The Stranger (Harlan Coben) - Netflix - (***Spoilers***)

Agent Coulson

Drops January 30th.

Starring Richard Armitage, Jennifer Saunders, Siobhan Finneran & Hannah John-Kamen

We all have secrets. Based on the novel by Harlan Coben, The Stranger forces us to confront a question we all fear - how well do we really know the people closest to us?

Slydice

Hannah John-Kamen!

but like.. is this show (writing, directing etc) itself gonna be any good? looks like a maybe/maybe not

Homelander

Isn't that the guy who wrote the book on which Netflix based a TV show about Michael C Hall's daughter going missing? It wasn't spectacular but I did really enjoy it. Though a lot of that probably down to me being a huge Michael C Hall fan.

The Princess Bride

I have read all of Harlan Coben's books, he's one of only a handful of authors whose books I buy, as opposed to library/kindle.
I loved this book.

I saw the trailer and was disappointed that it's set in england whereas the book is set in New Jersey.
So the english accents will take some getting used to as in my head, the characters are/should be American

I hope it'll be so good I'll be distracted and won't notice.

The Princess Bride

The Princess Bride wrote: »

I have read all of Harlan Coben's books, he's one of only a handful of authors whose books I buy, as opposed to library/kindle.
I loved this book.

I saw the trailer and was disappointed that it's set in england whereas the book is set in New Jersey.
So the english accents will take some getting used to as in my head, the characters are/should be American

I hope it'll be so good I'll be distracted and won't notice.

So, I watched the opening episode today.
Am delighted to say that I'm hooked already, it looks very promising.

It's been a while since I read the book, so I can't remember the finer details.
Am gonna binge watch the rest this weekend as a birthday treat to myself

Slydice

1: What's going on! Is this gonna be about

a cult or is it supernatural like a werewolf

or something? It didn't feel like it had a hook but it slowly worked one up and then that last scene. Maybe this is all just a plain cop thing though.. maybe Hannah John-Kamen

is the younger fake-pregnant woman from the wifes story.

The Princess Bride

Slydice wrote: »

1: What's going on! Is this gonna be about

a cult or is it supernatural like a werewolf

or something? It didn't feel like it had a hook but it slowly worked one up and then that last scene. Maybe this is all just a plain cop thing though.. maybe Hannah John-Kamen

is the younger fake-pregnant woman from the wifes story.

No.
All I'll say is all of his books are 100% believable, nothing supernatural or nonsensical at all.

Keep watching, I'm halfway through and will finish it tonight.
Enjoy.

I love hannah john kamen so i started watching and am hooked now

Agent Coulson

That was a fantastic mystery mini series from start to finish I must say one of the better ones I have watched in a long time.

finished bingeing it last night. was brilliant

Slydice

2: Alright! Phew! I think this episode clarifies that we're well into the middle of some bigger plot.

So, I'm guessing:

• The Stranger
  has had some con going on for a while now.
• The wife
  wasn't done by Suzanne Hope.. that it was probably the other way around
• Stephen Rea
  is gonna be involved in solving all of this!
  Stephen Rea really does this type of character so well!
• The kids
  had two things happen .. yer man went off and did the Alpaca.. then maybe either one or both of the other two were involved with the kid who fell.

brian_t

The Princess Bride wrote: »

I have read all of Harlan Coben's books, he's one of only a handful of authors whose books I buy, as opposed to library/kindle.
I loved this book.

I saw the trailer and was disappointed that it's set in england whereas the book is set in New Jersey.
So the english accents will take some getting used to as in my head, the characters are/should be American

I hope it'll be so good I'll be distracted and won't notice.

A French adaptation of his 2004 novel Just One Look starts on More4 this Friday at 9pm.

Last year More4 showed a French adaptation of his 2003 novel No Second Chance. Harlan Coben had a cameo role in that one.

The Princess Bride

brian_t wrote: »

A French adaptation of his 2004 novel Just One Look starts on More4 this Friday at 9pm.

Last year More4 showed a French adaptation of his 2003 novel No Second Chance. Harlan Coben had a cameo role in that one.

I've only seen the 2006 film Tell No One, again made in France.

Would love to see his Myron Bolitar books adapted for television.
I'd imagine it would be easier, in terms of longevity for multiple seasons, as the same characters are in all of these.

Blanco100

End of episode 2. Absolute codswallop, the acting is ridiculous.

If this is the ****e that passes as a thriller these days then I despair.

Slydice

3: Hrrmmmm at this point it's starting to look a little like

this could all be down to yer mans Dad who's trying to buy the house for his big redevelopment project. Like maybe he hired 'The Stranger' TM to work for him. That maybe the other woman who's about to be married is their main job but this is how they pay the bills. Cop might be workin for yer mans Dad too.

