Latest news with #Merritt
Cosmopolitan
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Cosmopolitan
The complex ending of Netflix's Department Q explained by Chloe Pirrie, who plays Merritt
If you're anything like us then you may have spent the last 24 hours going down a complete rabbit hole and binging the entire season of Department Q in one sitting. What can we say? When a thriller has this many surprising plot twists, timeline layers and mistaken identities you need to be sat for nine solid hours. The new Netflix series follows Detective Carl Morck (Matthew Goode), who is assigned a new cold case department after his previous assignment results in his partner's injury and the death of another officer. He decides to work with his new team and try to solve the case of prosecutor Merritt Lingard, who has been missing for four years. So what happened to Merritt? And did the team manage to save her? Here's all your important questions about the Department Q ending, answered. That would be Lyle Jennings and his mother Aisla. During Merritt's teenage years she got into a relationship with a teenage boy called Harry Jennings. The two planned to run away together as they were both unhappy in their own homes. Merritt's wealthy mother who abandoned the family when Merritt was younger, had left a number of jewellery pieces which would earn lots of money. So the pair discussed for Harry to steal one of the rings when everyone was out of the house. However, Merritt said for Harry not to go through with it in the end, but he did it anyway. When Harry turned up that night, Merritt's brother William was actually there. William hit Harry as he'd broken into the house. That's when Harry's younger brother Lyle showed up and beat William to a pulp, leaving him in a coma which he then comes out of as non-verbal. Harry takes the wrap for what Lyle did, and as he tries to evade the police he runs away onto a ferry but is caught by the police and falls overboard to his death. Because of this Lyle and Aisla blame Merritt for Harry's death, and therefore kidnap her on that day four years earlier while she was on the ferry with William. They then take her to tank and get her to try and work out why she's there. No there's not two Sam Haigs. During the story we're told Merritt was sleeping with a reporter named Sam Haig. But turns out the real Sam Haig knew nothing about Merritt and died in a 'climbing accident' the day before she was kidnapped. The person who was actually having sex with Merritt was Lyle Jennings pretending to be Sam Haig. Lyle and Sam had gone to a younger offenders institution during their teenage years together. And just before Sam's death they reunited as Sam wanted to write a book about their experience in the institution. Lyle then impersonated Sam to get to Merritt, who he also appeared to have quite a romantic obsession with. Lyle then also killed the real Sam Haig and made it look like an accident. They did! During the ninth episode Carl and Akram travel to the island after working out Lyle Jennings was impersonating Sam Haig. They arrive to find the Jennings family land deserted. They head down into the abandoned warehouse and discover the police officer Cunningham's car and then his dead body stuffed in the boot. The pair then discover Merritt and try to find a way to release her safely from the pressure tank. Just as they're doing this Lyle comes in and shoots Carl on the shoulder, thankfully Akram manages to throw a knife and injure Lyle, before the pair kill him. They then managed to save Merritt and have her put in a hyperbaric stretcher so she could be released safely and adjust to the pressure. Aisla attempted to leave the island but when she arrives off of the ferry the police are waiting for her and so she ends her life with the gun hidden in her car. Following the case wrapping up, the series jumps three months in the future. We see Merritt at the police station, having spoken to everyone and thanking them for saving her. However, she doesn't get a chance to speak to Carl, who Moira said had taken some time off. Just as Merritt leaves she bumps into Carl and apologies before moving on. She doesn't recognise him and he doesn't say anything. It's a confusing moment given that Carl saved Merritt's life you think they'd want to speak. However, Chloe Pirrie, who plays Merritt in the series, revealed to Cosmopolitan UK, the moment is not supposed to be sentimental, with the show's creator Scott Frank always wanting to lean away from that type of ending. "Scott describes himself as allergic to sentimentality," she explained. "And I think there is something really powerful about not quite giving us what we [the audience] want in that moment. And they kind of miss each other, which is quite human and quite like real in life. It does something slightly unexpected. And I find that quite beautiful in a way." And we have to agree, it was a really great (if not slightly confusing) moment. Department Q is available on Netflix now
