Dept. Q episode 7 recap: learning more about Sam and an escape plan gone wrong

Dept. Q is Netflix crime drama following detective Carl Morck (Matthew Goode) as he deals with the guilt of a shooting that left his partner paralysed and a younger officer dead.

As Carl returns to work, he's instructed to launch Department Q, a new arm of the police tasked with reopening cold cases. His first case, a missing prosecutor called Merritt Lingard, which threatens to throw his entire world into turmoil.

Here's a recap of everything that happened in Dept. Q episode 7.

The episode begins with Akram and Carl arriving at the Crown Office, looking for Stephen. Carl tells Stephen about Sam Haig, but Stephen says they were never introduced. Carl reveals that Merritt and Sam were working on some sort of corruption that related to Graham Finch and Kirsty Atkins. Stephen asks who Kirsty Atkins is and Carl reminds him that Stephen wouldn’t let her testify in the case. He says he doesn’t recall and they should ask Liam. Carl says they have and he said to ask Stephen.

Carl explains Kirsty was going to testify about meeting Finch’s wife at a women’s refuge and that Merritt thought she was credible, but Stephen didn’t. He then tells Stephen that Kirsty was attacked after someone found out that she was talking to Merritt. He says he has no recollection. Carl then says that for all this to have happened, Finch must’ve had people on the inside. Carl says he believes Kirsty and Stephen questions why he’d trust a prolific drug offender. He scoffs and says he’d never help someone like Finch.

Stephen asks after the journalist and Carl tells him that Sam died from a bad fall, the day before Merritt disappeared. Mockingly, Stephen says he’s owned by Graham Finch. Then, Akram mentions the threat of Julia being run off the road. He then asks Stephen how he knows Kirsty is a drug offender. Stephen says that Carl said so. Akram corrects him and that Carl only said a prolific offender, not mentioning drugs. He says that if they want to prove anything, they need to ask the person who can, but she's dead. Akram says they’re not sure Merritt is dead.

In the chamber, Merritt cleans all the names off the walls. The only word remaining is “Friends? You don’t have many”. It cuts to a young Merritt talking to Harry. They joke about how Merritt is scary, but he feels he can tell her almost anything. Harry’s brother, Lyle, comes in and says their mum wants him home. He stares at Merritt. Harry notices that William and Jamie are home.

Jamie jokingly asks Lyle if he’s there to burn their house down. Merritt stops him. Lyle says he’s just there to pick up Harry and they leave. Then, Jamie asks Merritt what he said about having Harry over when he’s not there. She says they love each other. Back in the chamber, Merritt hallucinates that her dad is there and looks back to the words on the wall, she’s scribbled out ‘m’, so it says “Friends? You don’t have any”.

Carl and Akram head to a golf club to meet with Graham Finch. He’s with Robert McDonald, his advocate from the trial. Carl says he’s there to speak to Finch about hiring a man to slime all over a 17-year-old boy and Finch says Fritz was supposed to slime up Carl. Carl says that Finch can’t be tried again for the death of his wife, but he can get him for the failed murder attempt on Kirsty Atkins. Finch asks him if he has proof. Carl says he’s got Ed Solomon and texts and voicemails from Finch, including him asking someone called Gabby for the hit on Kirsty. He asks Finch how he knew about Kirsty in the first place and asks if it was Stephen, after one of Finch’s men drove Stephen’s daughter off the road.

Carl swings one of Robert’s golf clubs out the window and tells him to go and get it. Finch dismisses Robert and says he won’t admit to anything while he’s gone. Carl asks Finch if he had anything to do with Merritt’s disappearance. He laughs and says he wouldn’t do that after he’d been acquitted. Carl tells him Merritt and Sam were looking into corruption in the Crown Office before Sam was killed and Merritt disappeared.

Robert comes back in as Carl is telling Finch that Sam was at his trial. Robert says he knew that Sam was there because he was the person who told him about Kirsty Atkins getting ready to testify at trial. He said he told Finch about Kirsty, but also told him that he felt they were going to win regardless. Finch says he wouldn’t have gone after a reporter that was looking at him, just like he wouldn’t go after a cop.

In the car afterwards, Carl wants to know what Akram was doing back in Syria. He’s interrupted by a phone call from Dennis Piper at The Scottish Telegraph. Dennis tells him someone’s messing with Carl. He says he’s going to send him something and if he wants to meet after he’s watched it, Dennis will be waiting. A video comes through. At the chamber, the hatch opens with Merritt’s food, but as she bites into an apple, her tooth falls out. She knocks on the window and tells them she needs antibiotics for an infection. In the hatch, she’s given a set of pliers.

Back with Carl and Akram, they watch the video Dennis has sent over. It’s an interview with a young man saying he’s being followed and watched wherever he goes. The interviewer tells the young man, who he addresses as Sam, that he messed up the other lad badly and he might lose his eye. He says that he’s not this lad's brother and he had to get it into his head somehow. The interviewer, Terry Dundee, a corrections councillor at Godhaven, concludes the interview with Sam Haig, age 17.

