Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency

Where the Universe Always Gets the Last Laugh

The Suitcase Detective

5 min readMay 15, 2021

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency

Alternative Name(s)
None

Country
Britain + United States (BBC America)

Show Length
TV Show (2 Seasons)

Aired
(2016–2017)

Genres & Type of Mystery
Private Detective, SciFi & Fantasy, Nosy Detective

Director & Screenwriters

Directors: Douglas Mackinnon, Michael Patrick Jann, Richard Laxton, Wayne Yip, Alrick Riley, etc.

Screenwriters: Various

Cast

Samuel Barnett — Dirk Gently

Elijah Wood — Todd Brotzman

Hannah Marks — Amanda Brotzman

Plot

Dirk Gently always ends up precisely where he need to be. Even if it isn’t where he intended to go.

Some people are just like that. Every person they meet, every conversation they have, every accidental wrong turn. . . it’s all part of one giant interrelated web of unavoidable circumstances. Maybe it’s fate. Maybe it’s just the universe shooting the breeze. Maybe it’s just that ‘free will’ took a leave of absence on the day they were born. But for Dirk and those like him, there is no such thing as a “coincidence.”

Luckily for the universe, Dirk’s never met a mystery or case he wasn’t willing to dive into head on. He’s not the old-fashioned kind of detective who looks for clues, or fluff on the ground, or the odd fingerprints lying about. Oh no, he has a much more “holistic approach” where he just does stuff and somehow the mystery and the bad guys and the answers come to him. He both stumbles into mysteries and stumbles his way out of them with remarkable style. A leaf on the stream of the universe. . . 🍃

But also an absolute annoyance in the life of Todd Brotzman. Todd isn’t anything like Dirk. He’s normal. Insignificant really. As the policeman observes — Todd is a person of interest who isn’t even remotely interesting. So imagine his surprise when the universe names him Dirk’s assistant on his newest case. 😅 At least that’s what Dirk tells him, but Todd’s not so sure. Until the coincidences start adding up with the odd co-ink-i-dink thrown in and he finds himself caught in a mystery that he simply can’t avoid.

It’s a story of a dead man who hired Dirk to solve his murder six weeks before he died. A girl who acts like a dog and dog who acts like a girl. Men chasing men chasing other men secretly chasing some other men. Dead bodies eaten by a white shark in the middle of a penthouse. It’s chaos. It’s comedy. It’s now Todd Brotzman’s life.

Thoughts

Why didn’t you all tell me about this show! That’s 5 YEARS that this show existed and I’ve been missing out! It’s a travesty! This show is awesome and hilarious and we totally recommend it ❣

Elijah Wood stars as Todd Brotzman and this is probably one of the best things I’ve seen him in outside of LOTR. He’s not my favorite actor in general, but he does an excellent job in the role. He’s perpetually both fed up and absolutely bewildered simultaneously, and Wood has always had a great “I’m out of my depth” persona in his acting. He’s a great straight man to Samuel Barnett’s (Dirk Gently) more comedic role.

There’s actually several secondary stars in this show that I recognize and was really excited to see. Hannah Marks plays Todd’s sister, a girl with a rare condition that gives her hallucinations and keeps her locked in her home. To Todd’s great disgust, she gets along smashingly with Dirk and is all too thrilled that her brother’s life might be getting some adventure to it. Fiona Douriff is an assassin out for Dirk’s blood (and the blood of pretty much everyone else too). Alan Tudyk is in the second season — love that guy 🥰. And to my great joy, Miguel Sandoval as the CIA officer out to bring Dirk back in. I loved Sandoval in ‘Medium‘ and had a great time seeing him in a more comedic role.

The show is based on Douglas Adams popular novels, the author famous for such works like “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” You definitely get a sense of his kind of humor throughout the entire series. If you like “Umbrella Academy”, “Dirk Gently” has very similar vibes throughout, though UA is maybe a bit more dark at times.

The underlying theme is absolutely fascinating — what if free will existed, but destiny always got the last laugh? No matter what actions you took or choices you made, you always ended up doing. . . or being . . . or seeing exactly what you were meant to. There are pretty much no wrong choices because somehow you’re always fitting into the universe’s plan. It’s like having a fated destiny, but on steroids and it’s completely unavoidable. That’s what Dirk’s life is like.

He doesn’t need to seek out the mysteries because they always comes to him. He is the universe’s mystery solver — righting the wrongs that were never supposed to happen. Dirk doesn’t have to go out and track down the clues. . . the universe punts them at him in an unending barrage. The person drops dead at his feet in the cafe. The cat with a clue stumbles upon him at a bus stop. The purse he found on the chair mystically contains the phone number of the man who found the gun at the scene of the crime. Eventually, one way or the other, he’ll end up with all the clues he needs and he figures out that 😱 “everything was connected!”

The problem is, the universe is a giant b*tch who doesn’t ever clue him in on the memo. Nor does she put much effort into keeping him safe from the bad guys who are as equally bewildered by his sudden insertion into their crime plan as he is but a lot more gun-happy.

Instead, poor Dirk generally just ends up with a million facts and pieces of evidence that mean nothing to him. He never knows which people or which events or which random things on the side of the road he’s supposed to be paying attention to. The goal of the season is the “connectedness” moment — that instant where it all FINALLY makes sense.

We finished both seasons and they are absolutely a must see. Season 2 goes off the deep end quite a bit more (a lot of fantasy thrown into the sci-fi of Season 1). The show is quite gory and violent, so not for kiddies. But hysterically funny and a great show for friends to binge-watch with pizza and snacks 🕵️‍♂️