The Big Picture

Criminal Record explores issues of race and institutional failure in the justice system. The series features standout performances from Cush Jumbo and Peter Capaldi. The show leaves a lasting impact by refusing to provide easy answers and highlighting the flaws in the justice system.

Where there is crime, there must be punishment, right? It seems like such an easy equation, one that’s sewn into the fabric of society, that we’re taught from birth. But in reality, nothing is ever that simple — especially when it comes to justice, and very especially when those searching for it aren’t white. That’s the idea at the center of Apple TV+’s Criminal Record, a new series starring Cush Jumbo as the headstrong detective sergeant June Lenker.

When an emergency services call claims a man has been falsely imprisoned for the murder of his girlfriend, June finds herself face to face with DCI Daniel Hagerty (Peter Capaldi), whose every move seems aimed at keeping her away from the case, and away from his carefully constructed professional legacy. June, however, is determined to discover the truth, no matter how many paths she must take, and how many people she has to expose in the process.

From the get-go, Criminal Record doesn’t care whether it’s easy to stomach. It’s not a show that’s interested in spoonfeeding you information or setting out clues in neat little scenes that make it easy to guess where the story’s headed. It certainly won’t be everyone’s cup of tea — it’s slow going, for the most part, the information trickling out in difficult-to-read patterns the same way it does in real life. This isn’t your mum’s cozy murder mystery. It’s the opposite, aiming to incite more strong emotions than any Poirot story ever could, occasionally leaving you far more confused and heartbroken than when you started.

Criminal Record Follows two brilliant detectives in a tug of war over a historic murder conviction, dealing with issues of race, institutional failure, and the quest to find common ground in a polarized Britain. Release Date January 10, 2024 Creator Paul Rutman Cast Peter Capaldi , Cush Jumbo , Shaun Dooley , Charlie Creed-Miles , Aysha Kala Main Genre Crime Seasons 1

‘Criminal Record’s Greatest Strength Is Its Stars

Part of that, of course, is thanks to its leads. It’s no surprise that Capaldi could lead something of this caliber — despite not having led a series since he departed Doctor Who — or that he could summon the kind of eerie presence needed for someone like DCI Hagerty, given his stint in last year’s excellent series The Devil’s Hour. His screen presence is magnetic, a force to be reckoned with even for the most qualified of scene partners, and it makes you want to root for him whether you should or not, whether he’s your Doctor or you simply recognize him from that one Lewis Capaldi video. It’s engrossing to watch him skulk around behind Jumbo’s back, as a man fervently trying to keep his reputation intact despite its edges having already begun to fray, with a conviction so strong it barrels down anything in its way.

There are notes of Malcolm Tucker in his public-facing persona, but Hagerty is so much more sinister than the role that made Capaldi famous, the kind of figure that makes you feel unsafe just watching him, let alone being caught under that kind of gaze. It’s an odd turn seeing Capaldi play a good old boy, at least after several years of appearing in projects like Paddington and The Suicide Squad, but he sells it in a way that makes your skin crawl. He’s always there, like some kind of specter, his predatory actions almost treated as background noise despite June’s every effort to prove otherwise, baked into the corrupt system that lets him get away with it. His gambit is nonstop mind games, and Capaldi’s, concurrently, is the kind of presence that makes them possible. He ensures the gaslighting feels all the more real and horrifying.

But that’s not as surprising as the quieter moments when the curtain’s peeled back to reveal Hagerty’s inner life. He’s not the kind you’d ever expect to be gentle, but it’s performed with the same inhuman grace and intensity as every other part of him. Capaldi is one hundred percent committed to this character, as Hagerty is to every aspect of his life, good or bad. He is not simply all good or all evil — no one is, as the series tries to prove — but everything in his life, his career, and his world, is treated with the same amount of effort and emotion. At times, it comes off as a lack of empathy, but each new layer makes it harder to decide who’s in the right, and whether it’s okay to fudge the truth in pursuit of the greater good.

Cush Jumbo Gives a Career-Best Performance as June Lenker
Image via Apple TV+

It’s Jumbo, however, who runs away with the whole damn thing. She matches Capaldi note for note, never struggling for a second to keep up with him. The two of them together are firing on all cylinders, a back-and-forth better than any Wimbledon final, and it’s no wonder Jumbo was chosen to play Lady Macbeth at Donmar Warehouse opposite David Tennant. June is as intense as Hagerty, the other side of a deeply complex coin with neither going easy on the other. She is ceaseless in her determination, and it lends itself to more than a bit of worry on the audience’s part as she finds herself spinning out, unable to trust even those closest to her as the world around her repeatedly tells her to shut up, sit down, and play nice.

Never for an instant is Jumbo’s performance boring, even from the moment we meet her. Like Hagerty, she latches onto problems and refuses to let go, and it’s that consistency and intensity that keeps you hooked. Her pent-up rage and frustration at a system whose corruption and degradation goes bone-deep is entrancing to watch, whether she’s able to keep a lid on it or lets it all explode, concerned about real justice more than her own reputation — the one point where she is so utterly unlike Hagerty, down to the very end.

‘Criminal Record’ Explores a Very Real, Very Corrupt System
Image via Apple TV+

Real justice, though, is hard to come by. It’s no secret that Criminal Record is as much about the very real, very flawed system of justice that Black men and women experience every day as it is about one fictional crime in particular. It takes pains to explore why crimes go unpunished — or worse, see the wrong people punished — and why racism, whether in the justice system or without, gets away with itself, exposing a system so complexly broken that people are afraid to say or do anything, lest they become victims of it themselves.

Whether it’s pieces of the emergency caller case or June’s son being falsely accused of selling drugs, certain layers of the story don’t quite mesh, slotted together with pieces missing, but even that plays into the insidious nature of the whole thing — the idea that all the details might never come to light, that even a closed case might have taken shortcuts, and the rest of the answers might still be out there somewhere. Justice is ultimately bittersweet when it rarely arrives in Criminal Record, coming from a system that, despite the odd happy ending, will remain defective, so long as it consistently silences Black voices – calling them crazy, calling them violent, refusing to give them their say before it’s too late, for them and everyone else.

In that regard, it’s difficult to call it a satisfying series then. It leaves a film on your skin, despite (and perhaps because of) its excellent set of performers. Writer Paul Rutman — who’s got his roots in some of the cozy mysteries Criminal Record is the antithesis of — cuts no corners and pulls no punches with his work. His writing sticks with you far beyond the confines of the show’s eight episodes, forcing you to reevaluate the way our own world works. Answers are never given freely, not even in the finale, and it’s that lack of complete closure that earns the show its laurels for me, leaving a nagging feeling that makes it impossible to forget.

Rating: 9/10

Criminal Record premieres on Apple TV+ in the U.S. on January 10.

WATCH ON APPLE TV+