Atop the Netflix most-watched chart since it premiered last week, “I Will Find You” is just about as bad as the Harlan Coben content machine gets, a series with barely enough interesting elements for a TV movie, much less eight episodes of boring television. It’s one of those shows with a clever enough hook that people are going to be drawn to it on Netflix; then, my best guess is, they get distracted by something on their phone or just flat-out fall asleep, pushing those numbers higher. As for the former, this might be the best example yet of a show built to be a second screen while the viewer does something more interesting. If you pay attention, you’ll find something better to watch.
As with most Coben, it’s all about the catchy hook. In this case, it’s a photograph that appears to show an unmistakable image of a boy with an uncommon facial birthmark. Rachel Mills (Britt Lower), a former Boston Globe reporter, knows that birthmark: It belonged to the nephew that she believes was murdered five years ago. In fact, Rachel’s former brother-in-law, David Burroughs (Sam Worthington), was convicted of the unthinkable, beating his son to death with a baseball bat. How could the boy still be alive? Wouldn’t it take an impossible cover-up that involves the body of another child and corruption in at least the police force and possibly even higher? Coben, one of the most successful mystery writers in the world, loves this kind of hook that’s reliant on the idea that a perceived domestic dynamic isn’t what it seems.
Before you know it, David’s best friend Adam (Jonathan Tucker) and Adam’s father Philip (Peter Outerbridge), who just happens to be the warden, have conspired to help David break out of jail. As he hits the road with Rachel to clear his name and find out what really happened to his son, the prison break understandably sends waves through his family. Dad Lenny (Hugh Thompson) puts aside his chemotherapy to do what he can for his boy, while David’s ex-wife (Erin Richards) and her new husband Ronald (Aaron Ashmore) can barely keep up with each new development. Milo Ventimiglia prowls the perimeter as Rachel’s clearly shady ex, while Madeleine Stowe makes out best as a woman with enough power to get away with the unthinkable. Clancy Brown also gets an episode as a Boston mobster, and he’s his typically effective self, even if the show does so very little with him.
Most important to the second screen aesthetic that drowns “I Will Find You” in exposition is the introduction of two Boston FBI agents: Max Williams (Chi McBride) and his daughter, Sarah Greer (Logan Browning). While it’s no fault of the relatively engaging performers, these characters exist purely to recap the action every time they’re on screen for the first half of the season. Lest you miss the latest choice by David and Rachel, don’t worry, the people on their tail will be there to remind you what they just did, where they’re going, and what they plan to do next. They’re expository vehicles disguised as characters, only given the slightest agency and interiority later when McBride attempts to inject some emotion into a father-child dynamic that could have been a thematic connection to David’s arc—a fractured father-child relationship helping rebuild a destroyed one—if the writers bothered to think about that kind of thing.
If the constant over-exposition to fill out run time and make sure viewers don’t get lost while they play games wasn’t bad enough, the lead performances do absolutely nothing to convince people to put down their phones. Worthington can be an underrated performer when he’s allowed a little edge (such as in the flawed “Relay”), but he flat-out refuses to fill in the gaps on a non-character like David Burroughs. He’s so flat that one can nearly see him fall asleep, bored by the lack of personality in a character that exists purely to push viewers forward to the next revelation. Lower doesn’t fare much better, a victim of writing and direction that do the bare minimum.
The argument for “I Will Find You”—and other recent similar hits like “His & Hers” and “Run Away,” two projects so much more engaging than this one that I think perhaps I was too hard on them—is that they’re “dumb fun.” Turn off your brain and simply take the ride. And escapism like that can be a necessary part of the entertainment landscape. But “I Will Find You” forgets to be fun. It’s just dumb.
Now on Netflix. Whole series screened for review.