Carl and Akram go to meet Dennis at the pub. He says he knew Sam quite well and he knew he was like the people he talked to, someone who crossed the line. He says he hacked into Sam’s computer after he died and found the video. He thinks someone at Godhaven gave it to him and that Sam had been visiting the place a few months before his death, working on a story. Sam had found the boy he’d beaten that they were discussing in the video. Dennis said Sam called him ‘X’ to protect him. Dennis tells them they need to talk to Terry Dundee themselves.

In the chamber, Merritt pulls the rest of her bad tooth out with the pliers. The older woman is watching. As she lays on the floor, Merritt remembers being a little girl and her mum coming in to get her lost tooth from under the pillow. She left her necklace in exchange. As she sat up in bed, she watched her mum leave.

Back at home, Jasper wants to talk to Carl about the fight earlier. Carl says he has to be two people in his line of work. He says there’s two worlds and, unfortunately, the man at the shop showed Jasper what it’s like to be scared. He says to cope with it now, he has to find other people who know about this other world and talk to them. Jasper says like Carl and Hardy do with each other. Carl says yes, but also now Jasper can talk to him. He says they can start by talking about the shooting and what happened with his mum.

The next day, Rose goes to see Hardy who is now at home. She shows him Sam Haig’s file. She mentions the guy who found Sam, Paul Evans, from the climbing centre, said he was with his wife the night before and then found Sam’s body in the morning when he went to take photos for the website. Rose notes that it was pouring with rain that day, though. She says he also sent a lot of messages to Sam’s burner phone the night before saying there is no more secrets and suggesting Sam gets everything out into the open. As well as “This is not about my wife,” and “I want you to know that I see you” as well as asking about the hotel and whether “she” was still there. Sam hadn’t replied until the last message that said he was going for a climb.

Rose and Hardy comment that Sam and Paul’s relationship is full of holes. Hardy says Rose should go back and question Paul again, especially if she feels like he might know something about Merritt. He says she needs to go and get him to tell her what’s really going on and find out what he’s hiding. First, they need to figure out how to mess with him to get him to admit anything.

In the chamber, the older woman takes a stairlift down to deliver Merritt’s meal. She’s in a wheelchair and when she puts the food in the hatch, the hatch is malfunctioning again. The woman complains that the boy should’ve fixed it. When Merritt shuts the hatch, she notices the pipes and gauges on the wall. She reaches under her mattress and pulls out the pliers.

Carl shows up at Rachel’s home and says he’s there for his appointment. He tells her he’s met Dr. Sonnenberg and he’s giving up on therapy. She says he never tried. He tells her that Martin suggested he pay attention to his dreams instead, but that he doesn’t have any because he doesn’t sleep. Rachel asks why Carl came to see her. He says he doesn’t know and she says to come back when he’s figured it out.

Rose is waiting at the climbing centre and watches as Paul's wife, Chloe, leaves. She heads inside and tells Paul she’s looking for Chloe. He tells her she just missed her. Rose says they had an appointment as a follow-up for a conversation they had the other day, but she won’t tell Paul what it was about.

She looks him up and down judgmentally and hands over her card to tell him to tell Chloe to call her. Then, she heads out to the crag where Sam fell. Paul follows her out there. He asks if Chloe told her. And she says about what? Rose pulls out a pepper spray as Paul tries to step closer.

Then, she asks Paul about Sam Haig. He says that Chloe did tell Rose about them then. She says she didn’t, but he just did. He says he’s not gay and they didn’t do anything sexually. Instead, Sam trusted him because that’s the kind of relationship you form as climbers together. Sam would tell him anything.

Rose says that he must’ve known about Merritt then, but Paul says Sam never mentioned her. Rose asks about the texts and Paul says they’d been drinking that night and Sam was talking about his latest piece that he thought was going to change his life. This led Chloe to tell Sam that he needed to make some big changes otherwise he was going to die and take Paul with him. They argued and Sam left.

When Rose asks about the other texts asking if he was at a hotel with a woman, Paul says it was The Spivey Inn up the road, not the hotel with Merritt. The woman he was talking about was Chloe as Paul sent her over to apologise. Rose asked if Chloe apologised and Paul said in a manner of speaking.

When pressed, he explains they’d all been drinking, insinuating Chloe and Sam slept together. Paul insists it was a one-time thing and that’s why he didn’t tell the police. He adds that he didn’t kill Sam and when Rose questions him, he says he didn’t know Chloe slept with him until after Sam had died. But, if Rose wants to talk to him or Chloe again, she needs to go through their lawyer.

In the chamber, the older woman wheels up to the hatch and tells Merritt it’s rubbish day. She pushes in Merritt’s food and Merritt collects her rubbish into a bin bag, sneaking the pliers into her waistband. When Merritt closes the hatch her side, she starts stabbing at the control box on the side of the hatch.

The older woman notices the lights flashing, but it’s the same as when the hatch was malfunctioning before. When she opens it though, it blasts pressure at her, knocking her backwards and smashing her face. The hatch remains open and Merritt crawls through, escaping. She’s weak, but she manages to crawl across the floor to where she sees the woman’s phone. She calls the police and while they pick up, she can’t reply as the man stomps on her arm and kicks her in the face.

All episodes of Dept. Q are available to stream on Netflix.