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Netflix's Dept. Q ending, that left Matthew Goode in tears, explained
Dept. Q ends on an dramatic note, and one that is so emotional even lead star Matthew Goode found himself in tears, he tells Yahoo Netflix thriller follows detective Carl Morck (Matthew Goode) who returns to work after surviving an attack that left his partner paralysed and another officer dead. The grizzly English cop isn't well liked in the Edinburgh force, and to keep him out of the way he's assigned his own cold case department where he and a motley crew of outsiders decide to look into the mysterious disappearance of prosecutor Merritt Lingard (Chloe Pirrie) four years earlier. Goode was moved to tears by the chain of events in the series, with the actor sharing: "Actually I found it really moving, I was quietly surprised at how it all sort of came together. "I remember I was just doing some ADR where we re-record dialogue and Scott [Frank, the show's creator] was like, 'would you like to watch this?' And I was like, 'OK'. He doesn't normally do that so I think he was quietly proud of it. And, yeah, I shed a tear, I did." The Downton Abbey star joked that he was emotional because he thought "'Thank God it works!'" The story centres on Carl and his team trying to find out what happened to Merritt Lingard, who disappeared off a ferry four years earlier under mysterious circumstances. Most have written her off as having died by suicide after jumping of the boat, but Carl, Akram (Alexej Manvelov) and Rose (Leah Byrne) are convinced she could still be alive and want to piece together what happened. The trio, it turns out, are right, and Merritt has been kidnapped and held in a pressurised container by two people who are determined to make her guess for herself why she was taken. Merritt is kept there for years as she counts all the people she wronged or hurt in her life, eventually landing on the answer as the clock begins to run out. Merritt was taken by mother and son duo Ailsa and Lyle Jennings (Alison Peebles and Steven Miller), who committed the crime because they blame Merritt for the death of Lyle's older brother Harry. The teen died whilst trying to escape custody after he'd robbed Merritt's house and beaten her brother so badly he could no longer speak. Ailsa believe it's Merritt who put Harry, her then boyfriend, up to committing the robbery, thus starting the chain of events that led to his death, but Merritt sees it differently and refuses to take the blame. As time runs out on Merritt's survival, Carl and Akram put the pieces together successfully — realising that Lyle Jennings posed as journalist Sam Haig to seduce Merritt, gain her trust and kidnap her. Carl and Akram manage to get to the location where Merritt is being kept just in time to stop her from being killed in the pressurised container. The pair kill Lyle in the process and save Merritt, and Ailsa dies by suicide when she realises what the police have done. Goode adds that Pirrie deserved credit for such a "powerful" and "brave performance" as Merritt, to which his co-star Byrne said: "She was so incredible, I met Chloe on the first day when we were doing costume and makeup fittings, and met her in the green room and we had an hour to get to know each other, chat, and then I just didn't see her again. She was alone for the whole thing." Goode joked: "Well I said to her 'it would be really nice to work with you someday!'" "So it's so great to see what she's done," Byrne adds. "It's so incredible. She's done such an incredible job." The series sees Merritt return to normal life, revealing she will return home with her brother and reconnect with her estranged father. In the meantime Dept. Q get back up and running, with James Hardy [Jamie Sives], Carl's partner, returning to the force in the very last scene. This was another moment that left Goode emotional, as he said: "It's also Jamie's character, bless his little cotton socks." Dept. Q is out now on Netflix.
