Hello everyone, it is I, your Feisty Indian Aunty, who just watched the limited series Safe on Netflix. Based on a thriller by Harlen Coben (as a lifelong fan of murder mysteries, I am ashamed to say that I haven’t read any of his books), these eight episodes were dark, and sad, and absolutely riveting. They kept me up. Not just as I binged these episodes into the wee hours of the morning, but also long after as I stayed up thinking about them.
The plot revolves around a small family – a pediatric surgeon (Michael C. Hall), his dead wife Rachel, and his two daughters, Jenny (Amy James-Kelly) who is fractious and disobeys her father, and a younger daughter who appears to be lost with the unhappiness at home. They live in a quiet, protective suburb and the series begins with Amy going out to meet her boyfriend at a party and then not coming home.
It is every parent’s nightmare, and this series manages to craft a very compelling portrait of how one man slowly descends into madness when he is faced with the loss of his child.
Safe was very well crafted. Every episode left me wanting to know what happens next. Yes, some characters can come of as caricatures, but the swift pace of the story kept things ticking along in a way that had me looking past some of those deficiencies.
There were surprises in every episode. There were new takes on why the girl went missing and who might be responsible. Every time you think, “aha, that’s what’s going on,” there’s another twist. This is the kind of series that is built around the fact that everyone has secrets, and whether or not it succeeds or fails is dependent on how interested we end up being in finding out what those secrets are. It’s a potboiler, and the writers here have done a fantastic job in taking the fractured, jigsaw puzzle like nature of a mystery novel, and translating it for the screen. Watching all of this play out had me feeling like I was turning the pages of a book.
I must also add that the series looks great. There is a real claustrophobic atmosphere to these episodes that really add to the overall tension of the story. It had me leaning into my iPad screen throughout.
In Safe, a lot of what happens has to do with past mistakes, and guilt, and long buried secrets coming back to haunt the people of this community. Such things never go away. But what happens when they begin to have consequences on the lives of the next generation, and the generation after that?
Watching it also had me wondering what I would do, as a parent, if my child ever went missing? I think the answer is simple. Everything! There is absolutely nothing I wouldn’t do. In fact, it might be the one thing that makes me engage in criminal behavior. I am one of the most law abiding citizens you’re ever likely to meet. I’ve never beaten a red light. I pay all of my taxes. But if something ever happened to my children, I would do anything to find out what happened.
Dead or alive, whatever the outcome, I don’t think I’m alone in saying that every parent would demand closure. Whatever the reason might be, you will never have peace until you find out.
I really enjoyed Safe. And if you’re a fan of this sort of thing, then I’m pretty sure you will too. What’s more, watching this has inspired me to go out and buy some Harlan Coben novels.
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