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Lyle Jennings is the main antagonist of the first season of the Scottish Netflix series Dept. Q. Lyle is the son of Ailsa Jennings, with whom he held prosecutor Merrit Lingard for four years as revenge for the death of his brother Harry.
He's portrayed by Scottish actors Steven Miller as an adult and Kai Alexander.
Biography[]
Lyle grew up in a painfully broken home on the island of Mhòr off the cosst of Scotland. His father Clive died in a house fire from Ailsa, a severely unhinged character, flicking lit cigarettes at him while he was sleeping. She was horribly abusive to Lyle and his older brother Harry, beating them, giving them silent treatments, and locking them in a hyperbaric chamber at Clive's abandoned factory, the last offense for which Ailsa was sectioned for. Lyle grew to associate with the abuse and see it as "normal", so he accumulated a criminal record, including assaults in bars, animal cruelty, stalking of boys, and even once nearly kiling a boy in the chamber by seeing how long activating it could make him pass out.
Lyle found out Harry was robbing homes to have enough money and valuables to run off with his girlfriend, Merritt. When Harry went to the Lingard house to secure some things to take with them, Lyle followed him. William walked in on the burglary, resulting in Lyle bludgeoning him, leaving him with brain trauma and lasting aphasia. Harry made Lyle leave to take the fall, and he tried to escape on a ferry, only to fall overboard and die. PC John Cunningham figured out Lyle attacked William, but he let Harry take the fall for it. As Lyle took all of Ailsa's abuse and violence by himself, he had to tell himself Harry never left him.
Lyle eventually was sentenced to juvenile detention for the crimes, where he was diagnosed with Enhanced Personality Disorder. He followed around a boy named Sam Haig who resembled Harry, only for Sam to beat Lyle badly enough to discolor his right eye. By the time he was released, he and Ailsa planned revenge on Merritt, blaming her for Harry's death as the woman he fell in love with. They began by stalking Merritt with poison pen messages to encourage her to come home. As Sam reunited with Lyle, Lyle impersonated him and pretended to be a journalist wanting to bait Merritt, as she was already under pressure from her high-profile cases. He went as far as seducing her and them both entering a relationship. But he also stalked her and William, who was cared for by Merritt, William seeing Lyle at least once, much to his terror.
She wanted to go back to Mhòr to figure out where the messages were coming from, which meant she had to dump Lyle, who pretended to take it hard. So he wasn't tracked, Lyle killed Sam outside his rock climbing gym by beating him with a rock, then threw him off a cliff to stage his death as an accident or suicide. When the Lingards were on the ferry to Mhòr, the Jennings were too. After fight with William, Merritt was distracted by Ailsa long enough for Lyle to kidnap her. William was briefly arrested on suspicion, then cleared, released, and placed in the care of Dr. Fiona Wallace, who stole from the Lingard family funds.
Merritt was imprisoned in the hyperbaric chamber, dared to guess every month why she was there, who she hurt. Every time she failed, she'd wait another month. This carried on for four years, Merritt's hope and sense of security dwindling the longer she was held captive. Cunningham believed she was dead and didn't do a thing to the Jennings, hoping to put the crimes to rest. Detective Carl Morck was assigned her case in his new cold case department, and tracking her activities led to Lyle when he posed as Sam. Cunningham was less than forthcoming because of refusing to direct blame anywhere other than Harry, but the detectives didn't believe Harry would hurt Merritt. Finding the real Sam through his history led to Lyle, then to Ailsa and both their records.
In the meantime, Merritt tried to escape, sabotaging the chamber to severely injure Ailsa. She nearly got away from calling the emegency hotline, but Lyle shoved her back inside, even trying to kiss her when she was unconscious. He grew more impatient and tried to feed Merritt hints of who they were, and in the end, she did figure it out. When she realized Ailsa and Lyle were the captors, she said she was never sorry for Harry's desth from still believing he maimed William. Lyle smashed a glass window in the chamber, during which he finally showed his face. By this point, the Jennnings planned to suffocate Merritt in the chamber, but Cunningham arrived from the call and was horrified to see Merritt was alive and a captive victim. Lyle bludgeoned him to death with a hammer and waited for police to arrive.
When DCI Carl Morck and Akram Salim arrived to rescue Merritt, Lyle shot at them with a shotgun. He severely injured them, but they stopped him by killing him with a knife and Morck's own service weapon. Merritt was rescued in time to get medical treatment and be saved. Ailsa was cornered when she escaped on the ferry, shooting herself dead to not be arrested.