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.
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It has previously told local media it is acting within the law and makes efforts to keep people informed. It projects the mine will produce enough lithium for half a million EV batteries a year and describes itself as 'enabling Europe's energy transition'. But the continent-wide resistance to lithium mining reveals a snag that green groups and mining companies alike have been reluctant to acknowledge. While surveys find vast public support for stronger climate action – as much as 80-89%, according to a project by the Guardian and newsrooms around the world – the infrastructure for a carbon-free economy carries trade-offs that affected communities are often reluctant to bear. Some residents of Covas, which is itself threatened by wildfires and droughts, say they recognise the tension, even if they consider the costs too great. 'Every village faced with a mine will say 'no, no, no', I get that,' said Jorge Esteves, a forestry worker. 'But what's different here is the proximity to our homes.' Sign up to This is Europe The most pressing stories and debates for Europeans – from identity to economics to the environment after newsletter promotion Gomes, the cafe owner, said he would also have fought an oilwell if someone had tried to drill one in Covas. 'I don't agree with that either, though I have a car – but that's already happening,' he said. 'We do need to find a solution, but what we are doing now is not a solution.' Studies have shown that a societal shift away from private cars – such as creating walkable cities with good public transport – would greatly limit the rise in demand for lithium, as would halting the surge in SUVs that need big batteries. Analysts note there are also significant quantities of lithium in electronic waste such as phones and laptops that do not get recycled. 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