The Review Geek
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Review Geek
Dept. Q – Season 1 Episode 6 Recap & Review
Pressure Episode 6 of Dept. Q starts with Merritt speaking to Sam Haig about her concerns in our past timeline. She believes someone inside the Crown Offices told Finch about the witness and almost had Kirsty killed. This has obviously ruffled some feathers and Sam warns her that she could be watched right now. It's here she admits indirectly to receiving threatening emails and texts. He cuts their chat short and encourages her to pick a better spot than the cemetery she frequents next time they meet up again. The place Merritt picks is the hotel room, under her pseudonym. The pair speak about Stephen Burns and his potential impact here, but only temporarily. Alone, Merritt flirts with him a little and wants to trust him. This comes from stripping right down to make sure neither is wearing a wire, but with them both naked, they naturally end up having sex. Merritt has fond memories of this incident and, well, she isn't exactly subtle about it in her hyperbaric chamber when we cut back to the present. Elsewhere, Carl attempts to talk to Jasper, ringing and suggesting they meet and talk. After, he and Akram show at the church and talk to Fergus, who's there drinking. He actually gave up for a while but after the beatdown he received a day prior, he's back on the hard liquor again. Carl is clearly flying too close to the sun and poor Icarus here has the bruises to prove it. Fergus has been warned off from pursuing this further and talking to Carl, but in a nice little twist, we learn he beat the three guys that surrounded him down in the parking lot after the initial sucker punch he received. Fergus being taken off the case, it seems, was Moira's call to protect him from being beaten down further rather than to stifle the investigation. Akram has also done his homework here and is convinced that Fergus would have solved this had he been left to continue. It's a far cry from what we initially thought regarding his ineptitude and a nice way of subverting expectations. Along with the shooter for the Leith Park murders apparently being caught, Carl shows up at the apartment to try and jog his own memories of the incident, which brings back painful flashes. He's found by his colleagues lying on the floor, apparently doing so to try and jog his own memories of the incident. Remember that press conference from episode 2? Well, it would appear that there's definite weight to the fact this victim found inside the apartment, Archie Allen, was a police informant. However, P.C. Anderson never said the victim's name, all he said was he was here for a routine wellness check. Archie may have been bait for a bigger fish and while Hardy and Carl were not the intended targets, the journalist could be onto something. Anderson may have been using the bumbling officer persona to play up his own ineptitude to avoid scrutiny. In fact, they're not even sure if Archie Allen, the deceased, had a daughter. While they get on this to investigate further, we circle back to the Merritt case. Rose leads the questioning with Liam again, bringing him bac in and asking specifically about his ties to Merritt – and how that could pertain to Kirsty. They know that Merritt visited her during week one of the trial but also that Liam's pride was hurt after the affair ended. Liam admits that he was angry and frustrated but then he woke up and wound up embarrassed about the whole ordeal. The reason the guys are going down this route though is to try and understand if Liam swayed Merritt's opinion into not using Kirsty as a witness given her background. The one above Liam is Stephen Burns so they seem to nail the fact that Burns was responsible for the hit against Kirsty, but we don't know why he did this just yet (if he even is involved). Meanwhile, Jasper is visited by a nasty man who threatens to ruin him. He wants Jasper to pass on these threats to Carl but when he shows at the diner, he follows the man out and immediately beats the guy to a pulp. He almost slams his head into the pavement after having blood spat at him, but Jasper stops his dad before everything gets out of control. Rose shows up to see Hardy and brings up someone called Ned Finkle. He was released from hospital 2 weeks after being run over by Julia Montgomery. He lost both his legs as a result but according to Julia's statement, she was run off the road by another vehicle that came up alongside her. Seeing how she smacked him from behind and there's no witnesses, it's her word against his. Now, this might sound like a pointless story to pad out this recap but it's important. Why? Well Julia's maiden name was Burns. Julia Burns is the daughter of Stephen Burns, so it seems like someone may have orchestrated this to send a message. That person could be Graham Finch, which in turn