Matthew Goode Finds His Place Among the Misfits in 'Dept. Q'

Mysteries and crime-solving stories are a source of comfort, a combination of seeing someone competent in charge of righting wrongs, bringing order out of chaos by revealing the murderer hidden amongst our ranks. It's not surprising that the chaos of the last decade has led to the latest rise of mystery series and films in Western culture, offering viewers a way to cling to the idea that society can be made a little stronger in 44-minute increments, or, in the case of Dept. Q, a binge-watch of nine installments on Netflix.

In recent years, Netflix has tended toward making what I like to think of as "imitation programming." It doesn't have the Star Wars franchise, so it makes Rebel Moon, it adapts Millarworld stories in lieu of Marvel, and The Crown was a six-year substitute for Masterpiece. Currently, Netflix doesn't have a Slow Horses, so it has made Dept. Q. Based on the Department Q novels by Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen, Dept. Q does the typical resetting of the Nordic noir in Scotland for U.K. and U.S. audiences, with PBS favorite Matthew Goode* in the lead as the novel's Detective Chief Inspector Carl Morck, a stereotypical PTSD-suffering, cranky, misanthropic investigator.

(*If you're wondering why he's not making an appearance in the final Downton movie, it's because he opted to star in this series instead.)