Episode Guide
Guillaume Ines Daco Nora Fred – | Review Score – 3.5/5 Gone For Good is a five episode French series and another adaptation from thriller maestro Harlan Coben. This has become somewhat of a murder mystery trend as of late, and there’s a distinct style to Coben’s writing that lends itself nicely to the small screen. There’s obviously been a lot of adaptations recently though, including Safe and The Stranger, right the way through to The Innocent which released several months ago. Next up on this conveyor belt of twisty-turny thrillers is Gone For Good. While not an outstanding offering, it’s a solid, no-nonsense series that has enough in the tank to stick with until the end. The structure here essentially carves up this enticing mystery into five different perspectives. Each chapter follows a different player, seeing events play out across different timelines from multiple perspectives. It’s a pretty clever idea in truth, one that allows crucial clues and exposition to be drip-fed in an organic way. However, the show does sometimes feel overlong with one episode in particular (episode 3) not doing enough too actually progress the central mystery along. Now, had there been several different subplots in this to serve as busywork it wouldn’t be so much of a problem but it’s particularly noticeable here given the intense focus on the main questions driving the series forward. These questions come in the form of a two-fold mystery – one from 2010 and another from the present day. During 2010, Guillaume watches as his brother is shot dead by an enraged gunman down by the docks. Just prior to this though he heard muffled arguing outside, which could well prove to be the catalyst to what followed. Guillaume’s Mother, grieving hard for her deceased son, tragically passes away as we cut forward to the present day timeline. Despite grieving, Guillaume hopes to move on with his life, closely tied to his girlfriend Judith. Only, when she goes missing and secrets from the past start to tumble out, Guillaume finds his world turned upside down. The story is compelling enough to stick with, even if the first episode does take a while to get going. When it does though, the series is crying out to be binge-watched (which is what I did, to be honest) and it does make for a more engrossing and compelling watch that way. The flashbacks are a bit of a mixed bag at times, and the constant jumps can become a little tiresome at times. Despite that, the show does well to keep this consistent right the way through, with the final episode actually doing well to pepper in meaningful flashes to show exactly what happened at key moments of this mystery. With a decent enough ending and some lovely twists and turns along the way, Gone For Good is a solid mystery offering. It may not be the best Coben offering out there, but it is certainly compelling enough to stick with until the end.
