3 out of 5

Directed by: Leszek Dawid, Bartosz Konopka

Though nearly saved by an incredibly engaging performance from lead Grzegorz Damięcki and purposeful, moving direction in the series’ back half from Bartosz Konopka, Harlan Coben’s The Woods adaptation (W głębi lasu in Polish) gets lost in some usual Cobenverse indulgences: murky motivations for the core crime; withheld info as plot points; and an exposition dump towards the end that allows the focus of the show to wander. It’s actually very much to Damięcki’s (and others’!) credit that the show is so watchable, and very much beyond the usual cliffhanger bait: in fact, The Woods appreciably avoids most of that, and instead divvies up its tale mostly by time, giving the whole proceeding a very paced, weight vibe. But that lack of “typical” structure is also partially responsible for the focus going astray.

Grzegorz plays Warsaw prosecutor Paweł Kopiński (a role he’d pick up again as a side character in later Cobenverse entry Hold Tight); we’re introduced to him as a tough but moral lawyer, taking on the case of a young woman with a party girl reputation who has accussed some other youths – sons of the well-to-do – of rape. Paweł understands the optics are poor, and that a settlement is easier, but he trusts the girl’s testimony and pursues evidence of the crime, putting him into immediate antagonism with of the rich fathers, who first tries bribes to let it all settle, then threats.

Flashbacks to a Summer camp in the 90s (with apropos music and clothing styles), and some alluded to history regarding Paweł’s time there – missing and murdered children – gives us the heebie jeebies: that maybe Paweł isn’t tough but loyal; maybe he’s a bad guy.

With Coben tales, you’re at this point expecting that secrets from those 90s times will affect Paweł’s current situation. That’s not exactly wrong, but… well, unfortunately, the girl’s rape case is one of a few modern day subplots that feels like it gets lost in the larger shuffle. Because instead, when a dead body turns up with connections to the prosecutor, Inspector Jork (Arkadiusz Jakubik) is all-in to pin it on Paweł; but that’s also not really the story, because the dead body is actually one of those missing kids from the camp, but Paweł can’t prove it; but that’s also also not really the story, and it’s about Paweł’s sister who went missing at the same time. So, okay, The Woods focuses on Paweł’s hunt for his sister, who he feels is now confirmed to be alive because of this dead body.

I’m being glib, of course, but this is the main issue with the show: it has trouble establishing stakes for anything, or getting that cliffhanger vibe even going, because it’s moreso a slow burn drama about loss – Paweł’s wife has recently passed; he’s now confronting this other loss from his past – that’s being mapped onto Coben twisty-turnies. And maybe the book more successfully focuses on the latter (the way the eventual reveals roll out suggests we’d left a lot of one particular character’s development somewhere on the source pages); the show does a good job of providing a platform for the former – I’d again highlight how far some of the acting and directing takes the series – but it certainly can’t get it all the way there.

Narrowed down to a solid runtime of six episodes, there’s thankfully very little wheel spinning: while the story may not be told as effectively as possible, it’s told consistently – you always feel like one piece of one storyline is moving forward, making it okay when you find one track more interesting than another. And given time, they also become more interesting – for example, I kind of loathed the flashbacks, but once enough story had rolled out, they had their place.

This nets out to being an average Coben show, though, to me, it’s evidence that I think the better ones favor character over the generally ridiculous twists, and when you secure strong enough actors and behind-the-camera folks, the ingredients are there for a great series.