Carl Morck may be the smartest guy in the room, but I’m beginning to think Akram is the smartest guy in the building.
After the Season 1 premiere pulled that clever little trick with Merritt Lingard’s timeline, I was curious whether Dept. Q could keep the momentum going without another big reveal. After all, we already know Merritt is alive, she’s been missing for four years, and somebody has her locked up in what looks like the world’s most miserable science experiment.
Episode 2 doesn’t try to top that reveal. Instead, it gives us something I might enjoy even more: Carl Morck being forced to work with somebody who isn’t the least bit intimidated by him.
And the more I watch these two, the more I’m convinced that Akram might be exactly what Carl needs. Not that Carl would ever admit it.
Akram Is the Best Thing That Could Happen to Carl Morck
Matthew Goode’s Carl is still a cranky ass bastard. He’s rude to Moira, dismissive of Akram, and apparently believes that being smarter than everybody else gives him permission to treat them like idiots.
But Akram doesn’t care. He doesn’t get offended, storm off, or spend half the episode demanding respect. He just keeps working. And the more Carl tries to brush him aside, the more useful Akram becomes.
I love this guy.
Alexej Manvelov plays Akram with this calm, almost cheerful determination that makes Carl’s hostility even funnier. He’s polite, observant, and resourceful, but don’t mistake any of that for weakness.
When Carl can’t get anywhere with William’s legal guardian, Akram gets information from the receptionist. When nobody answers the door at Claire Walsh’s house, he hops the fence and finds her in the greenhouse.
So much for being the buttoned-up one.
We’re also learning a little more about Akram himself. He’s been in Scotland for eight years, has a wife who’s a surgeon and two daughters, and previously worked in law enforcement in Syria. But there’s something about that part of his life that seems to make him sad.
I’m curious about that. He’s clearly an experienced investigator, and the show isn’t treating his past as a throwaway detail.
What’s especially good about this partnership is that Akram recognizes Carl’s intelligence without excusing his behavior. He knows Carl is a capable detective. He also knows Carl can be an absolute jerk.
And he’s clearly decided to work with him anyway.
Carl’s Biggest Problem Isn’t His Personality
As funny as Carl can be, Dept. Q hasn’t forgotten why he’s so miserable.
The shooting from Episode 1 is still eating him alive, and I don’t think Carl has any idea how to deal with it beyond making everybody else’s life unpleasant.
Rachel sees through him almost immediately. She tells him what he doesn’t want to hear: he’s angry at everyone because he thinks he’s smarter than they are, but underneath that anger is an enormous amount of guilt. And she isn’t wrong.
Their scenes remind me a little of House. Carl has that same combination of intelligence, arrogance, and spectacularly bad people skills. He even manages to embarrass himself while talking to Rachel, suggesting they start their conversation over before simply leaving.
And despite his obnoxious remarks, I still see chemistry between them.
His visit with Hardy is harder to watch. Carl briefly thinks his former partner has died when he finds the hospital bed empty, and the relief when Hardy is wheeled back into the room says more about Carl than another argument ever could.
Hardy doesn’t particularly want him around, but Carl leaves Merritt’s file behind.
That was a meaningful moment. Carl might not be able to fix what happened to Hardy, but perhaps he’s beginning to recognize that solving this case is something he can still do.
His problems at home aren’t going away, either. Jasper is skipping school, Carl can’t seem to communicate with him, and he’s already leaving messages for Victoria about taking their son.
Carl’s personal life seems to be one more situation where he’s convinced everyone else is the problem. The difference is that his detective skills can’t solve everything.
And I like that the show isn’t using Rachel to magically straighten him out. She’s helping us understand him, but it’s Akram who’s actually getting through to him.
Merritt’s Captivity Is Becoming Something Much Nastier
I’m increasingly fascinated by what’s happening to Merritt, partly because I still have no idea who’s responsible.
Her captors are making her guess why she’s being held prisoner. Every month, they ask her the same question, and she’s apparently spent four years trying to come up with the right answer.
Four years! That’s not simply kidnapping. That’s psychological torture.
Merritt calls her captors the Shadows, and the distorted voices make the whole arrangement even creepier. There are at least two people involved, a man and a woman, and they’re clearly interested in something from her past. But what?
Merritt believes Kirsty Atkins might be the answer. Kirsty was connected to a drug possession case, and there’s a troubling history involving information she provided and Merritt’s apparent failure to help her when she needed it.
The more Merritt talks, the more this starts feeling like a trial. Except she’s the defendant, her captors are the prosecution, and nobody seems interested in telling her what she’s actually accused of doing.
And I’m not convinced Merritt was particularly nice to the people whose lives crossed her desk. That doesn’t mean she deserves what’s happening to her. But it does make me wonder whether somebody is punishing her for a decision she made as a prosecutor.
The Graham Finch case is still hanging over everything, too. I suspect it’s more important than we currently realize.
