March 11, 2026 — 2:35pm
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Scarpetta ★★★
Nicole Kidman has made working with female directors and showrunners a priority over the past decade or so, and she also has a long history of pushing female-forward stories on screen. She has been so prolific – she has another five projects due on screen in the next year or so – that not everything will be a winner.
Kay Scarpetta (Nicole Kidman) and Dorothy Farinelli (Jamie Lee Curtis) in Scarpetta.
Scarpetta, adapted from Patricia Cornwell’s bestselling book series and created by Liz Sarnoff, I’m sorry to say, is not a winner. It is mid-TV, the kind that gives the impression of being prestige – big-name cast, well-known source material, a deep-pocketed streaming service – but leaves you feeling, well, meh. You watch it, you move on. It doesn’t stick.
Kidman plays Virginia’s chief medical officer, Kay Scarpetta. She’s in her 50s, a seasoned forensic pathologist who built her name and reputation on a serial killer case 28 years ago. She was pushed out of the job for reasons that aren’t immediately clear, but now she’s back in town just as the serial killer appears to have re-emerged.
As such, the eight epsiodes are split over two timelines, with Rosy McEwen as the younger, sassy Kay, who wears snazzy checked suits to work, smokes in her car and has eyes on a young FBI profiler, Wesley Benton (Hunter Parrish), who has joined the case.
Nicole Kidman as chief medical examiner Kay Scarpetta.
Fast-forward to the present day, and it’s Kidman smoking in her car (surely, as someone who carves up bodies for living, Kay would have quit by now!), then snapping on the gloves as she heads to a crime scene where a woman (it’s always a woman!) has been found dead next to railway tracks. The murder has all the hallmarks of the previous killer Kay caught, so could she possibly have made a mistake?
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Oh, and that young FBI agent? In the present-day timeline he’s now her husband, played by Simon Baker, who is also working on the same case. The pair have been living in Boston (doing what? It’s not really explained) and have returned to Virginia, where they move back into Wesley’s old family mansion, which is currently home to Kay’s older sister Dot Farinelli (Jamie Lee Curtis), a successful children’s author, and her husband – and Kay’s old work partner – Pete Marino (Bobby Cannavale, whose son Jake appears as young Pete).
Also living on the property is Dot’s daughter, Lucy (Ariana DeBose), who is coping with the death of her wife by talking to a computer-generated version of her every day (it’s wacky, again it’s not explained, so best to just go with it).
The family dynamic is pretty dysfunctional: Lucy, who is some type of computer ace who made a lot of money as a teenager, doesn’t really talk to her mum, Dot; Kay and Dot argue in the kitchen; Wesley spends his time at home quietly disappearing from every room; while Pete, Lucy and Kay eventually get some kind of work buddy thing happening.
They are all clearly a mess, and it’s as if the writers watched The Bear’s “Fishes” episode – the one in the second season where Curtis’ character Donna, Carmy’s mum, crashes the car into the living room – and thought, “Let’s re-create that!” Curtis, certainly, seems to be hanging onto Donna, as she’s all fingernails and frantic energy, while Kidman is so controlled that it’s hard to tell when she’s angry, upset or feeling any emotion at all.
Her Scarpetta is clearly happier at work than she is at home, driven over the passing decades to prove herself. Kidman has dropped her voice a note or two to give it gravitas, while Kay works with purpose in the autopsy room. Why Kidman would want to add this to her resume is not clear. Yes, Kay Scarpetta is a powerful woman working in a man’s world, but Kidman seems almost bored.
Scarpetta doesn’t have the sexual rush of her 2024 film Babygirl, and it isn’t as delightfully unhinged as her recent Netflix series The Perfect Couple. Sure, the crime stuff is fine and the cast – on paper – is cracking, but it doesn’t quite click. Cannavale holds it together the best, while McEwen, as young Kay, is also terrific.
Young Kay (Rosy McEwen) and young Marino (Jake Cannavale) in Scarpetta.
There are 29 books in Cornwell’s series, so there’s obviously something about Kay that clicks with readers (and publishers), but whatever it is, it isn’t quite working on screen.
Scarpetta is streaming on Amazon Prime Video from March 11.
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Louise Rugendyke is the National TV editor and a senior culture writer for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X or email.From our partners