JP Liz V1

Jennifer Saunders in a drama thriller :eek:

The Princess Bride

I finished it, really enjoyed it.
Might go read the book again as I don't remember whether all of that was in it.

Tristram

Had promise but was a let-down in the end. Disappointing.

PropJoe10

Enjoyed it but the last episode was pretty terrible. Not sure about it!

sham69

the missus was watching it and to be honest the first few episodes had me entrigued.
Some of the acting was awful, decent story let down by the ending.

Slydice

5: :eek:

It's all connected!

This episode seemed to clear

the grandad.

Of the kids,

the older girl Daisy seems to be acting very suspiciously.. like.. did she poison the younger girl there or something?

Some moments in this episode were very well directed. I checked wiki and sure enough the director had changed over to Hannah Quinn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stranger_(miniseries)
I was like.. ah that's gas, she must be from Ireland, she did a bit of work on the TV3 show Red Rock:
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0703854/
Then I looked at her assistant director roles! She helped out on Black Hawk Down! Gladiator, The Martian, Saving Private Ryan, Children of Men, The Martian, and Black '47!

Someone throw that woman a decent show/film!

Homelander

Was genuinely intruiging for a bit but I thought it was pretty bad by the end. That's the problem with a lot of shows, trying to tie up the gripping ends is a major let down more often than not.

Wailin

Blanco100 wrote: »

End of episode 2. Absolute codswallop, the acting is ridiculous.

If this is the ****e that passes as a thriller these days then I despair.

I only got as far as episode one. Awful rubbish and agree, acting was shocking. Dervla Kirwin is so unwatchable in this.

Blanco100

Wailin wrote: »

I only got as far as episode one. Awful rubbish and agree, acting was shocking. Dervla Kirwin is so unwatchable in this.

Thought it was some kind of parody. Dervla Kirwan was desperately bad in it.

JoeA3

Blanco100 wrote: »

Thought it was some kind of parody. Dervla Kirwan was desperately bad in it.

She wasn't in it that much though, other than a lot of flashbacks?

I finished it lastnight. It was watchable imo, reminded me a lot of something you'd see on ITV years ago. Kinda old fashioned British mystery drama. Some of the acting was ropey enough I agree and the last episode was a letdown. The end was just stupid.

oneilla

Interesting premise that looked like a promising thriller but it quickly dissolved into a bad soap opera like one of those Brookside weekend specials. Tone and pacing did nothing for me and the

twist regarding Stephen Rea/Stranger's father was well telegraphed

. Thumbs down imo.

Someone mentioned that the book was set in New Jersey USA, maybe an American location and a different production could've worked out something better.

Sir Oxman

Yep, a waste of my time.

Essien

I'm disappointed in myself for watching it all the way to the end when it became clear about half way through that it was never going to make much sense.

Showed a glimmer of promise, but ended up being absolutely awful stuff.

cdgalwegian

Essien wrote: »

I'm disappointed in myself for watching it all the way to the end when it became clear about half way through that it was never going to make much sense.

Showed a glimmer of promise, but ended up being absolutely awful stuff.

I watched the first one with my wife, as she gets her recommendations from that FB place and she thought it might be something we could both watch. Grudgingly watched the second- compelled to watch the third, but refused to watch any more. Utter scutter.
I thought Siobhan Finneran was quite good in it though.

joe_99

Utter rubbish. Don't waste your time with this.

Totally unbelievable. Badly acted, badly paced, glossy soap opera nonsense.

Blanco100

joe_99 wrote: »

Utter rubbish. Don't waste your time with this.

Totally unbelievable. Badly acted, badly paced, glossy soap opera nonsense.

Exactly, glossy crap. was amazed to see the positive reviews of this. Must be from people who enjoy hollyoaks and home and away and the like.

Tandey

Blanco100 wrote: »

Exactly, glossy crap. was amazed to see the positive reviews of this. Must be from people who enjoy hollyoaks and home and away and the like.

I don’t watch any of those you mentioned or any soaps for that matter.

Finished watching the stranger yesterday. Very enjoyable watch. Interesting storyline which came together quite well.

MICKEYG

A few open questions for me;
Why did the cop have to kill Jennifer Saunders. Was he not looking to track down the two 'stranger' girls. Killing her made that harder.

What happened to the mother who was poisoning her kid and why was she doing it.

It seemed to me that Corinne should have spilled the beans on everything when she was caught faking a pregnancy. She has no right to ask for more time.

ibarelycare

MICKEYG wrote: »

A few open questions for me;
Why did the cop have to kill Jennifer Saunders. Was he not looking to track down the two 'stranger' girls. Killing her made that harder.

What happened to the mother who was poisoning her kid and why was she doing it.

