by Michael McCarthy
I’ve just finished watching a brilliant limited series on Netflix. It’s called The Innocent and it’s an adaptation of a Harlan Coben novel. The surprising thing, for me, is that I’ve watched quite a few series based on his books and usually I hate them. They’re predictable, there aren’t enough plot twists, the acting is cheesy, etc. But there’s a twist with The Innocent. The book took place in New Jersey. But a company in Spain bought the rights to make it into a series, which they did in conjunction with Netflix. And they’ve changed the setting to Spain, different parts of it taking place in different cities. But it was made by a Spanish company with Spanish screenwriters and Spanish actors, etc. The whole thing was a Spanish affair. It just happened to be based on a Harlan Coben novel. And I’m sure the fact that it was made in a foreign country using different talent is why it’s so different — and superior — to the usual Harlan Coben stuff you see on Netflix.
Basically, each of the eight episodes tells the story from the perspective of a different character. Some of it is non-linear and there are quite a few scenes that you see several times, each time from the perspective of a different character. Or you saw a scene take place and there were things that didn’t add up — but then you see the scene with additional footage when it’s from another character’s perspective and suddenly everything makes sense. That said, many of the scenes in each episode are new and do move the story forward so it doesn’t all over-lap. In other words, it’s not like you keep seeing the exact same scenes from different character’s perspectives over and over again exclusively. There are plenty of new scenes in each episode, too, which makes it more interesting than a lot of stuff where they keep showing you the same thing from different perspectives.
One of the main characters is a guy who pushed a kid during a fight and accidentally killed him. Another character is his girlfriend, who has her own history involving murder. Another character is a cop. Another works for some sort of police organization that resembles the FBI. It’s really well done and when you find out how things keep linking together, it blows your mind every time. I was really confused when I was watching the second episode because up until the very last scene, it’s entirely different from the first episode. Totally different story with different actors, etc. I thought I was watching the wrong show at first. Then when I confirmed that I wasn’t, I thought that perhaps it was an anthology series where the episodes are all unrelated to each other. It was only during the very last scene of episode two that there was any connection to the first episode. Suffice to say, it’s all very clever and it definitely keeps you guessing.
The other thing that makes this different from American adaptations of Harlan Coben novels is that this series is much, much darker. So expect a lot of violence and really horrible stuff to happen, some of which I imagine might be triggering for some people.
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