Apple TV's Nocturne opens with a stretched setup that takes nearly two hours to introduce its ensemble, but shows promise in its character work and moral complexity.
The show centers on serial killer Jurek Walter, played by Stephen Graham, imprisoned at a psychiatric hospital after burying people alive three years ago. A naïve nurse named Karl, played by Rory Culkin, agrees to pass a note from Jurek to his lawyer. This act possibly triggers the emergence of Michael Frost, a boy presumed dead after a three-year abduction, who stumbles out of the woods malnourished and nearly blind.
Retired homicide detective Jonah Lynn, played by Liev Schreiber, becomes central to the investigation. Jonah and his now-deceased partner Sam once arrested Jurek but failed to find the missing Frost children. Sam later took his own life after his wife Rebecca disappeared. Jonah carries multiple traumas, including the loss of his own wife and child.
Saga Bauer, played by Zazie Beetz, is Sam's daughter and an FBI agent. Michael deliriously mentioned seeing Rebecca, Saga's missing stepmother, during his captivity. By the end of the second episode, Saga convinces superiors to let her go undercover in the psychiatric hospital's Restricted Housing Unit using the assumed name Esther Dujardin.
The series is based on Joona Linna novels by Lars Kepler, a pen name for Swedish husband-and-wife team Alexander Ahndoril and Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril. It recalls Brad Ingelsby shows like Mare of Easttown and The Killing through its focus on grief and trauma alongside crime investigation. The opening episodes contain circular conversations and unresolved threads that slow pacing, though the material tightens considerably once Saga enters the psychiatric hospital.