Can a TV Show Restore Your Faith in Humanity?

Department Q is a series of ten Danish Nordic noir crime novels by author Jussi Adler-Olsen (see below), which have been adapted into hugely successful Danish films. I have not seen one of these, but have just finished watching the 9-episode English-language TV adaptation for Netflix, which immediately changes the setting from Denmark to Scotland.

I knew nothing of these books and was unaware of the films. However, I noticed on my browser feed a mention of the new series. I was intrigued by the title. So, having just finished The Last of Us and The Handmaid's Tale, I downloaded the whole of Season 1 on Friday and began to watch without any preconceived notion or even a hint of the story contained in the 9-book series by Jussi Adler-Olsen.

Please be aware that there are spoilers in my article.

Episode 1 begins, and about 10 minutes into the episode, there is a huge shock. It's as if the show has ended there and then. I cannot say anymore apart from the hero (and victim) of the story is an unpopular, pedantic high-ranking Scottish detective, DCI Morck, who will reluctantly become the head of the eponymous and slightly mysterious Department Q. This department is tasked to investigate old cold cases with minimal infrastructure and budget in place. The office is in the basement. It does feel as if DCI Morck is being put there deliberately, as they say, “Out of sight, out of mind”.

This phrase has been proverbial since Homer’s time. The Greek poet had it in the Odyssey (ca. 650 B.C.), and the earliest English appearance is in a 1501 translation of Thomas à Kempis’s The Imitation of Christ. What is absent is soon forgotten. Odysseus is most certainly not forgotten by those who count in the Odyssey, and neither will DCI Carl Morck be by us, the viewers. As for Christ, well, he does seem, along with his teachings, absent at a time when they are most needed.

As a cold case investigation develops picked by Akram from boxes and boxes of unsolved investigations (to the annoyance of DCI Morck) Department Q grows in staffing size (see photo above) to include a Syrian IT specialist, Akram Salim, played by Alexej Manvelov, who we eventually find out was once a cop in Syria; Rose, played by Leah Byrne, a cadet shaken by a psychological breakdown and looking for a chance to prove herself in DCI Morck’s team and later on with the assistance of Morck’s partner Hardy played by Jamie Sieves.

Hardy was paralysed from a recent shooting but is recovering thanks to a dedicated doctor who will keep trying to help him regain movement in his legs and stop Hardy from giving up completely. Morck also involves Hardy to assist him in his new role and investigation. Once a cop's partner, always a cop's partner. The entire cast is pretty superb, and the character development is perfectly nuanced and, above all else, believable.

This is also a superb portrayal of decent male bonding in a world full of toxic masculinity. Morck is almost bordering on that himself, but the portrayal of Morck by Matthew Goode is one of the best TV performances you will ever see. He is difficult, sarcastic, angry, hurt, highly intelligent, funny, a good detective, foul-mouthed at times, yet is trying to be a stepfather to a 17-year-old lad who looks to Morck for guidance. And he has survived being shot through the face whilst another policeman was killed. Nobody has yet been apprehended for his murder.

However tired you might be of the venerable Brilliant Grouch genre, this entry executes its tropes with enough respect and flair that I cannot wait to watch future Adler-Olsen adaptations focused on DCI Carl Morck and his team. I have bought the second book in the series and shall devour it in no time. And watch those Danish films.

I loved the portrayal of Morck. This is the definition of a man warts ’n’ all that I can respect and admire. This is a very modern, realistic portrayal of a good but flawed man with those flaws part of being the good in a world of so much badness and toxicity. This is not the usual Scottish detective with a drink problem, as the undoubted iconic creation of Rebus was' but more a 'Stranger in a Strange Land', as DCI Morck is English. This extra change from the book works extremely well. And this is probably why he has time for a Syrian refugee to help him solve the case.

And the possibility of love is also included (an opportunity for Morck’s redemption as well in its New Testament iteration) as the banter between Morck and Irving (his counselor and psychologist) is reminiscent of Shakespeare and his romantic comedies, except that this male lead is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, as seen in those short and dynamic opening credits.

The whole adaptation restored my faith a little bit in humanity as we watch a group of misfits and emotionally wounded people find strength and success together in solving cases — or a case in Season 1 — that the other, rather boring and ‘normal’ police officers have failed to.

These are the misfits that have been in all great shows and iconic films that have been able to achieve what the regular idiots cannot. They are already outside the box and can therefore think outside the box very naturally and normally. These are our iconic characters and misfits who are different and, in many ways, are the best of us — the wounded, the hurt, the suffering, those who look different, those whose lives have been challenged significantly and are still standing and helping to fight evil in its common day manifestation of kidnapping and murder. They have triumphed over their adversaries. That is Department Q.

And to answer my question, Department Q has restored my faith in humanity a little. I only wish there were more such Departments in the real world and more real people like those in Department Q who can make a difference in stopping the intolerable inhumanity from spreading across the whole world like an irredeemable dark force.