Caution: Spoilers for the limited series “Run Away” (2026) on Netflix, which is based on the book by Harlan Coben, so this probably contains spoilers for the book too.

The Defense

Wait, so I just Googled and saw that apparently people are hating on this show? What, why? FFS. Redditors really are the most insufferable people. They hate everything, including each other and everyone else. Every time I decide to casually check something on Reddit, I always leave feeling like I need a shower. All of the criticisms in this discussion – “this was stupid,” “that was stupid” – I must really be incredibly stupid indeed, then, because I loved this show.

Okay, I will admit that it did overuse the “dramatic musical sting” effect, especially in that one scene. And I will also give them this, that it did seem totally out of the blue how Simon randomly remembered his wife’s old modelling photos at the end of the show like that; that seemed to come out of the blue. Maybe the circumstances leading to his decision were explained better in the book.

As for the Reddit remarks about gun ownership in the UK and the availability of same-day DNA test results for significantly less than 10K, I can’t comment on that, other than to say that, for me as an ignorant American, it was convincing enough. I once had a writing professor tell me that fiction writers don’t necessarily have to get everything 100% realistic and accurate – they just have to be confident and sell it. And IMO, Harlan Coben really sold it.

One other minor complaint that my husband and I had was: why is the wife in a medically-induced coma for weeks after a shot to the shoulder, when Simon suffered pretty much the same exact injury and was out and about just a few days later? We kept wondering why she was still comatose, lol. Maybe this, too, is explained better in the book.

And now that they mention it, I guess it was pretty silly that Paige was just in rehab the whole time. Like really? While a missing persons report was active? And while her dad was running around getting in all kinds of trouble with drug dealers and such? The wife and her sister knew all along but were keeping it a secret, even through all of this high-stakes drama, simply because Paige has asked them to because she didn’t want Dad to be disappointed? That was the whole reason? 🤔 Imagine how Ingrid will feel when she finds out her husband blew 70k on this while she was asleep. 70k! In retrospect, the rehab thing just didn’t feel like an expensive enough secret.

However: none of these issues took away from my enjoyment of the show while I was watching it. I guess that makes me an idiot. Oh well, that’s not news to any of us around here, is it?

I agree that glaring plot holes do ruin the effect of a story… but I guess in the case of “Run Away,” the holes were, well, not exactly “small/minor” enough, but “sold” well enough that they just didn’t bother me. They blended in. It didn’t feel lazy. It’s like how some people pay good money for ripped jeans. Sure they have holes, but it works!, they look cool!

Like a great pair of ripped jeans, this show, as entertainment, is a 10/10 from me. It’s everything I needed it to be. The storytelling, the pacing, the characters, the twists – no complaints there. Totally engrossing. Just peak escapism.

I’ve never read any Harlan Coben books before, but now I think I probably will. As you know if you read this blog, I am very much in awe of mystery/suspense writers. They’re like sorcerers to me. The ability to captivate a reader/viewer like that, and hold their whole attention span and their emotions in the palm of your hand — to be so wildly entertaining that you can get away with a plot hole or two: it’s a superpower. I’d love to know how they do that.

This was, in some ways, a pretty standard crime thriller – formulaic, some even said – but there were a few things it did that kind of flipped the stereotype on its head, which particularly delighted me:

1, When Elena’s “tech person,” the computer whiz who can hack into anywhere and find out anything online, is her little 75 year old MIL, Lou.

2, Isaac + Ruby’s relationship. I know all the Reddit critics called it “unnecessary,” and maybe it was, but if we always boil a story down to just what’s “necessary,” what are we left with? A single Tweet? A 20-second reel? Why even read (or watch), if you only want what’s “necessary”? Come on now. Imo the love story added something of value. And the thing I really liked about it was, for once we see a very fit, conventionally-attractive man completely enamored of a heavyset woman with a sharp wit and sense of humor. And she seems to wield the power in their relationship: he wants to go public with it, she wants to keep it a secret because of work. Not to mention the way she objectifies him for fun, lol. I’m very much here for this role reversal (and their happy ending).

3, Professor VdB actually being a good guy. It would have been so easy to include another tropey, creepy male professor. I’m kinda glad they showed that it was actually just rumors perpetuated by thirsty female students.

Overall, 10/10 entertainment. I will say though that I had just one serious complaint about the plot. And it is more of a philosophical disagreement than a technical criticism.

The Complaint

When Elena finds out that her dead husband’s secret child was the product of not an affair, but of his so generously donating his sperm to a female friend who wanted to have a baby… and never telling his wife about it… and this exonerates him, in her eyes? She can now forgive him? 🤮 As I told my husband, I would actually much rather he have some passionate affair with another woman than deliberately conceive a child with another woman. Because the latter is so much more serious! Passion is fleeting and meaningless, but the human soul, joined to the body at the moment of conception, is eternal. And the fact that Joel did this knowing that Elena, his wife, couldn’t conceive a child – what a slap in the face! If I were Elena, I wouldn’t have gone and gotten myself killed because I’d be too busy trying to get a posthumous divorce, and/or drawing dicks all over Joel’s headstone with a Sharpie.

For me as a Catholic, this whole brushing off of the seriousness of Joel’s offense as “a selfless favor for a friend,” is just a glaring symptom of our culture’s distorted views on human reproduction. Children are not commodities that you can just decide to piece together at your convenience just because you want one. (Ironic, that this gross offense is cast in such a positive light in this show, while in the same breath the show decries illegal adoptions and the selling of babies, when these two are basically the same thing.) Children are the fruit of the singular, sacred love between husband + wife, co-created by God and entrusted by Him to those parents. When people try to play God with “reproductive technology,” surrogacy, sperm donation, what have you, it distorts that design. (And all kinds of bad things happen: surrogate mothers forced to undergo abortion if the “customer” changes their mind; wrong embryos implanted in the wrong mothers; not to mention the emotional/psychological distress and confusion that comes from being cut off from your biological relations (I mean just look at the whole plot of this show!); & et cetera.) Your DNA, your lineage, isn’t just something you should give away to a buddy or sell to someone who wants to buy it. Children are not products to be bought and sold.

In Conclusion

But, to step off my little soapbox, that’s the only thing that pissed me off about the show. Everything else is excusable, even Elena stupidly hopping in that car with Dee Dee, which was out of character for her. Super entertaining show, tight twists and turns, suspenseful as heck, even some bonus beautiful British scenery thrown in; don’t listen to those bitter Redditors who never like anything anyway.

I especially loved the slightly ambiguous ending. A lingering question is such a juicy cherry on top of a story, for me. Will he tell Ingrid the truth about Aaron, or will he not? IMO, he absolutely should not. Because what good would that accomplish? Why burden her with that knowledge? He better take that secret to the grave. But if you disagree, my inbox is always open, feel free to make your case.