would have worked to make Stephen do his bidding. Carl shows back up at therapy but he's taken aback when Dr Sonnenberg is back and Rachel is nowhere to be found. He's not happy at the perceived feel of being given the run-around and he eventually decides to leave. Akram and Rose track down Edmund, the guy responsible for setting up Carl in the middle of the street with that charade involving Jasper. Carl isn't here of course, given he's being chewed out by Moira back at the station while all the other officers hilariously listen it. Moira rips into him for the very public display and how he now looks like a lunatic, given this is twice in a week that he's done this (the first was with the journalist, Dennis, at the Scottish Telegraph) Moira refuses to fire him though and just as Akram and Rose show up, Moira chews them out too, just for being in the line of fire. She calls them 'Team Doolally', and find out that the man who initially threatened Jasper and Carl was employed as a chauffeur for Ballantyne Transfer & Security. Which in itself is owned by Finch Overseas Shipping. That company's owner? Graham Finch. The gang bring up all of the connections they've uncovered between Stephen Burns and Graham Finch, but right now it's not the main concern, as Carl is called in to try and point out the killer from a line-up at the Leith Park shooting. However, it doesn't look like any of the men are the ones. As the episode closes out, we cut back to Merritt one more time where trouble is brewing. The airlock appears to be broken because moving a can of drink into her hyperbaric container causes the whole thing to explode, which is a pretty gnarly bit of foreshadowing for what could happen to Merritt. Time is of the essence. The Episode Review The connections are starting to slot into place now and it would appear that Stephen Burns is responsible for what happened to Kirsty, possibly just to turn the other cheek and keep quiet while Finch works his magic to be let off the hook. It still doesn't explain everything but it does go some way to give context over exactly how he plays into this and why the Crown Offices were aware of her as a witness. Fergus is clearly a good officer too and Moira, for all of her flaws, was working to protect him from potential harm. It's unclear whether she's in on this but I have a sneaky suspicion that Dr Rachel might be. She knows a lot, and for someone who apparently knows about Carl's past, and then suddenly disappeared, she could be part of this whole endeavour. Maybe this is a thread, maybe not; it's definitely something worth considering though. As we're gearing up for the business end of this season, everything here is left wide open for where this may go next. Previous Episode Next Episode Expect A Full Season Write-Up When This Season Concludes!
Time Magazine
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time Magazine
Breaking Down the Tense and Thrilling Ending of Netflix's Dept. Q
Warning: This post contains spoilers for Dept. Q. Dept. Q, from The Queen's Gambit creator Scott Frank, is a thrilling, highly bingeable series about the creation of a new police unit, a cold-case division formed in hopes of generating good press for a beleaguered Edinburgh police department. Leading the new unit is Detective Chief Inspector Carl Morck (Matthew Goode), a troubled officer recently recovered from a near-fatal shooting incident that left his friend and partner, DCI Hardy (Jamie Sives), paralyzed from the waist down, and another young officer dead. Rather than a promotion, Morck's banishment to Dept. Q in the dingy, former shower quarters of the building is a way to get a misanthropic nuisance (with likely PTSD) out of the hair of Detective Chief Superintendent Moira Jacobson (Kate Dickie). The first season largely follows Department Q on its first case, searching for Merritt Lingard (Chloe Pirrie), a ruthless and highly successful prosecutor who has been missing for four years, last seen on a ferry headed to the remote Mhor in the Scottish Highlands. She vanished without a trace and the investigation was abandoned, but Morck, alongside his assistant Akram (Alexej Manvelov) and Detective Constable Rose (Leah Byrne), is determined to find her, hanging onto a shred of hope that she may be alive somewhere. There's a major break in the case in Episode 8, leading Morck and co. on a chase to save Merritt before it's too late in the tense and thrilling Dept. Q finale. Let's break it down. Who is Lyle Jennings? The penultimate episode of Dept. Q finally reveals the two people responsible for Merritt's kidnapping: Ailsa Jennings and her son, Lyle. Merritt has been held captive for four years inside a hyperbaric chamber in Mhor, not far from where she grew up. That's because the duo believes Merritt is responsible for the death of Ailsa's other son Harry, a former boyfriend of Merritt's, and they want her to face