Brief Story Line
Former law professor David Burroughs (Sam Worthington - Avatar: Fire and Ash, The Hunter's Prayer etc) was sentenced to life imprisonment after found guilty of murdering his young child Sam. Five years later, David's sister in-law Rachel Mills (Britt Lower - Severance TV series, Darkest Miriam etc) showed him something that might prove Sam could still be alive. Determined to do whatever it takes, David went to the extreme to find Sam with the help from his childhood best friend Adam (Jonathan Tucker - Echoes mini series, Hostage etc), Rachel and her ex-boyfriend Hayden (Milo Ventimiglia - Creed 2, Gilmore Girls TV series etc).
Meanwhile David's ex-wife Cheryl (Erin Richards - Gotham TV series, The Quiet Ones etc) was shocked to find out what he did. Things gotten complicated with the involvement of FBI special agent Sarah Greer (Logan Browning - Dear White People TV series, Bratz: The Movie etc) and her partner Max Williams (Chi McBride - Gone in 60 Seconds, Boston Public TV series etc) who were assigned to handle David's case.
So what actually happened and how would the story conclude? You could find out in this series.
End of Brief Story Line
As I said above, I was interested in watching this because of Harlan Coben's name. I think I never missed on any of his recent novels adaptations on Netflix and I got to say that this was probably the most enjoyable one in the past few years. It was a little bit different from the usual dark & gloomy murder mystery genre as it also had a mix of different element which involved the FBI. Now I am not going to say too much detail of the plot but I think this was pretty intelligent and added suspense to the series.
It was pretty amazing for Harlan Coben to keep on writing novels after novels which almost always became instant hit. I admired his consistent ability to evolve his works beyond just 1 kind of genre. This series itself was based on his best selling novel of same title written in 2023 which was well received by critics. And it looked like the series was getting good reviews as well even if it's not up to the level of universally acclaimed. The series was developed by Robert Hull whose experience included writer for TV series like Veronica Mars, Gossip Girl, Once Upon a Time and many more.
The above names I mentioned were part of the main cast. However aside from them there were a lot of support cast such as Madeleine Stowe (It: Welcome to Derry TV series, The General's Daughter etc) as wealthy businesswoman Gertrude Payne, Clancy Brown (The SpongeBob Movie: Search for Squarepants, Gen V TV series etc) as mob boss Nicky Fisher, Aaron Ashmore (Locke & Key TV series, The Shrine etc) as Cheryl's new husband Ronald Dreason, Peter Outerbridge (Bet TV series, Code 8 etc) as prison warden Philip MacKenzie, Hugh Thompson (Black Harbour TV series etc) as David's father Lenny, Greg Bryk (My Spy, Frontier TV series etc) as the mysterious guy heavily involved in David's case and plenty others. It was pretty amazing seeing that many quite well known names in here who gave convincing performance, especially Sam Worthington.
As usual I like to try and deduce everything in this kind of series. At first I thought that I was able to avoid the standard misdirection and did not guess wrongly. And after completing two third of the series, I still stood by my deduction. However once I reached the penultimate episode, my original theory was proven wrong as I did not see that final twist. It was another brilliant move by Coben to gave several layers of surprises. And it also has a satisfying conclusion with no ambiguity. Btw the series had only 8 episodes with duration between 35-47 minutes which should make it easy to finish binge watch in a day or one weekend.
Overall this was a fast paced, thrilling series with some mysteries, suspense and still got plenty of surprising twists. With only 8 episodes and short duration plus satisfying conclusion, it should be pleasing for fans of such series. I know that some people were not really excited with Harlan Coben's series but frankly I thought this was one of the better adaptation in recent years. Plus the ensemble cast gave quite solid performance too. So if you are fans of suspenseful series and wanted to see something different from the standard Harlan Coben's work, then I think you would enjoy this like I did. But if you prefer the darker slow paced mystery solving series, then it might not be to your liking.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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