A Crew Member’s Death Casts a Shadow Over Netflix’s ‘Dept. Q’ Season 2 Wrap

Every production wrap carries a particular kind of relief. Cameras stop, the sets come down, and a long shoot becomes a story that now belongs to the editors. For the people building a show like ‘Dept. Q’, that closing stretch is usually when the real exhaling begins.

Filming on ‘Dept. Q’ Season 2 wrapped on October 24, 2026, closing out a shoot that took the Netflix hit well beyond Edinburgh. The series has spent roughly four months filming its second season in Scotland. By most accounts, the mood around the Edinburgh-based crime drama should have been celebratory.

Instead, Variety is reporting that a crew member working on the Netflix series has died on set in Edinburgh after filming wrapped. The man has not been named, and specific details about the incident have yet to be reported. According to the trade outlet, the death took place after cameras stopped rolling, which means it could have happened during the dismantling of sets.

Other outlets have begun filling in the picture. Emergency crews were called to reports of an incident at FirstStage in Leith. The detective drama was filming its second series in Edinburgh, but filming has been halted after the unexpected death. A separate local report says police are investigating the death of a man at the Edinburgh film studios behind ‘Dept. Q’.

The man was seriously injured at a film studio in Edinburgh and died on Thursday. The production company behind the series, Left Bank Pictures, said it is “deeply shocked and saddened by the tragic death.” At the time of the initial reporting, Netflix and Left Bank Pictures had not answered requests for comment from The Scotsman.

The loss lands heavily for a production that had positioned itself as a homegrown success story. The hit show spent six weeks on Netflix’s global top 10 list after its first season premiered on Netflix in May 2025. A second season quickly followed, with the streamer confirming the renewal and Matthew Goode set to return.

The series is an adaptation of Jussi Adler-Olsen’s novels and is written and directed by Scott Frank and produced by Left Bank Pictures for Netflix. Goode stars as DCI Carl Morck. The show’s Edinburgh roots have been a selling point from the start, which makes a tragedy at a local studio feel especially close to home.

Season 2 was also billed as a bigger swing. Executive producer Rob Bullock said this season’s team tackles a terrible crime hidden in the highest echelons of Scottish society. Screen Scotland, Sony, Netflix and Left Bank Pictures also funded training for 60 young people, according to the BBC, a reminder of how many people pass through a production like this one.

For now, the human cost overshadows everything else. No cause has been confirmed, and until authorities or the production say more, much of the story remains unknown. Variety’s report notes that the circumstances are still unclear, and that restraint is worth keeping in mind as updates come in.

The business questions will come later. Netflix hasn’t announced a release date, and the expectation is for Season 2 in the second half of 2027. Whether this tragedy affects any part of that timeline has not been addressed publicly, and it is hardly the most pressing question.

What fans and the industry are left with is a sobering reminder that the work behind a polished crime drama is physical, demanding and not without risk. As more information emerges from the police investigation and from the production itself, the focus remains on the family, friends and colleagues of the crew member who died.