Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta has never led her own TV series or movie in 35 years, not since Postmortem hit shelves in 1990. Finally, the famed forensic crime writer’s iconic protagonist has made her screen debut, with Nicole Kidman and Rosy McEwen taking on the chief medical examiner 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 show off Cornwell’s legacy in the forensic thriller genre.
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Like Mare of Easttown and to an extent True Detective, Scarpetta is a crime procedural that blends murder investigation with complicated family drama, with this impeccable cast — Kidman, McEwen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Bobby Cannavale, Ariana DeBose, Simon Baker — bringing out the best in the latter. If you’re a fan of forensic thrillers with familial feuds, dive into the Scarpetta files.
Scarpetta takes the forensic thriller back to ’90s and ’00s basics
Jake Cannavale as Peter Marino, Rosy McEwen as Dr. Kay Scarpetta.
Credit: Connie Chornuk / Prime
If Scarpetta feels like it hits the notes of many a modern forensic crime thriller, just remember Patricia Cornwell changed the game for the genre 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’s no CSI, no Bones, no Cold Case, no Dexter. And Sarnoff knows it; her script has a young Scarpetta directly quoting from Postmortem in an early scene — “Out there, somewhere, is a man…” — and Cornwell herself makes a cameo in the first episode.
Revolving around Dr. Kay Scarpetta (Kidman/McEwen), the series bounces between three time periods — the ’70s, ’90s, and the present — charting moments from Scarpetta’s tragedy-marked childhood, through her first case as Virginia’s first female chief medical examiner, and her return to the job in the present. When murder victims turn up bearing the same hallmarks as Scarpetta’s big career-defining case from 28 years ago, the possibility that she might have pinned the wrong suspect becomes very real.
Nicole Kidman as Scarpetta.
Credit: Connie Chornuk / Prime
In both Kidman and McEwen’s talented hands, Scarpetta is a methodical, smart, and sangfroid chainsmoker, highly skilled as chief medical examiner, scrutinising causes of death and throwing the book at chauvinist colleagues. She’s not a hard boiled detective who flies off the handle and cuts corners — that’s her charming but combustible partner Pete Marino (Cannavale Sr. in the present, Cannavale Jr. in the past). Instead, she’s a by-the-book forensic pathologist urging her colleagues to wear sanitary equipment and refrain from using slurs. The comparisons between her and another scrupulous ’90s investigator, The X-Files‘ Dana Scully, are not subtle, from the suits and tees Kay dons to a literal collation of the two’s similarities in episode 6.
When Scarpetta and Marino walk through crime scenes, the series leans on the 2000s blue-toned flashback technique favoured by shows like CSI and Cold Case, which can feel a little dated. The same goes for the series’ lack of real background for half of the serial killers’ victims — we only get to know small details about women recently murdered, the rest relegated to mere Post-Its and photos on a red yarn wall, while the search for the killer’s identity is foregrounded. At one point Scarpetta even insists “we don’t know them” when a lab technician indicates humanising the victims, however she often 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 also leans slightly into the psychological cat-and-mouse game that defined ’90s forensic fiction and the flurry of ’00s crime adaptations that came with it: The Bone Collector, Kiss the Girls, Red Dragon. Fittingly, Scarpetta’s 1998 storyline feels the most aligned to this specific trend, with the medical examiner finding herself in increasingly dangerous waters.
Scarpetta also hits every note in the genre Alexis Nedd described for Mashable as “curmudgeonly detective solves a dead girl case while their personal/romantic life falls apart”. We’re talking the near-constant presence of enormous glasses of wine, requisite pondering-in-the-shower scenes, and open disdain for the press (especially Sosie Bacon’s Abby). The fact that Scarpetta doesn’t go for early morning runs is one of the few hallmarks of the subgenre missing from her characterisation.
Being a Blumhouse production, the detail in Scarpetta’s autopsy scenes can be gruesome, so squeamish viewers may want to look away. However, it’s this level of detail that makes it the Patricia Cornwell adaptation it is, with the author’s inclusion of forensic detail her signature stamp on the genre.
Scarpetta‘s cast is criminally talented
Bobby Cannavale as Marino and Ariana DeBose as Lucy Scarpetta.
Credit: Connie Chornuk / Prime
Brimming with top tier talent, the Scarpetta cast is the show’s sharpest weapon, led by Kidman in full, glorious, intellectual-internalised-rage mode. The physicality shared between Kidman and her ’90s era counterpart, played by McEwen, is wildly convincing; the same goes for the always compelling Cannavale as Pete Marino and his ’90s self, played by the actor’s son, Jake Cannavale. And though this casting might be a little on the nepo baby nose, you can’t argue it’s not effective, especially when the Cannavales take full advantage of their lion’s share of one-liners like, “Looks like our very own Ted Bundy just bought himself a polygraph.”
While Bobby Cannavale almost steals the spotlight himself as the wise-cracking, deeply loyal Marino, he’s 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 partners. As Kay’s polar opposite, her rambunctious, flamboyant, and unfiltered sister Dorothy, Curtis is incredibly fun to watch, clad in sequins, leopard print, and dropping red hot home truths. Though they both crave control, Kay’s disdainful composure clashes with Dorothy’s provocative combativeness. Honestly, break out the popcorn for Kidman and Curtis (who somehow have never starred together in anything?) arguing like only sisters can, with Curtis’ Dorothy demanding attention like a town crier and earnestly dropping dialogue like, “My own stallion-like spirit feels diminished by her.”
Jamie Lee Curtis as Dorothy Scarpetta.
Credit: Connie Chornuk / Prime
DeBose, meanwhile, is superb as Lucy, Dorothy’s tech savvy daughter who basically grew up parented by Kay. She’s mourning her late wife (Janet Montgomery) by turning her into an AI companion. This light eyeroll of a plot device would feel like product placement for artificial intelligence’s “good side” if DeBose wasn’t such a talent, with her performance (as well as Curtis and Kidman’s) actually making me believe this Black Mirror-style connection.
Like its protagonist, Scarpetta isn’t perfect, but it’s steeped in nostalgia and respect for the author who drove forensic fiction through the hallmarks we now take for granted as commonplace. With a cast this brilliant and a cliffhanger ending, Scarpetta’s first season feels like the beginning of a series, Cornwell-style.
Scarpetta is streaming on Prime Video March 11.