the consequences of her actions. (In reality, Merritt being in any way responsible for Harry's death is extremely tenuous at best). The finale opens with an interview of Lyle as a teenager at Godhaven, a correctional facility. In the interview, Lyle reveals that he was regularly abused by his mother, who would put Lyle and his brother Harry in the same hyperbaric chamber regularly as punishment. Chillingly, Lyle doesn't seem fazed by this—it was so normalized in his upbringing that he thinks being put in a potentially deadly pressurized chamber is something that happens to everyone. He also reveals delusions about his brother Harry, believing him to still be alive. Speaking of Harry, it had long been thought that he was responsible for the violent attack on Merritt's brother William, who was left for dead with permanent brain damage that has severely impacted his life with Merritt eventually becoming his guardian. But this episode reveals that while teenage Harry did break into Merritt's childhood home, hoping to steal some valuable jewelry so he and Merritt could run away together, it was Lyle (who followed Harry into Merritt and William's home) who assaulted William. Another lingering mystery in Dept. Q is the identity of Sam Haig, a journalist with whom Merritt was romantically involved. The police investigation was at a standstill regarding Sam, as the evidence didn't add up regarding his whereabouts. The finale reveals there were two men named Sam Haig. One was the real Sam, a reporter who covered organized crime and a passionate climber, while the other was Lyle, who stole Sam's identity, eventually killing him and throwing him over the crag, so it would look like he died in a climbing accident. The two had gone to Godhaven together as teens, where Sam attacked Lyle, leaving his eye permanently damaged, resulting in two different colored eyes. Sam wanted to make amends to Lyle, who wasn't interested, and exacted revenge by killing him instead. Merritt was sleeping with Lyle, who was posing as Sam. She told Lyle (thinking he was Sam) what ferry she was leaving on, which enabled Lyle to enact the kidnapping. The final episodes also tie up the mystery around Merritt's boss Stephen Burns (Mark Bonnar), whom Morck had believed to be corrupt and potentially involved in Merritt's disappearance following a case involving a husband acquitted for killing his wife. It turned out Burns was corrupt, in a sense, though his hand was forced after the defendant's goons threatened the life of his daughter. Morck uses his leverage over Burns to negotiate (slash blackmail) for more resources for Dept. Q. Does Merritt survive? Merritt was kidnapped and held within a hyperbaric chamber in remote Scotland for four years, and was long presumed dead before DCI Morck reopened the case. The discovery of Lyle Jennings blows the case open, and sends Morck and his assistant Akram back to Mhor to speak to Ailsa on the whereabouts of her son. While Morck and Akram head to Mhor, Rose and Hardy—who's been pitching in on the case as he tries to regain mobility in his lower body—remain in Edinburgh to continue investigating Lyle. Rose makes a startling discovery: when Lyle was 15, he coerced a friend of his into the hyperbaric chamber, which they owned through his father's company, and kept him there for three days. That allows Rose to tip off Morck in the nick of time—he was trying to get into Ailsa's home, and she was waiting with a shotgun in hand, ready to shoot whoever came in. Morck and Akram begin their search for the chamber, stumbling upon an old warehouse belonging to the Jennings family company, called Shorebird Ocean Systems (or SOS). The company logo is the cormorant—the bird from the hat and William's drawings that served as an early mystery; it was believed that someone wearing a hat with the same logo was responsible for kidnapping Merritt. Interestingly, the building was sectioned off four years ago, at around the same time Merritt went missing. They enter the warehouse, discovering local Detective Cunningham, the first person to discover Merritt, murdered and stashed away in the trunk of his police car. He was bludgeoned to death by Lyle earlier in the episode after finding Merritt. The pair then finds Merritt inside the hyperbaric chamber, but getting her out is no small feat. A sudden release would trigger a massive discrepancy in air pressure, which would kill her. As they try to find a way to turn down the pressure, they're interrupted by Lyle, wielding a shotgun. Heroically, Morck stands in front of Akram, taking a shot in the arm (which he'll survive). The scene echoes the show's opening, when a bullet passes through Morck on its way toward Hardy. Morck's instinct to sacrifice himself for Akram has great meaning after a season of directing sarcastic and dismissive remarks toward him. Lyle approaches to finish them both, but Merritt