Scarpetta Premiere: Did Nicole Kidman's Latest Crime Series Thrill? (Grade It!)

Nicole Kidman's cooking up a case that's full of twists, turns, and grisly bloodshed. 

Prime Video's "Scarpetta" (all eight episodes are now available to stream) is based on the popular novels by Patricia Cornwell. Kidman stars as the titular Kay Scarpetta, a Virginia-based medical examiner whose forensic expertise, she hopes, will help her catch a killer that may or may not be connected to a group of murders from nearly 30 years prior. 

In the premiere's early moments, Kay is called in the middle of the night to investigate a dead body found on some train tracks. At the scene, Kay finds a penny, only the metal is more or less scraped clean. It's implied that not everyone in her department is happy to see her back on the job. She seems like a loner who, for whatever reason, may work best alone with her own thoughts and theories leading the way. 

The series continually flashes back 28 years where a younger Kay (this time played by Rosy McEwen) is seen working a similar case. When she arrives to the home of the Petersons, she interviews husband Matt who appears gobsmacked by the discovery of his wife's dead body. The woman is found naked with her arms and legs trussed. A knife is found at the site, and Kay and Detective Peter Marino know they must rule Matty out first. A newscast on the radio says this marks the fourth killing in this timeline. Does Kay have a potential serial killer on her hands?

Back in the present, the newly installed health commissioner, Elvin Reddy, gives Kay a new assistant to "ease the transition forward," but it seems the two women have some real history between them. Kay questions it, but ultimately acquiesces. Later, we learn that Reddy forced Kay out after she bashed him in the news for, oh, 10 years. Will these previous work tensions come back to bite her?

Jamie Lee Curtis pops in as Kay's sister Dorothy, and from the jump, it's easy to see things are rocky between the bickering siblings. Even at a graveyard, where Dorothy's daughter Lucy (Ariana DeBose) is grieving the death of her wife, Kay and Dorothy can't help but shout at each other.

The episode also introduces us to Benton Wesley, an FBI profiler who Kay eventually marries. At a birthday gathering for Lucy, we learn that Pete (who's also married to Dorothy) is no longer on the force. It's also established that Lucy is a genius. The younger version of the girl is a computer whiz; in the present, Lucy reveals that she made enough money by the age of 13 to never work again. But — and it's a big "but" — she's continuing her relationship with her dead wife via AI. Soooo, there's that. 

After an argument between Dorothy and Lucy gets too heated, Kay pulls her sister into the kitchen for another squabble that almost turns physical. Dorothy says Lucy was better off before Kay came back (where'd she go? TBD), while Kay reveals that Dorothy didn't raise her own daughter; that's why we see young Lucy living with her aunt in the past. 

Kay and Peter are called away from the real bummer of a party, and in the car, Kay gives Peter an official job title so he can gain access to the crime scenes. They arrive at the house of a missing woman, who they deduce may be their Jane Doe from the train tracks. There they find a kettlebell they think might be the murder weapon. The fingerprints match Matt Petersen. The husband of Kay's former victim in the past timeline. If that's true, then Kay and Pete may have gotten the wrong guy 20-something years ago. And the killer still walks. 

Are you going to keep watching "Scarpetta"? Grade the premiere below, then light up the comments!