@joelkeller Published March 11, 2026, 4:00 p.m. ET Where to Stream: Scarpetta Powered by Reelgood More On: Nicole Kidman Did Jessie Buckley ‘Norbit’ Her Oscar Chances, Eddie Murphy-Style? Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ Is In The Midst Of A Renaissance, Primarily Propelled By The Epstein Files And Wild Conspiracy Theories Surrounding The Director’s Sudden Death Taylor Sheridan’s TV Show Lineup: ‘Landman’ Season 3, ‘Marshals’, ‘The Madison’, And More Nikki Glaser Spoofs Nicole Kidman’s Iconic AMC Theaters Ad During 2026 Golden Globes The new Prime Video series Scarpetta boasts an impressive cast, bringing to life Patricia Cornwell’s series of novels that have been popular for over three decades. But just because the formula for success is there doesn’t mean the show succeeds.
Opening Shot: We hear an oncoming train. A penny sits on the tracks. As the train passes, we see the naked body of a woman on the side of those tracks.
The Gist: Dr. Kay Scarpetta (Nicole Kidman), who is about to be sworn in for a second stint as Virginia’s chief medical examiner, goes to the scene of the body by the tracks, called there by Alexandria PD officers Blaise Fruge (Tiya Sircar) and August Ryan (David Hornsby). The naked body was handcuffed and tied up, and the woman’s hands were missing. Kay is alarmed when her brother-in-law Pete Marino (Bobby Cannavale) shows up at the scene, with a message about Kay’s niece, Lucy Farinelli-Watson (Ariana DeBose), and a desire to help.
The squashed penny on the tracks makes her think back to the first time she was the chief medical examiner, in 1998. Kay (Rosy McEwen) was called by Pete (Jake Cannavale), then an Alexandria police detective, to a house where a similarly-situated body was found. The main characteristic is that the body was trussed, so if she moved her feet or hands, she’d choke herself. Kay and Pete had investigated other bodies in that condition, indicating there was a serial killer out there.
Pete interviews the victim’s husband, an actor named Matt Peterson (Graham Phillips) and is suspicious about how he cited a Tennessee Williams monologue instead of mourning his wife. An FBI profiler, Benton Wesley (Hunter Parrish), is brought in to help the investigation, and Kay is taken with his intelligence and Southern charm.
Back to the present day, Kay clashes with her older sister, Dorothy (Jamie Lee Curtis), a famous author and Lucy’s mother. Dorothy was such a small presence in Lucy’s life as she grew up that Kay more or less raised her. Lucy has been mourning the death of her wife Janet (Janet Montgomery); she used her copious tech skills to generate an AI version of Janet to talk to as she lives her life in Dorothy’s guest house. At Lucy’s birthday celebration, we find out that Kay is married to Benton (Simon Baker), Pete is married to Dorothy and desperately wants to get back to investigating these crime scenes with Kay.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Developed by Liz Sarnoff and based on Patricia Cornwell’s novels (Cornwell has a cameo in the first episode; Curtis, Kidman and Jason Blum are also EPs), Scarpetta feels a bit like Cross, but with a medical examiner as the main character.
Our Take: While watching the time-jumping storytelling in Scarpetta, we were finding something strange: We were way, way more interested by the 1998 storyline than we were in the 2026 one, despite the presence of Kidman, Curtis, DeBose and Bobby Cannavale.
The parallel story tracks didn’t really give us too much to work with when it came to the current-day Kay’s personality and personal history. We do know that the case that made her name over two decades prior has now come back, with all indications being that Peterson was the culprit instead whoever Kay and Pete put away for the killings back then. But what we don’t know is where Kay’s career went in the intervening decades and why she’s back in chief medical examiner’s office.
There’s also something about Kidman and Curtis together that didn’t connect. Yes, we get that Scarpetta is as much about Kay’s somewhat chaotic family life as it is about how she investigates deaths from a forensic standpoint. As much as we love Curtis, it feels like she’s making Dorothy a clone of her character in The Bear: Someone who’s outgoing and charming but definitely manic, off-kilter and irresponsible.
Even in the scenes where young Kay is taking care of a pre-teen Lucy (Savannah Lumar), we see how close the two of them are, and how unstable a relationship Lucy and her mother have. It feels like the scenes with Curtis, Kidman and DeBose, or some subset of them, are bantering and fighting with each other, are designed purely for the three Oscar winners can bounce off each other rather than actually give audiences a glimpse into Kay’s family life.
On the other hand, there’s a definitive chemistry between McEwen, the young Cannavale and Parrish as the 1998 versions of Kay, Pete and Benton. How they relate to each other feels more organic and genuine, as they try to figure out this series of ritualized murders. Also, it’s interesting to see just how the young Kay, who’s somewhere around 30, projects her intelligence, steady manner and old soul. When Kidman tries to do the same as the present-day Kay, it’s decidedly less interesting.
Performance Worth Watching: Like we just mentioned, we enjoyed Rosy McEwen as the young Kay, as she brings a maturity to the younger version of the character that informs who Kay is a lot more than we see in the present-day timeline.
Sex And Skin: Naked dead bodies, and Kay’s once-and-current assistant Maggie Cutbush (Stephanie Faracy) gives her a message while Kay is showering off crime scene ick.
Parting Shot: In 1998, Peterson walks through his house, looking at the stripped mattress where his wife was found. Then in the present day, we see Peterson (Anson Mount) again.
Sleeper Star: Jake Cannavale does a good job playing the young Pete without fading into an impression of his father, who plays present-day Pete.
Most Pilot-y Line: In the argument that present-day Kay and Dorothy have, Kay says to her sister, “And you are a vain, shallow, male-addicted narcissist who’s never seen a cock or a mirror you didn’t like.”
Our Call: STREAM IT. We would be happier if Scarpetta was a period piece with its main characters’ younger versions instead of its current time-jumping format, but we’re hoping that the present-day storyline comes around as Kay and company revisit the serial killer case from the ’90s.
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Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
