Anya Taylor-Joy’s poker-chess face performed so righteously in The Queen’s Gambit that second-season cravings are only natural. Still, there has been no hint from Netflix or anybody involved that more could happen, and the existing season is perfect as-is while still sitting on streaming service’s All-Time Top 10 TV Shows list. It’s time to let that dream go, y’all.
The good news, however, is that The Queen’s Gambit writer/director Scott Frank has another original TV series coming to Netflix. Let’s move the game pieces around and determine what to expect from Dept. Q
Plot
Scott Frank’s limited-series prowess is strong, both with The Queen’s Gambit and Godless, so odds are strong that Dept. Q will take the same route. That label hasn’t been made official yet, so for now, this new series has been announced for an initial nine-episode season based upon Danish novelist Jussi Adler-Olsen’s same-named books.
Dept. Q is also officially labelled as a thriller series, and although this will not be as high-octane as The Night Agent, certain similarities are impossible to ignore. That includes a protagonist who is relegated to a basement department, and you know that isn’t going to last. Matthew Goode will portray incorrigible top-cop, Carl, who doesn’t get along so well with colleagues, and following an officer-involved shooting that severely injured his partner, Carol is reassigned to (for PR reasons and probably because it’s convenient to have the abrasive colleague stored elsewhere) concentrate on cold cases.
A guilt-ridden Carl will embrace f*cking off at first but soon grow bored and build his own group of unofficial colleagues, both from “misfits and mavericks” within the police team, according to Variety, but also from the streets (via Netflix’s synopsis) after Carl does get back out there on cold cases.
In the process, Carl will clash with a rising prosecutor and find support from an assistant (and former Syrian police force member) who has more skills than previously imagined. Additionally, Carl’s therapist will have a hell of a time sorting through his trauma, but look for them to “develop a deeper connection across the series.” Hmm. Here’s more from the aforementioned synopsis:
[D]epartment [Q] is a PR stunt, there to distract the public from the failures of an under-resourced, failing police force that is glad to see the back of him. But more by accident than design, Carl starts to build a gang of waifs and strays who have everything to prove. So, when the stone-cold trail of a prominent civil servant who disappeared several years ago starts to heat up, Carl is back doing what he does best – rattling cages and refusing to take no for an answer.
Cast
Matthew Goode stars alongside Kelly Macdonald, Leah Byrne, Chloe Pirrie, and Alexej Manvelov.
Release Date
Dept. Q streams all nine episodes on May 29.
Trailer
Netflix hasn’t released a Dept. Q trailer yet, but you could always revisit The Queen’s Gambit while you wait.