Prime Video’s Scarpetta, which dropped its first two episodes on November 20, 2025, has done the impossible: united critics and binge-watchers in a single, breathless verdict — “glorious.” Nicole Kidman, in what many are already labeling the defining performance of her extraordinary career, steps into the white coat of Dr. Kay Scarpetta, Patricia Cornwell’s legendary medical examiner, and delivers a masterclass that feels less like acting and more like possession.

From the opening frames — a rain-slicked Virginia autopsy table lit by a single harsh lamp — Kidman owns the screen. Her Scarpetta is brilliant, brittle, and quietly furious: a woman who speaks fluent death and still flinches at grief. Gone is the icy detachment of Cornwell’s early novels; this Scarpetta bleeds (sometimes literally) for every victim. Kidman’s eyes, those famous arctic blues, flicker between clinical precision and barely-contained rage when politics or bureaucracy dare interfere with justice. One early reviewer wrote, “She makes you forget you’re watching Nicole Kidman — you’re watching a woman who has cut open more secrets than any detective alive.”

The eight-episode first season, adapted by Liz Heldens (The Passage) and directed in part by Patricia Riggen, wastes no time. Episode one throws viewers into a triple homicide that appears ritualistic — until Scarpetta’s scalpel reveals something far more calculated and personal. What follows is a labyrinth of forensic twists, corporate corruption, and buried family trauma that pulls Scarpetta, her niece Lucy (Ariana DeBose, electric), tech genius Pete Marino (Bobby Cannavale, gruff perfection), and haunted investigator Wesley Benton (Simon Rex, a revelation) into a conspiracy that threatens to unravel everything Scarpetta believes about truth itself.

Atmospheric doesn’t begin to cover it. Cinematographer Polly Morgan bathes Richmond’s morgues in cold greens and morgue-steel greys, while the Virginia countryside looms like a character — beautiful, deceptive, lethal. Hans Zimmer’s sparse, heartbeat-driven score pulses underneath every scene, turning routine procedures into something almost sacred.

Critics have run out of superlatives. The Hollywood Reporter calls it “an impossibly clever crime drama that respects both the science and the soul of Cornwell’s world.” Variety declares Kidman “ferociously good — the kind of performance that reminds you why we fell in love with her in the first place.” Rolling Stone simply wrote: “10/10. Cancel your weekend.”

Early viewers lucky enough to attend test screenings have been even more effusive. “I forgot to breathe during episode two,” one posted anonymously. “The twist at the 42-minute mark actually made me yell at my TV.” Another: “This is what happens when you give Nicole Kidman a scalpel and zero guardrails.”

Jamie Dornan’s guest arc as a charming but dangerous suspect has already sparked “I need him arrested and/or in my bed” memes across social media, while DeBose’s Lucy — a queer, genius hacker with mommy issues — is being hailed as the breakout character of the year.

Cornwell herself, famously protective of her 28-book empire, gave the series her blessing after reading the pilot: “Nicole doesn’t play Kay — she becomes her. I cried. Then I asked for more episodes.”

With weekly drops confirmed through January, Scarpetta is poised to dominate awards season chatter the way The Undoing and Big Little Lies once did — only darker, sharper, and infinitely more addictive. If you crave series that respect your intelligence, reward your attention, and leave you desperate for the next autopsy report, clear your schedule.

Nicole Kidman just dissected television — and the patient was already dead.