4 out of 5

Developed by: Danny Brocklehurst

They’re getting pretty sharp with these Coben adaptations, with shepherd Danny Brocklehurst pretty mindful of our expectations at this point, and – with other writers and directors on hand to bring this particular vision to life – kind of playfully both leaning into them and subverting them. As per Coben-world standards, Run Away is chock full of the double- and triple-twists, and constant whodunnit red herrings, and overreactions; but its also one of the most successful of these adaptations at justifying its many subplots, and at bringing legitimate balance (ultimately) to its characters. In short: we start off in kind of full-on ridiculous trashy dramatics, but soon find the series peeling back and back, giving us plenty of moments for things to go off the rails, only for frantic father Simon (James Nesbitt) to kind of self-check, and realize calm may be the right approach. Weird!

Also weird, but part of the show’s wins: the A-plot is… pretty low stakes. I mean, in comparison to the murders and mysterious deaths that often kick off these series, here it’s Simon’s hunt for his missing daughter, Paige (Ellie de Lange), who… he finds, right in the first episode. And as we soon learn of her drug addiction, and that this process of Simon tracking her down and losing her to her addictions is somewhat of a cycle, while there are murders and mysterious deaths surrounding Paige, the show doesn’t toy with us in setting her up to be anything more than missing: she runs away again, after that first episode find, and Simon’s and his wife, Ingrid’s (Minnie Driver) passion in tracking her down is what butts in to B- and C-plots, of private investigators (Ruth Jones), and zealous police (Alfred Enoch, Amy Gledhill), and a protector of the estates on which Paige was living (Lucian Msamati), and a pair of serial killers (Finty Williams, Joe McGann)…

This is, we think, the Coben DNA being wound – plenty of nonsensical asides that will probably just be noise. But even if that was true, all of these characters / plotlines are given a really solid go-round, from very solid actors who fill their parts out wholly. And even better is what I’d mentioned before: these things are actually linked “believably” – in context of the show’s heightened reality. Which, y’know, means it can be a bit silly at points, but the writers dig deep for some truly affecting emotional beats that work better because of all these swirling bits and bobs.

So, yeah, the first episode had me in “here we go again” mode, and though that Mode wasn’t wholly discarded, Run Away sincerely just got stronger and more compelling the more it went on.