screams from below, distracting Lyle just long enough for Akram to spring to action. Akram throws a knife into Lyle's neck, and in one swift motion, he takes the shotgun from Lyle and shoots him, killing Lyle. They're then able to lower the pressure, call for back-up, and get Merritt out alive. Meanwhile, Ailsa nearly escapes. But as she drives onto the ferry out of Mhor, she's blockaded by police. Instead of being taken in, she grabs her pistol, shooting herself in the head before the cops can intervene. Who shot DCI Morck? The other major plotline in Dept Q. follows the investigation of a shooting that took the life of DC Anderson, left DCI Morck badly wounded, and DCI Hardy paralyzed from the waist down, which serves as the series opener. While the investigation is ongoing, and several discoveries are made throughout the season, the police are not much closer to discovering the assailants behind the deadly shooting. Morck continues to believe it may have been an inside job, as DC Anderson had ties to a local crime boss and had suspiciously called in a fake wellness check to the house, leading to the shooting. Despite this looming over Morck and Hardy, things feel considerably more optimistic in the department. Three months after freeing Merritt, Morck returns to Department Q, ready to take on a new case. He's joined by Akram and Rose, and in a most welcome surprise, Hardy, who has begun walking again. Buoyed by solving a seemingly impossible case, the plucky department is ready to get to work on what's next.
CBC
2 days ago
- Business
- CBC
Bell Canada to launch 6 AI data centres in B.C.
Telecom giant Bell Canada has announced plans to build six artificial intelligence data centres in B.C. Bell AI Fabric will create a "data centre supercluster" in the province beginning with a centre in Kamloops this June and another in Merritt by the end of the year. Mirko Bibic, president and CEO of Bell Canada, said he wants the project to become "the fabric for the AI economy for Canada." "To do it right here, you know, starting in B.C., is a testament to all the attributes that British Columbia has in terms of kind of the natural resources of the hydroelectric power, the innovation mindset, universities who are … ready, willing and able to join in," Bibic told the CBC. Kamloops to host 3 centres In addition to the first two locations, Bell AI Fabric plans to open another four AI data centres in the province. Two more will open in Kamloops in 2026 and 2027, while the final two locations have not yet been announced. Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops will be home to one of the data centres designed to host AI training and inference. Asked about the power supply needed to run the centres amid concerns about B.C. Hydro meeting future electrical demand, Bibic said he believes there is capacity in the B.C. Interior. He added that they picked Kamloops for three of the centres for its access to reliable clean energy and its "ideal climate." He promised Bell will hire local workers as it builds and manages the centres and noted Bell AI Fabric president, Dan Rink, is based in Kamloops. Merritt Mayor Michael Goetz said he's excited for the new data centre in his community. "If you're first in the door, you can control the narrative," Goetz said. "If you're coming up behind once everybody's jumped on the bandwagon, then you're playing catch up." He said the city was lucky the land was available: years ago, the site was upgraded to become a grow-op, according to Goetz. "It was going to be a row of greenhouses for the grow-up.… So it's a very powerful site." Bell AI Fabric is also planning to expand its network nationally and is considering locations in Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec, Bibic said. Data sovereignty The project has been in the works for more than a year, according to Bibic, and wasn't in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs and annexation threats. But Bibic said recent events have shown the importance of "data sovereignty," which he described as a three-pronged concept: where data resides, who owns the infrastructure and who controls the technology being used. "If there are major geopolitical events that put any of that at risk, you know that we are secure in terms of the access of technology because everything's owned, controlled, managed by Canadians, for Canadians." Bell AI Fabric plans to serve research institutions, universities, start-ups and large enterprises. Its first partner, American AI company Groq (not to be confused with Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok), will make a home at the first data centre in Kamloops, where it will work with language processing unit chips. While Bell cut its shareholder dividends for the first time in 17 years earlier this month, Bibic said the reset would give Bell the flexibility to invest in AI technology solutions.