What I like is that the mystery isn’t just about identifying the kidnappers. We’re also trying to understand Merritt herself. Was she threatened because she was doing her job? Did she make a terrible mistake? Did somebody suffer because she refused to help?
And how many people might have a reason to hate her?
That’s a considerably more interesting mystery than simply figuring out who’s behind the camera.
Nobody Seems Particularly Eager to Tell the Truth
The investigation is giving Carl and Akram plenty of reasons to question the original conclusion that Merritt jumped from the ferry.
Claire Walsh, the former housekeeper who spent twelve years helping care for William, doesn’t believe Merritt would have abandoned her brother. And considering how protective Merritt appeared to be in Episode 1, I have a hard time believing it myself.
William’s situation is troubling for entirely different reasons.
He suffered an accident at sixteen, has difficulty communicating verbally, and spends much of his time drawing. Yet his legal guardian, Dr. Fiona Wallace, is determined to keep people away from him, including the police.
Why?
I understand that William has experienced trauma, but refusing to let investigators even examine his drawings seems awfully convenient.
And I can’t shake the suspicion that Fiona might be connected to Merritt’s captivity. We haven’t seen enough of the female Shadow to identify her, but something about her looks familiar.
Of course, I could be completely wrong.
Stephen Burns, Merritt’s former boss, isn’t inspiring much confidence, either. He previously told police he believed Merritt had killed herself, but when Carl questions him about the possibility that she’s still alive, his reaction doesn’t exactly scream honesty.
Maybe he knows something. Maybe he’s covering his own ass. Maybe he simply doesn’t want the case reopened.
At this point, I’m suspicious of practically everybody. And that’s a good sign.
That Press Conference Changes Everything
For all the clues and suspicious behavior, the episode’s strongest moment comes when Carl is forced in front of the press to announce Department Q’s investigation.
First, there’s the comedy of watching this miserable man get dressed up in somebody else’s jacket and tie and handed a prepared statement.
And he actually reads it! I expected him to throw the script away and tell everybody exactly what he thought of the department. Instead, he plays along, looking like he’d rather be undergoing dental surgery.
But the announcement has consequences well beyond Carl’s embarrassment.
Merritt’s captors see it. William sees it. Suddenly, people who believed the investigation was finished know that somebody is looking again.
William’s reaction is especially startling. He throws the television out the window and escapes the facility.
Why now? If he was capable of leaving, what kept him there all this time? And why didn’t he go to Claire?
Those questions alone make me want Episode 3.
But the press conference also brings Carl’s trauma crashing back when a reporter asks about the shooting and reveals information about the dead officer’s connections.
Carl loses control, and this is where the episode really earns its emotional payoff in an extremely powerful moment.
Akram follows him outside and manages to calm him down without making a spectacle of it. He doesn’t demand an explanation. He doesn’t lecture Carl. He simply recognizes that something is terribly wrong and helps him through it.
Earlier, Carl had interrupted Akram while he was praying and made an obnoxious remark about the police station not being a mosque.
Now, after Akram has helped him through a genuinely frightening moment, Akram tells him not to interrupt him while he’s praying.
It made me laugh, and not because Carl’s breakdown was funny, but because Akram knows exactly how to make his point without turning it into another confrontation.
And Carl actually listens. For a man who treats practically everybody as an inconvenience, that’s a pretty significant development.
🔥 Our Verdict: WATCHABLE
Dept. Q has nine episodes, which makes it an easy weekend binge, and Episode 2 is giving me another reason to appreciate shorter seasons. There’s room to develop these characters without spending half a season wandering around looking for something to do.
The mystery is moving, but it isn’t rushing. We get more questions about Merritt’s disappearance, more reasons to doubt the people surrounding her, and a better understanding of the man assigned to find her.
My favorite part, though, is the relationship developing between Carl and Akram.
Carl is smart, determined, and capable of being a first-rate detective. He’s also so consumed by guilt that he barely seems able to function around other people without insulting them.
Akram sees all of that and doesn’t run away. And when Carl finally needs somebody, Akram is there.
That’s more meaningful than another lecture about Carl’s attitude, and it’s a much better way to show that he might actually be capable of changing.
Meanwhile, Merritt has spent four years trying to figure out why somebody is punishing her, William has escaped, and I have a growing list of suspects that includes a doctor, a former boss, and possibly half of Scotland.
I still want to know what really happened in the Graham Finch case, what Kirsty Atkins has to do with Merritt’s captivity, and who the hell these Shadows are.
But I also want to know more about Akram.
And that’s what Dept. Q is getting right. I’m invested in the mystery, but I’m becoming just as invested in the people trying to solve it.
Read All Our Dept. Q Season 1 Coverage
This is ongoing coverage, so check back as we check back in with Morck, Akram and company through the rest of the first season before S2 premieres.
