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Confirmed: Harlan Coben's Escape It's the most fun you can have on New Year's Day without leaving the couch. Truly, it wouldn't be a festive vegetarian session if we weren't waiting for a new Harlan Coben mystery, featuring fool me once taking Netflix by storm in 2024. I'm not a psychic, but I predict the same thing will happen with Flee.
Because? We return to the proven formula of book adaptations after Prime Video Lazarus by Harlan Coben in October. That's both an advantage and a disadvantage depending on how you look at it, but when it comes to Coben's signature art, we're in good hands.
Harlan Coben's Run Away turns a belligerent teen drama into a crime rollercoaster you can't take your eyes off.
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Coben is reaching the stage where his fictional story rivals that of the MCU or the lord of the ringsand Flee is not an exception. If you watch all eight episodes in one sitting, not only will your brain split in half (like mine did), but you'll also need a police whiteboard to keep up with the explosive, secret, inscrutable subplots.
It's this sense of immersion that has always made Coben's work the cream of the crop, and pairing his writing style with an all-star cast that isn't afraid to get their hands dirty means you've got transmittable magic. James Nesbitt was born to play a distant but naïve father in a British crime drama, in which Minnie Driver had the slightly easier job of lying in a hospital bed.
The most enjoyable addition here is Ruth Jones as Elena Ravenscroft (although her character sounds like a harry potter extra). The United Kingdom has been particularly determined to pigeonhole Jones as nothing more than Nessa in Gavin and Staceyand rarely notices his varied existing work.
She may be a comedy queen, but Jones injects a cheerful relief into Run Away that perfectly offsets Nesbitt's erratic chaos.
“Sexy jerk” DS Fagbenle (Alfred Enoch) is another intriguing layer to the puzzle. At his job, he's incredibly distant, but the personal relationship he secretly cultivates makes you want to get inside his mind and unravel the man we're not seeing properly. Even when we get answers to the big questions, it's good to have something hidden from us, especially when we don't need it explained in detail.
To what extent are you willing to suspend belief for a whodunit mystery?
The biggest problem with a mind-blowing mystery is when it starts to veer into ridiculous territory. For the first half of Fleethe drama feels grounded in reality. It is incredibly possible for a teenager to lose direction in her life due to an abusive partner and have her family fall apart as a result.
But when you start connecting seemingly unconnected murders and cult-like behavior, things get a little crazier. I know fictional drama doesn't have to be true to real life, but shows like this aren't soap operas either. Between episodes 5 and 8, I can imagine families around the world saying to each other, “For God's sake, enough is enough.”
For the most part, I think Coben gets away with it… until the surprising twist at the end. Not only does the reveal seem incredibly unnecessary, but it also changes the entire tone of the story in the final minutes. It is the secret that gives advice. Flee bordering on becoming genuinely unbelievable, and perhaps a case of “less is more” would have been a more effective ending.
On the other hand, the narrative beats of the overall story fit perfectly into Coben's formula, and that's either stoic and reliable or more of the same. It is probably important to remember that Flee is inserted into an existing collection of mysteries, so a certain level of uniformity is needed. We're dealing with Coben's signature drama here, and while that may put off some viewers, I think enough people will take comfort in knowing what to expect, in the broadest sense.
Where Lazarus hesitated, Flee shines. I definitely think that the adaptation of the book to the screen is a great strength for Coben, as it generates a level of satisfaction that we were missing at the beginning of the year. I was giddy the entire time I watched it, and it's safe to say I've never had more fun following a gruesome murder.
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