Dept. Q season 2 release date and cast: Netflix films in Edinburgh until December — and one season 1 regular isn't coming back
Carl Morck is back on the case in Edinburgh right now — but the season's most charged relationship just became a casualty of the DC universe.
Netflix's gloomiest detective is in business again. Dept. Q season 2 has been filming in Edinburgh since the summer, on a long shoot running through mid-December — locals have already spotted the production in Canonmills — with Matthew Goode back as DCI Carl Morck, the rudest brilliant man in Scottish policing. The new case reaches upward: a terrible crime buried in the highest echelons of Scottish society, which executive producer Rob Bullock frames as a season about
"rich and powerful people who believe they are above the law."
The empty chair
The returning roster is nearly intact — Alexej Manvelov's Akram, Leah Byrne's Rose, Jamie Sives, Mark Bonnar, Kate Dickie — with one conspicuous absence: Kelly Macdonald is out. Her Dr. Rachel Irving, the police therapist whose sessions with Carl carried half the first season's electricity, falls victim to the most 2026 scheduling conflict available — Macdonald is off filming HBO's Green Lantern series Lanterns, and the two shoots couldn't be reconciled. Creator Scott Frank put it plainly:
"She's making another show. She's doing Lanterns, so our show and their show couldn't make it work."
He's leaving the door ajar for season 3 — "she may come back, we never know" — which is cold comfort for everyone invested in the Carl-and-his-therapist tension, but at least it's a calendar loss, not a creative one.
Who's filling the gap
The new-faces list is deep enough to suggest a sprawling case:
- Amy Brenneman and Greg Wise, the season's biggest imports
- Aisling Franciosi (The Fall), who does haunted better than almost anyone working
- Tony Curran, Alex Ferns, Nicholas Rowe, Rebecca Root, Isla Johnston, Hamish Clark, and Ross Anderson as Ricky Daddario — a heavily Scottish bench for a heavily Scottish crime
As for when you'll see it: Netflix hasn't dated it, and the calendar is unsentimental. Season 1 premiered in May 2025 and spent six weeks in the Global Top 10, earning the renewal; with filming wrapping in December and Scott Frank's post-production to follow, the realistic window is well into 2027. Nine Jussi Adler-Olsen novels exist to be adapted. The basement office, presumably, isn't going anywhere.
Previously we wrote: Harry Potter HBO series season 2 cast: Wormtail's son is Arthur Weasley — and Moaning Myrtle isn't 36 this time
