had broken into the Lingard house, and William had attacked him, assuming he was an intruder. But the minute he realized it was Harry, he stopped. Harry was about to explain his situation when all of a sudden his brother, Lyle, showed up. With a baseball bat, he attacked William and left him bloody and brutalized. Harry kicked Lyle and dragged him out of the house. If Lyle hadn’t shown up that evening, things could have turned out different, but Lyle didn’t blame himself; instead, he held Merritt responsible. He believed his brother died because he loved Merritt too much, and he was so desperate to impress her that he ended up taking an impossible risk. He also feared that his brother would have left him to be with Merritt, and that was why he’d followed Harry to the Lingard house.
Lyle and his mother came up with a revenge plan to punish Merritt and make her apologise for ruining their lives. The minute Sam showed up to apologise to Lyle, he realized he could pretend to be Sam to get close to Merritt. Sam didn’t have any pictures of him online, and he lived a very private life because of the nature of his job. Lyle pretended to be interested in understanding Merritt. He scheduled a meeting with her and managed to convince her to trust him completely. Once he was done executing his plan, he murdered Sam out of spite (or maybe to cover his tracks).
Why did Lyle kidnap Merritt Lingard?
Rose initially mistook the bird logo William had repeatedly drawn as the mythical shapeshifting boobrie bird. Later, when Carl’s partner, DS Hardy (who was left paralyzed after he was shot at a crime scene), leafed through the evidence, he realized that the bird logo replicated a shorebird. Lyle’s father’s business was named Shorebird Ocean Systems, and Lyle wore a cap with the logo embossed on it. William remembered the logo; he had seen it at his house, and he later saw it on the ferry, and he tried to warn Merritt about it. Carl visited Godhaven to understand Lyle and his obsession with Sam. He and his team watched a video recording of Lyle after Sam punched him in his left eye. Lyle didn’t think the incident was too serious, because he’d been beaten before, and he believed he always deserved it. He mentioned how his mother would often stop talking to him and his brother for months if they disappointed her. He quickly added that it was not as bad as the time he and Harry had spent in the hyperbaric chamber. His father had bought it for his business, but his mother, Ailsa, used it to punish her sons. Lyle didn’t feel any resentment towards his mother for doing so. He mentioned with a smile that after Harry’s death his mother would often lock them up there and completely forget about it. When the interrogator repeatedly reminded him that Harry had passed away, so there was no ‘us’ or ‘we,’ Lyle simply shrugged it off. According to him, Harry was always with him, even after his death. When he was told that he’d mistaken Sam for Harry, he refused to believe the interrogator. He was convinced it was Harry, and he had followed his brother because he knew that he would end up dead if he was not around to protect him.
Later, when William was shown Lyle’s photograph, he confirmed that Lyle was the man he saw on the ferry. Carl and Akram headed to the Jennings’ property, but they had no idea that Cunningham had already paid the mother and son a visit. The department had received an emergency phone call from Ailsa’s number (a call made during the brief time Merritt managed to make her way out of the chamber, before Lyle eventually locked her in again). Cunningham heard a woman’s scream, and he was suspicious of Lyle. He’d always known he’d chased the wrong kid on the night of the robbery, but he refused to admit his mistake. When Cunningham found out about Merritt, Lyle battered him to death with a hammer.
Ailsa was supportive of Lyle’s bloody endeavors. She too had a record of unstable mental health. She was admitted to a psychiatric ward for nineteen months after her husband’s death. During that time, Harry and Lyle were left alone on the property. At the age of 15, Lyle coerced a boy into the hyperbaric chamber and locked him in it. He raised the pressure in the chamber to see if the boy would eventually lose consciousness, but thankfully the local police interrupted his heinous experiment. After going through Lyle’s files, Rose informed Carl that she hadn’t checked one of the buildings on the property because it was declared hazardous. Upon asking Cunningham’s son, Colin, about it, he stated that, four years ago, it was declared a hazmat site. Carl immediately knew that the building was a crime scene. As he walked in, he discovered the hyperbaric chamber, and he saw Merritt inside. He wanted to break in, but he couldn’t. He went to the control room, and he immediately received a call from Hardy begging them not to mess with the system. If they opened the chamber and pulled her out of it, she would die. They first had to stabilize the chamber, and then a team of navy or coast guards had to get her out in a hyperbaric stretcher. Hardy asked them to find a lever to bring the pressure under control, and just when they discovered it, Lyle showed up.
How Did Lyle and Ailsa die?
During Dept. Q’s ending, when Lyle pulled the trigger, Carl jumped in front of Akram and took the bullet in his arm. (Carl blamed himself for Hardy’s condition and Anderson’s death, and he often wished he would’ve taken the bullet to protect his partner, so when he saw a gun pointed in their direction, he immediately knew he had to act fast to protect Akram.) Just when Lyle was about to shoot them again, he was distracted by Merritt’s screams, and Akram grabbed the opportunity and stabbed Lyle in the neck. He got hold of Lyle’s gun and shot him in the head. They immediately pulled the lever and stabilized the pressure. When Akram walked into the chamber and introduced himself to Merritt, she realized that help had finally arrived. Merritt was rescued in a hyperbaric stretcher, and when she saw William greeting her, she breathed a sigh of relief. Ailsa attempted to flee from the island, but the police caught up with her. Once she realized there was no escape, she pulled the trigger on herself.
Will There Be A Season 2?
Department Q made headlines after they successfully solved the cold case. Merritt thanked the police department for looking into her disappearance case, and she hoped to meet Carl in particular, but he was not in the office when she stopped by. They crossed paths in the office elevator. Carl recognized Merritt, but she didn’t know him. He preferred to keep it that way. All he cared about was her safety, and now that she was alive and well, he believed he had successfully completed his duty. Moira was happy with the progress of the department, and it is safe to assume that she will encourage the team to take on more cold cases. It not only helped in fixing the image of the department, but it offered the victim another chance—even if they had passed away, their families deserved to know the truth.
In Dept. Q’s ending, Carl visited Lord Advocate Stephen Burns in his office. He was ready to overlook the fact that Burns had deemed Kirsty Atkins unfit to testify against Graham Finch after Jenkins threatened to cause harm to his daughter. His decision resulted in Atkins losing one of her eyes in prison, thanks to Finch’s connections there. Also, justice was not served, and Graham Finch walked away free even after killing his wife. Carl admitted that Burns didn’t have a choice, considering he couldn’t risk losing his family, so he decided to give him another chance—in exchange for his silence, Burns had to sanction more funds for his department, officially appoint Akram to the D.I. rank, and also buy Carl a car. Burns had no choice but to agree. Finch would not dare harm Atkins after Carl figured out the truth, so hopefully she’ll be left alone. With more funds and a brand-new car, Carl was ready to head his department again. DC Hardy joined the team as well, and clearly his deductive skills had left Moira highly impressed. The investigation helped boost Rose’s confidence, and Akram was finally granted cop status, thanks to Stephen Burns. The department is ready for another case, and we’ll have to wait and find out what it’ll be.
In the next season, we can also expect to learn more about the Leith Park case. The investigation revealed that P.C. Anderson, who was the first one to enter the crime scene, was involved, but then why was he killed? He had stated that he’d received a phone call from the victim’s daughter for a wellness check, but it turned out to be false, because the victim didn’t have a daughter. So, who informed Anderson about the victim? And why did he lie? Well, we’ll hopefully get our answers in Dept. Q season 2.