It seemed to me that Corinne should have spilled the beans on everything when she was caught faking a pregnancy. She has no right to ask for more time.

I finished it last night, and this was something I was really confused about. At the end of episode 7 I was wondering how they were going to wrap it all up in one last episode, and then it was so rushed and unbelievable and left lots of unanswered questions. I enjoyed it for the most part, but disappointed with the ending.

correction

They made quite a big deal out of Corrine saying to the husband 'there is so much more to this' or something to that effect after he confronted her about the pregnancy. But there wasn't was there? The stolen money and the sick girl had absolutely nothing to do with the fake pregnancy or am I missing something? They kept seeming to suggest that these things were linked but I don't see it.

DvB

Finished watching this last night with the Mrs, I thought it was an absolute disjointed mess of a story line & had some terrible acting thrown in for good measure. If theres a follow up to it addressing any of the gaps I'll leave it to herself to watch as I'd happily leave this well enough alone now.

gmisk

Up to episode 5....it is kind of awful but strangely compelling.
The acting from some people in it... especially the fat friend....terrible.
Will still watch rest of it.
Hopefully it's all tied up by end of episode 8

gmisk

I also could do without another bloody flashback to Dervla Kirwan and the fake baby loss zzz

beertons

Got through 3 episodes areir. Only for work today, I'd probably have watched 2 more. Very good so far. Burst out laughing when I heard the woman name all the white Alpacas, my wife didn't get it at all.

gmisk

I watched the rest of it to get it out of the way.
Rubbish with rubbish storyline it is a total hate watch.
Some of the acting and so called twists absolutely awful the majority were telegraphed..the others made little sense..it was just utter nonsense...

cdgalwegian

Utter scutter.

DrumSteve

I still don't get how they blamed Katz on killing Tripp at the end... Made literally no sense. When was he meant to have killed him? Why would he have even been there?

gmisk

DrumSteve wrote: »

I still don't get how they blamed Katz on killing Tripp at the end... Made literally no sense. When was he meant to have killed him? Why would he have even been there?

I thought they planted gun back at crime scene and same gun used to kill Tripp.
Ah look it makes little sense when you look at it close...it sucked

It's very more-ish and tense yet full of holes. It'd fairly ridiculous. I wouldn't be watching this if the gf didn't want to but I'm being polite and finding mildly enjoyable.

yerwanthere123

Some harsh comments on here. Watched the whole series, overall it was ok. Something to watch whilst you're waiting for a better series to start but certainly not one of Netflix better shows. A lot left unexplained at the end, also I think it would've been much better without the sub-plot of Thomas and his two dopey friends. Perhaps my interest had just waned too much by the end, but was it ever actually explained why Corinne faked the pregnancy?

bottlebrush

yerwanthere123 wrote: »

Some harsh comments on here. Watched the whole series, overall it was ok. Something to watch whilst you're waiting for a better series to start but certainly not one of Netflix better shows. A lot left unexplained at the end, also I think it would've been much better without the sub-plot of Thomas and his two dopey friends. Perhaps my interest had just waned too much by the end, but was it ever actually explained why Corinne faked the pregnancy?

She thought her husband was having an affair and wanted to get back his attention?

Unearthly

Thought this show was the definition of average. Seen it all before. Zero creativity. Cast and crew phoning it in

beertons

Terrible ending.

stronglikebull

I thought this was very good after the first two episodes. It made it appear that all the different stories were somehow connected, and that it would all tie in together in the end. It did however, not do that. So much made no sense. Katz killing Jennifer Saunders just didn't seem like it would help him, and it's not like they portrayed him as a deranged killer or anything, he's just looking to get some quick scam-cash from the televangelist of some sort. Speaking of which, that was a story to go nowhere too.

The ending with them framing Katz for killing Tripp was just too far for me. Tripp's death would be after Katz was either on the run, kidnapping other cops and his wife, and then already in custody. Also, was it to be believed that he also beat Corinne to death and buried her, for some unknown reason? Maybe they just expected people to believe it was connected to him going after The Stranger and anyone connected to her, in the way he went for Saunders.

What was the deal with Stranger/Chrissy going to see her dad in the hospital then too. That just seemed like a bit of the story was dropped on the cutting room floor, or did I fall asleep and miss something?

Anyway, I'm sorry I ever watched this. It was crap, rubbish, and not at all good. I'll be deleting it from my watchlist in case there's ever a season 2.

DrumSteve

DrumSteve wrote: »

I still don't get how they blamed Katz on killing Tripp at the end... Made literally no sense. When was he meant to have killed him? Why would he have even been there?

They made it look like a suicide. Four self inflicted shots to the chest.

ibarelycare

Was it explained why Martin kept referring to his son Christopher, when in fact it turned out that his child was a daughter?