Missing You is bingeable but overstuffed
Netflix’s latest Harlan Coben adaptation packs in too many mysteries.
Photo: Vishal Sharma/Netflix
There is a certain kind of show that hits the spot after a couple of weeks of festive indulgence, the sort with a straightforward plot, easy-to-remember characters, and a minimal number of episodes—and one that’s forgiving if you take a five-minute nap in the middle of any given installment.
Netflix’s new thriller Missing You is hoping to be that type of show. Adapted from the Harlan Coben novel of the same name, this is the latest entry into the streamer’s Harlan Coben Collection (consisting of eight shows, excluding Missing You, although it’s likely most people are only really aware of Fool Me Once). Like with the Fool Me Once adaptation, this new series transplants the action from America to the U.K. (Book fans might find this move noticeable, but for anyone coming straight into the show, everything should feel natural here.)
In Missing You, plots intertwine and diverge, all revolving around missing persons detective Kat Donovan (Rosalind Eleazar). When Kat matches with her ex-fiancé Josh (Ashley Walters) on a dating app, eleven years after he ghosted her, she’s thrown. Re-investigating her police officer father’s murder—thanks to the terminal illness of his killer Monte Lebrun (Marc Warren)—on her own time and the case of two missing people on work time, Kat discovers possible links to Josh, making it imperative that she find him.
It sounds a little more complicated than it actually is, and Missing You is in fact pretty adept at setting up its premise and protagonist immediately. Episode one opens with a jarring scene of a panicked man on a horse in a dark rural landscape that’s intercut with soft-focus moments of a blonde woman. The man, we later discover, is Rishi Magari (Rudi Dharmalingam), and he’s missing, although the show’s initial focus on him is slightly misleading. He’s shoved aside pretty fast for the second missing person, Dana Fells (Lisa Faulkner), who’s introduced later in the show’s run.