Netflix’s I Will Find You Twists Itself Into Knots & Dares You to Enjoy the Ride

Critic’s Rating: 4 / 5.0

4

I Will Find You, the latest Harlan Coben adaptation, knows exactly what it is: suspenseful, twisty, action-packed fun.

The mini-series is so deeply watchable, and that’s meant in the best possible way. Mostly because it fully understood the assignment, especially regarding summer fare.

The threshold is quite simple: “entertain me,” and the series, and its impressive roster of stars, does just that. Hell, that’s all I needed.

Like Coben’s usual fare, we have some of the same formulas. This time around, we’re following David Burroughs, who has been in a Maine prison for brutally murdering his toddler, presumably during a night terror episode.

At least, that’s what they were sort of hinting at. But while David was riddled with guilt and sitting in prison, going through the motions and refusing to see anyone, he knew the entire time he didn’t kill his son.

What he didn’t know, however, was that his son was still out there alive. And that’s at the crux of a twisty tale that burns through more plot twists than seems feasible but remains entertaining despite that.

To my delight, we finally scored an American adaptation. Well, for Netflix anyway. You’ll still find me pouring one out for Prime Video’s Shelter adaptation, dammit.

I’m so used to most of these being scattered across Europe, that I got a kick out of every time they popped from Maine, to New York, to Boston.

It even made Sam Worthington’s unsuccessful attempt to not just pull off an American accent but a Bostonian one all the more fun.

He was fighting for his life almost as much as his character literally was in that regard, but that only added to the appeal, sue me.

For the most part, I Will Find You just kinda drops into David’s world without much introduction, and then all hell breaks loose when he finally gets a visit from his sister-in-law, who is basically the G.O.A.T. of the entire series.

Severance‘s Britt Lower is dynamic at Rachel Mills. Ironically, she is the other person, aside from David himself, who took some serious blows after Matthew’s “death.” Yes, that even includes David’s ex and Matthew’s mother, Cheryl.

Rachel totally steals the show, and there are times when it genuinely feels like David is just playing second fiddle to her. She has the resources, the connections, the gumption, and she’s the one to piece together so much about the web of lies that almost bogs down the show.

When she waltzes into the prison and plasters a picture of what appears to be a very much alive Matthew, birthmark and all, against the glass, it’s on!

And the adrenaline-fueled antics never actually stop.

But what’s fun about David is that you might go in expecting a guy who will give off Jack Reacher levels of badassery to elude bad guys, law enforcement, and whoever else in his quest to actually find the kid in that photo.

And there is a grounded level of badasery to a father willing to risk it all for his son. But for the most part, David is not great at kicking ass and taking names, nor does he exude any real action-hero vibes.

He’s kind of a mess and makes so many grave mistakes along the way that it borders on frustrating, but that’s how things come together well enough. David is not the Brains of any operation, nor is he the Muscle most of the time.

He’s singularly focused on finding out the truth about his son, and the series never pretends he has anything else going on besides that. But Worthington does bring a subtle magnetism and vulnerability to some moments, and that drive.

And David is at his most dynamic when he’s alongside Rachel.

In fact, I may or may not have spent most of the series quietly shipping the pair, since they had more chemistry than David had with anyone or anything the whole way through.

Rachel was such a force, but the biggest frustration throughout was the constant allusions to her somehow just playing this entire conspiracy angle as a hard-nosed reporter who happened across the most mind-bending story of her life.

Every time someone so much as questioned why she’d immerse herself in aiding and abetting a fugitive who went away for child murder, it left me screaming at the television that she had a vested interest in whether or not her own nephew was alive!

“Titis” of the world unite!

What kind of question is that?

I love my niblings as if I carried them myself, so the downplaying and at times dismissal of Rachel’s determination to get to the bottom of everything was driving me mad.

But again, I reiterate that Rachel basically carries this show on her back, so I will support her in any of her endeavors, even the foolish ones.

And there are plenty of foolish endeavors throughout this series, but most of them are to serve a larger purpose of muddying the waters so much that we don’t know what’s up from down.

In true Harlan Coben fashion, even the red herrings have red herrings in this series.

Every time you think you figured something out, they switch up on you, and then they switch up again to reaffirm that maybe you were right in the first place, except, NOPE, maybe not.

But what makes all of these twists, turns, and complications work so well isn’t just the impressive cast the show scores but precisely how we’ve known them in previous work.

Because you better believe I was side-eying every single person at some point or another, just because some of the actors have played dubiously murky characters or outright villains before.

David’s former Boston cop father, whom he hadn’t spoken to since he went inside? Shady. The prison warden, who happens to be best friends with David’s father? Shady.

His son and David’s best friend, Adam McKenzie? Shady.

Add on top of it that Jonathan Tucker plays him.

He’s hot, with the basset-hound eyes that can go from sweet to menacing in a blink, and, you know, it’s Jonathan Tucker, a truly underrated and entirely dynamic character actor who nails antagonists.

Then there’s Milo Ventimiglia, for example. Hayden appears onscreen, and he’s hot, rich, and played by Milo Ventimiglia.

You remember he’s hot and rich and played by Milo Ventigmlia!

Not the Jack Pearson mustachioed version, or swoopy-haired version; he’s buzz-cut Ventimiglia, which is suspicious.

Of course, I Will Find You doesn’t stop there because we have Revenge‘s Madeleine Stowe, who always nails the scheming, enigmatic wealthy woman.

And Clancy Brown as the figure who heavily looms over the entirety of the series, Nicky Fisher, well, that man certainly plays an antagonist well.

And did I mention they also gave us one of the Ashmore twins? And not just any twin, but the one from Ginny & Georgia, Aaron, as Cheryl’s new husband at that.

So, yeah, I Will Find You was already up to its eyeballs in twists and turns designed to make our heads spin, but with the roster of actors they landed for this project, it easily floated on the “whodunnit” angle all the way to its shocking revelation.

And it all works because it’s easy to genuinely believe that anyone could be guilty or behind all of this.

The investigative component of the series isn’t that much easier to navigate either.

As far as law enforcement pursuing our protagonist in an action-thriller goes, Williams and Greer are more competent than most, but still frustrating.

But McBride and Browning have a strong chemistry that makes them fun to watch. You’ll never believe their connection, just kidding, you totally will.

Yet they hit a sweet spot midway through the series, particularly Browning, as Greer grapples with moral dilemmas and entertains how she wants to go about her job with the mindf*ckery that is this conspiracy fugitive, murder plot case.

It wanes a bit when we get Interpol interjected into everything, or when we have to revisit buried secrets of the past that stoke fires and tension in the present, or when we have roughly three different sidequests serving as red herrings.

That’s where I Will Find You gets lost in its own twists for a while before just barely climbing out by the end.

But it does climb out at the end eventually, and a bit too neatly, without nearly as much focus on the aftermath as everything leading up to its grand conclusion.

It underwhelms a bit in that sense.

Does I Will Find You earn its revelation of what really happened to Matthew and who was behind it?

Honestly, that question doesn’t matter. The truth of it all is serviceable enough, but it’s the ride that makes I Will Find You worth the binge.

You can stream I Will Find You on Netflix.

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