Apple TV's 10/10 Crime Thriller Is a Perfect Binge Before It Returns Next Month

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Published Mar 16, 2026, 7:10 PM EDT

Thomas Butt is a senior writer. An avid film connoisseur, Thomas actively logs his film consumption on Letterboxd and vows to connect with many more cinephiles through the platform. He is immensely passionate about the work of Martin Scorsese, John Ford, and Albert Brooks. His work can be read on Collider and Taste of Cinema. He also writes for his own blog, The Empty Theater, on Substack. He is also a big fan of courtroom dramas and DVD commentary tracks. For Thomas, movie theaters are a second home. A native of Wakefield, MA, he is often found scrolling through the scheduled programming on Turner Classic Movies and making more room for his physical media collection. Thomas habitually increases his watchlist and jumps down a YouTube rabbit hole of archived interviews with directors and actors. He is inspired to write about film to uphold the medium's artistic value and to express his undying love for the art form. Thomas looks to cinema as an outlet to better understand the world, human emotions, and himself.

Seemingly overnight, Apple TV has transformed from a last-minute entry in the 2020s streaming wars to a television juggernaut vying for Emmys and cultural impact at every turn, from hits and critical darlings like Ted Lasso and The Studio to Severance and Pluribus. With such a deep lineup of prestige comedies and sci-fi hits in its catalog, it's easy for exceptional shows like Criminal Record, which returns for its second season on April 22, to slip through the cracks.

Apple TV's 'Criminal Record' Is a Whodunit That Tackles Racism in Great Britain

Criminal Record, created by Paul Rutman, stars Peter Capaldi and Cush Jumbo (who both served as executive producers) as two shrewd detectives — the seasoned Daniel Hegarty (Capaldi) and the young wunderkind, June Lenker (Jumbo) — investigating an old murder case after receiving an anonymous phone call that reconsiders the 24-year prison sentence of Errol Mathis (Tom Moutchi). Errol was convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend in a case that the venerated Hegarty presided over. The plucky June follows the crumbs of this phone call, leading back to Hegarty, and what follows is a whodunit mystery series revolving around the relentless feuding between the two detectives.

June, a Black female detective working in a white-male-dominated work force, has an uphill battle in front of her to prove Errol's innocence, a thorny task considering the history of criminal justice's disproportionate incarceration of Black people. This element separates Criminal Record from its fellow murder mysteries and procedurals, as the search for the true killer is secondary to the macro implications regarding Great Britain's complicated history with racial bias and discrimination.

The tension between June and Hegarty is predicated on the marginalization and flagrant disrespect the former receives from the latter. When June begins to mount a re-investigation, Hegarty tries to ostracize and dismantle her credibility among her already skeptical colleagues. Played superbly by Cush Jumbo, June is a satisfying heroic underdog, aided by a performance filled with a no-nonsense demeanor and commendable defiance. Despite all the microaggressions thrown at her, she knows that her calling demands her to stay strong and undermine the harshest forms of injustice in the law.

'Criminal Record' Features Electric Chemistry Between Peter Capaldi and Cush Jumbo

Peter Capaldi, best known as the 12th Doctor of the Doctor Who series and pitch-black comedic actor from The Thick of It and In the Loop, delivers a revelatory performance that integrates his innate skills and redefines his image altogether. The unbridled rage and sheer contempt of others that amounts to delicious black comedy in most of his projects resonates with a sense of terror in Criminal Record. However, the show doesn't broadly characterize him as a satanic figure, as gradual revelations about his troubled personal life reveal that he overcompensates for the void of his emotionality with a toxic candor. Without condoning his actions and beliefs, Hegarty represents a cautionary tale about the perils of prejudice and bias, and he is an honest reflection of the banality of racism. The care for internal character growth in the writing feeds into the electric chemistry between Capaldi and Jumbo, who play off each other spontaneously, and they seemingly know each other as well as they know themselves.

John Reardon on the phone looking tense in Hudson & Rex

Depictions of police officers and criminal justice have been a mainstay on television for decades, but any sense of cop glorification and blind faith in their process doesn't sit right with many contemporary audiences. Criminal Record reckons with the social politics of the police today, and it trusts that the viewer can scrutinize their practices without overt handwringing or finger pointing. The series underlines the institutional corruption lying at the heart of the British police, creating an accessible David vs. Goliath arc regarding June and her fellow officers.

Luckily, for those who missed out on Criminal Record in 2024, there is no better dramatic series to binge before its second season gets underway this April. The untangling of the mystery and various character dynamics that will escalate the pressure between two polarized detectives will keep you on your toes throughout. Reinventing a tried and true genre of television is tricky, but this unheralded series proves that there's always something new to reflect on.

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