What I learned about writing from watching Dept. Q on Netflix
- Brandi Bradley
- Aug 5
- 6 min read
A department of misfits and the unlikeable.
I am not a book reviewer. I am a writer. I am not pretending to be a reviewer or have affiliates incentivizing me to talk about these books, series, podcasts, etc. I am consuming these materials to learn more about storytelling and the craft of writing.
Every crime show on television can be describes as a “band of misfits”: The leader, the muscle, the computer person, the fish out of water, the princess, and the thief. And I say crime show, but you could apply this to any type of programing, from The Muppet Show to Foreman’s basement.
With Dept. Q, I finally felt like this descriptor was apt.
Dept. Q is a crime series on Netflix that takes place in Scotland. It’s a cold case unit being funded by someone who lost someone in their past, but this team is led by Detective Morck, who is recovering from an on the job injury that left another cop dead and his own partner paralyzed. Also, Morck was angry before his on the job incident, and his therapist is frustrated with his incapacity to work on himself. And I haven’t even started talking about their first case, a prosecutor goes missing on a ferry boat without a trace.
Morck, the show leader, can’t take on every cold case in Scotland all on his own. Because that’s the rub, he gets this unit but his jurisdiction is everywhere: city and country. Upon learning this, his first departmental request is a car, which was denied. Next was an assistant.
Dept Q on Netflix is a slow-burn building of the team, which makes the show incredibly bingeable. Mystery aside, what made the show watchable was seeing who would join next and how they work together to figure out the mystery. Much like watching Columbo or Poker Face, the process of investigating felt more live, even though the mystery has still yet to be revealed.
What I learned about writing from watching Dept. Q on Netflix:
TV can do time jumps in a way that adds to the mystery where in text, you must always tell the reader what year it is. With apologies to giving too much away, before the cops even accept the case they will be investigating, the reader has been presented glimpses into the life of the abducted before she disappears. And unless someone is really, really paying attention, it looks like regular time cuts, allowing the reveal that the viewer has been getting to know this person before the cops do to have more of a punch. Novels have to set up what year it is or else the reader will be confused. Dept. Q is from a book series by Jussi Adler-Olsen, and I am now reading that series. They announce the year at the beginning of each chapter.
Chemistry between partners should be established before they find themselves in a crisis. The reader/viewer is getting to know these people, and seeing how people interact tells you a lot about their relationship and whether they will be able to endure their crisis. Morck and his partner Hardy are arguing about football (or soccer) when they entire a crime scene that becomes an ambush. It’s a short moment, but a telling one. Often my writing students want to either take multiple chapters of getting to know you set up or they want to tell the reader how good of friends the characters are. In Dept. Q the moment indicating the character’s history and friendship is short and intentional. They are shown – because showing is so important – in a bickering match that doesn’t get too personal or spiteful. There is a disagreement between blokes that’s handled like blokes. Often when I am working with young writers, the chemistry between their friends is challenging to write, and sometimes it feels a little false and full of telling about their friendship through an illusion to how long they have known each other or declaring, “You are my best friend, after all.” When you show characters in the middle of a bickering match, you can see how much they respect each other by the jabs they take and the ones they do not.
It’s not how the character is, but how everyone responds to how the character is that will determine how the audience will respond. I remember this writing trick from an old interview with Mike Schur who created Parks and Recreation. They decided to stop showing everyone’s reactions to Leslie Knope’s enthusiasm as annoyance, and started showing them responding with respect. The writing drastically improved on the show. Most people will tell you that the show never got it’s footing until the last episode of season 1. This is why. My best friend and I have been having this back and forth about our trigger points with certain characteristics. She can’t handle a character who is angry – that potential for volatility makes her feel uneasy and she can’t abide that energy. I don’t find that one as triggering as a needy character. Needy characters fill me with unease because nothing is never enough for them. With Morck, this is a guy who was already an angry person, and his on the job injury only made it worse. But the anger is a low-level annoyance with rules, structure, bureaucracy, and niceties. He knows he’s a good cop. He’s pissed everyone isn’t as good of a cop as him. This attitude makes interesting banter with his therapist, played by Kelly Macdonald, who sees his anger and raises him an your-anger-does-not-impress-me chip. Morck is angry but no one spends too much time trying to fix it beyond reminding him that some of his petulant outbursts are not helping him in the long run. But they aren’t hand-wringing around him making sure he changes (like on a show like House or Sherlock), but presents him with the consequences of his actions, often making him look like a surly teenager.
It’s a far more physically violent show than many others. Shows like Reacher and even Bosch have many of the Western genre conventions like shoot-em ups or chases. However, in Dept. Q, there is less gun play, but there is more bodily violence in physical altercations, physical ailments, and limitations in what bodies can endure psychologically. Stories which show an awareness of the physicality of being a human in a body makes the storytelling far more visceral. Cowboy programs always propel the heroes into the super-humans – again, Reacher pulled a person strapped to a hospital bed into a helicopter with one arm – which makes the endings kind of flat. Of course Reacher is going to get his man in the end. The frailty and vulnerability of a character makes their wins more triumphant.
The characters, in almost every sense would be labelled as “unlikeable”. I don’t want to use the term misfits, but the assembly of these investigators is intended to root for these weirdos solving crimes in the basement. The TV series places their offices in the shower Quarters, which is where the Q comes in. Someone always makes a comment about how they are surrounded by toilets. The setting is dank. There’s furniture piled up that looks like it came from the 1970s. There is either an acid green or a tangerine orange splash of color in the frame. It creates a place that feels out of it’s own time with people who look like they are out of their own time. Upstairs in the main investigators bullpen, the young cops are polished and have incredibly trendy haircuts which seem to fit fashion models as opposed to cops. The show creators obviously want this contrast, because who wants to root for a fashion model. But also, to bring that point home even further – in case you are charmed by fancy clothes and trendy looks – Morck, in his scruffy clothes and unshaven face, takes two seconds looking at their case whiteboard and points out five things they have missed. And because they are investigating his own shooting, he’s not allowed to help. It reminds the reader/viewer that the best person to investigate the case is the one person who is not allowed to. And that, in addition to the fact that he calls them all idiots, he has made himself a nuisance. He is unlikeable. His assistant has been denied work as a policeman because of his immigration status. The other cop pulled onto the case has been on desk duty for months because of a bad experience in the field. And then, Morck’s partner is Skyping them in from his hospital bed where his is both pitching his ideas and teaching the other investigator how to be a better cop. Their oddities are the feature and not the bug. It makes them endearing and that makes them easier to root for.
I am reading the book series, which means I might need to make further additions to this as I go along. But I am already anticipating a season 2 of this show, which I intend to gobble up quickly.
XOXO,
B.
Don’t miss out. Grab your copy of Pretty Girls Get Away With Murder.
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