4 out of 5

Created by: Victoria Asara-Archer (written by)

Harlan Coben adaptations – now being a mainstay for Netflix binges – have tended to come in a couple of flavors: notable actors taking a swing; and / or completely unremarked by most reviewers. The former does tend to get some attention, generally shushing the Coben TV “formula” – past lies; life-changing secrets involving secret children or relationships; big “whodunnit ain’t whodunnit” twists – to the wayside in favor of praising a performance, but the majority at this point tend to fall into the latter… because these are very much popcorn entries in the streaming library, and fairly trashy as well. I say that with care, as I watch this trash, but I’ll wholly admit that the kind of high-energy nonsense that fueled the first couple Coben shows has devolved into a steady drip of stuff the writers know generally works, adjusted to the second-screen writing style of constant recaps. The last couple Coben shows definitely had me questioning if it was worth continuing to subject myself to them. (Yes, weep for me.)

Missing You, then, gets an extra ratings bump due to standing out amongst its peers – it is absolutely one of the best Coben shows on Netflix – but rest assured: it is a wholly solid show. It’s well cast almost all around; it doesn’t sink into the usual pit of unbelievability many of these series do, where seasoned cops or otherwise smart people just decide to act like idiots every now and then; its disparate parts come together satisfyingly and surprisingly; and its story reveals are well-paced – only five episodes! – and, within context, reasonable. These are obviously good qualities for any thriller, but really make Missing You stand tall in its corner of the genre.

Rosalind Eleazar is our cop; the rediscovery of her nigh-husband on a dating app a decade after he’d ghosted her is the initial seed of our Coben mystery, but this seemingly starts to tie in to (the also mysterious) death of her fellow-cop father, as well as the disappearance of a persistent youth’s mother. Cue various sneaky behaviors from Eleazar’s friend group and workmates, as each plot-thread – track the boyfriend; solve her father’s death; find the mother – all tick along.

But here’s the thing that will make your jaw drop: Rosalind’s character actually does practical police work. Deductions aren’t leaped to out of nowhere, and she doesn’t make rash decisions – save a couple – just for the sake of cliffhangers. It’s… an appreciably tempered set of circumstances, meaning we get tension out of the story instead of fakeouts.

I mean, for the most part. There’s at least one extraneous character and a handful of the fakeouts, and some characters seem to float in just so we can have the fantastic James Nesbitt show up and be a lil’ evil. But by keeping the runtime to five episodes, we’re cured of the need to drag these herrings around for longer than necessary, and Eleazar’s character seems just as capable as we are of discarding with these misleads as soon as they’re identified.

At the same time, it’s fair to say the ending is a bit rushed, but this is balanced with a conclusion that keeps with the relatively more grounded reality of the show.

Carried by Eleazar’s strong performance, purposeful direction from Nimer Rashed and Isher Sahota, and a thank-god linear script from Victoria Asare-Archer that manages to respect the audience’s intelligence while kowtowing to the Netflix needs for constant recaps (props to the editor on keeping that stuff tight as well), I hope that Missing You is enough of a success to cue the Coben group to make this the template for their shows going forward.