Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta has by no means led her personal TV series or film in 35 years, not since Postmortem hit cabinets in 1990. Finally, the famed forensic crime author’s iconic protagonist has made her display screen debut, with Nicole Kidman and Rosy McEwen taking up the chief health worker in Scarpetta.
Written by Liz Sarnoff (Lost, Deadwood, Barry) and directed by David Gordon Green (the modern Halloween trilogy) and Charlotte Brändström (The Rings of Power), the Prime Video series leans on its ’90s and ’00s roots to indicate off Cornwell’s legacy in the forensic thriller style.
Like Mare of Easttown and to an extent True Detective, Scarpetta is a crime procedural that blends homicide investigation with difficult household drama, with this impeccable cast — Kidman, McEwen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Bobby Cannavale, Ariana DeBose, and Simon Baker — bringing out the very best in the latter. If you are a fan of forensic thrillers with familial feuds, dive into the Scarpetta recordsdata.
Scarpetta takes the forensic thriller again to ’90s and ’00s fundamentals.
Jake Cannavale as Peter Marino and Rosy McEwen as Dr. Kay Scarpetta.
Credit: Connie Chornuk / Prime
If Scarpetta feels prefer it hits the notes of many a trendy forensic crime thriller, simply bear in mind Patricia Cornwell modified the sport for the style in the ’90s and ’00s, making her mark amid contemporaries like Kathy Reichs and Jeffery Deaver. Without Cornwell’s early ’90s books like Postmortem or Body of Evidence, there is not any CSI, no Bones, no Cold Case, no Dexter. And Sarnoff is aware of it; her script has a younger Scarpetta immediately quoting from Postmortem in an early scene — “Out there, somewhere, is a man…” — and Cornwell herself makes a cameo in the first episode.
Revolving round Dr. Kay Scarpetta (Kidman/McEwen), the series bounces between three time durations — the ’70s, ’90s, and the current — charting moments from Scarpetta’s tragedy-marked childhood, by means of her first case as Virginia’s first feminine chief health worker, and her return to the job in the current. When homicide victims flip up bearing the identical hallmarks as Scarpetta’s massive career-defining case from 28 years in the past, the likelihood that she might need pinned the mistaken suspect turns into very actual.
Nicole Kidman as Scarpetta.
Credit: Connie Chornuk / Prime
In each Kidman and McEwen’s gifted palms, Scarpetta is a methodical, sensible, and sangfroid chainsmoker, extremely expert as chief health worker, scrutinising causes of demise and throwing the e-book at chauvinist colleagues. She’s not a hard-boiled detective who flies off the deal with and cuts corners — that is her charming however flamable associate Pete Marino (Cannavale Sr. in the current, Cannavale Jr. in the previous). Instead, she’s a by-the-book forensic pathologist urging her colleagues to put on sanitary gear and chorus from utilizing slurs. The comparisons between her and one other scrupulous ’90s investigator, The X-Files‘ Dana Scully, are usually not refined, from the fits and tees Kay dons to a literal collation of the 2’s similarities in episode 6.
When Scarpetta and Marino stroll by means of crime scenes, the series leans on the 2000s-style blue-toned flashback method favoured by exhibits like CSI and Cold Case, which might really feel a little dated. The similar goes for the series’ lack of actual background for half of the serial killers’ victims — we solely get to know small particulars about girls just lately murdered, the remaining relegated to mere Post-Its and images on a pink yarn wall, whereas the seek for the killer’s id is foregrounded. At one level Scarpetta insists, “We don’t know them,” when a lab technician suggests humanising the victims — though Scarpetta typically corrects sexist, victim-blaming language from her colleagues.
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Bobby Cannavale as Pete Marino and Nicole Kidman as Scarpetta.
Credit: Connie Chornuk / Prime
The series additionally leans barely into the psychological cat-and-mouse sport that outlined ’90s forensic fiction and the flurry of ’00s crime variations that got here with it: The Bone Collector, Kiss the Girls, Red Dragon. Fittingly, Scarpetta’s 1998 storyline feels probably the most aligned to this particular development, with the health worker discovering herself in more and more harmful waters.
Scarpetta additionally hits each notice in the style Alexis Nedd described for Mashable as “curmudgeonly detective solves a dead girl case while their personal/romantic life falls apart.” We’re speaking the near-constant presence of monumental glasses of wine, requisite pondering-in-the-shower scenes, and open disdain for the press (particularly Sosie Bacon’s Abby). The incontrovertible fact that Scarpetta does not go for early morning runs is among the few hallmarks of the subgenre lacking from her characterisation.
Being a Blumhouse manufacturing, the element in Scarpetta’s post-mortem scenes will be ugly, so squeamish viewers could need to look away. However, it is this degree of element that makes it the Patricia Cornwell adaptation it’s, with the writer’s inclusion of forensic element her signature stamp on the style.
Scarpetta‘s cast is criminally gifted.
Bobby Cannavale as Marino and Ariana DeBose as Lucy Farinelli-Watson.
Credit: Connie Chornuk / Prime
Brimming with top-tier expertise, the Scarpetta cast is the present’s sharpest weapon, led by Kidman in full, wonderful, intellectual-internalised-rage mode. The physicality shared between Kidman and her ’90s-era counterpart, performed by McEwen, is wildly convincing; the identical goes for the all the time compelling Cannavale as Pete Marino and his ’90s self, performed by the actor’s son, Jake Cannavale. And although this casting may be a little on the nepo child nostril, you’ll be able to’t argue it is not efficient, particularly when the Cannavales take full benefit of their lion’s share of one-liners like, “Looks like our very own Ted Bundy just bought himself a polygraph.”
While Bobby Cannavale virtually steals the highlight himself because the wise-cracking, deeply loyal Marino, he is battling with two fellow castmates for it: Jamie Lee Curtis and Ariana DeBose.
If there’s a scene with Curtis in it, pray for her scene companions. As Kay’s polar reverse, her rambunctious, flamboyant, and unfiltered sister Dorothy, Curtis is extremely enjoyable to look at, clad in sequins, leopard print, and dropping pink scorching dwelling truths. Though they each crave management, Kay’s disdainful composure clashes with Dorothy’s provocative combativeness. Honestly, get away the popcorn for Kidman and Curtis (who someway have by no means starred collectively in something?) arguing like solely sisters can, with Curtis’ Dorothy demanding consideration like a city crier and earnestly dropping dialogue like, “My own stallion-like spirit feels diminished by her.”
Jamie Lee Curtis as Dorothy Farinelli.
Credit: Connie Chornuk / Prime
DeBose, in the meantime, is excellent as Lucy, Dorothy’s tech-savvy daughter who mainly grew up parented by Kay. She’s mourning her late spouse (Janet Montgomery) by turning her into an AI companion. This gentle eye-roll of a plot machine would really feel like product placement for synthetic intelligence’s “good side” if DeBose wasn’t such a expertise, along with her efficiency (in addition to Curtis and Kidman’s) really making me consider this Black Mirror-style connection.
Like its protagonist, Scarpetta is not excellent, nevertheless it’s steeped in nostalgia and respect for the writer who drove forensic fiction by means of the hallmarks we now take with no consideration as commonplace. With a cast this sensible and a cliffhanger ending, Scarpetta‘s first season appears like the start of a series, Cornwell-style.
Scarpetta is streaming on Prime Video March 11.
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