David Cronenberg, body parts and a new partner shake up ‘Law & Order Toronto’

TORONTO – Luke Kirby arrived on the set of “Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent” with a new co-star to figure out, a new character to establish and a city to rediscover. 

So he did a little homework.

Kirby, who joins the fourth season of the Toronto-set Citytv crime drama as Det.-Sgt. John Darcy, watched David Cronenberg’s “Videodrome” and “Crash” to prepare.

“I was sort of just trying to get a vibe for the city and Cronenberg shoots the city in such a compelling way, that I just was like, ‘Oh, let me get into the mood,” says the Hamilton-born, Brooklyn-based actor on a virtual call.

“I had no idea that he was going to be part of the show.”

The legendary Canadian horror filmmaker guest stars in the second episode as a clinical psychiatrist who helps Darcy and Kathleen Munroe’s Det.-Sgt. Frankie Bateman get inside the mind of a killer.

The character also happens to be Bateman’s father.

“I was, like, intimidated as hell at first,” says Munroe.

“He’s huge for me, not just in Canadian culture, but in film culture, and you couldn’t find a nicer, more chill, zero pretence, zero airs, just a wonderful person. So, to be fake-related to him on camera, I just was like, ‘This is so cool.’”

Cronenberg has been having something of a pop-culture moment lately, playing a dying patriarch in this year’s horror sequel “Ready or Not 2: Here I Come” and even delivering a monologue on Charli XCX’s latest album “Music, Fashion, Film.”

“He’s so high culture in this way… His stuff is so singular, but it’s not erudite. And that’s really the guy that you meet,” says Munroe. 

“He’s just a person who’s interested in people and stories.”

His “Law & Order Toronto” episode is especially Cronenbergian: Darcy and Bateman investigate human body parts found in packages at a mail facility, eventually crossing paths with an unsettling suspect who knows how to slip through legal loopholes.

“Some of those things are really icky,” says Munroe, shouting out the show’s makeup artist Lynda McCormack for making the severed limbs look disturbingly real.

“We get so grossed out sometimes because they’re so good.”

Each episode of the Canadian “Law & Order” spinoff draws inspiration from real Toronto crime headlines, reimagining them as fictional investigations.

For Munroe and Kirby, there’s a different kind of case to crack: figuring out the new partnership between their characters.

Darcy replaces Aden Young’s Det.-Sgt. Henry Graff, with Young moving back to Australia after completing his three-season contract.

Bateman cycles through several partners before being paired with Darcy, a new colleague she initially regards with some reluctance.

“There’s a bit of sadness around missing Graff,” Munroe says.

The actors, at least, had some familiarity with each other. Kirby and Munroe previously shared the screen in a 2009 episode of CTV cop procedural “Flashpoint,” playing a couple that makes a suicide pact. 

The actual challenge, says Munroe, was pretending to not be sold on Kirby.

“Darcy is so great, he’s so charming, he’s smart — you know, he’s Luke Kirby we’re dealing with here. I was like, ‘Why do I not want this guy?’” she says, as Kirby laughs and scratches his neck, wearing a bemused expression.

“He’s so compelling that the task for me was, ‘How do I act like we don’t actually feel comfortable?’ (We had) to remember we’re still learning each other.”

Kirby, meanwhile, wasn’t looking to live up to the previous dynamic.

“I wasn’t trying to hold any shape of this lauded series. I just had to storm in and see if anything worked,” says the actor, who won an Emmy in 2019 for portraying comedian Lenny Bruce in “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”

“I just kind of came in guns blazing.”

While Bateman and Darcy are still finding their rhythm, the season also offers a deeper look at Bateman through her relationship with her father, Cronenberg’s Levi Bateman.

Munroe says Bateman grew up in a household where criminality was something to be studied and discussed, rather than investigated from the street. 

She notes showrunner Tassie Cameron’s own experience growing up with a journalist and psychologist as parents helped ground that backstory.

“I think it’s absolutely why Bateman’s doing what she does,” Munroe said. 

“She grew up hearing about the kind of internal workings of these people, and really decided that the way to make the world safe is to put them behind bars.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 2, 2026.