Netflix’s ‘Caught’ Brings a Harlan Coben Mystery to Argentina
Netflix adapts Harlan Coben’s novel about a journalist searching for a missing teenage girl in the slick, stylish limited series ‘Caught,’ set in Argentina.
Harlan Coben’s work heads to yet another country in the new Netflix limited series Caught. The global appeal of Coben’s stories is key to the massive success of the numerous TV shows based on his novels, and Caught proves once again that his twist-filled stories can be relevant in any language and any location. Set in the picturesque lakeside Argentine city of Bariloche, Caught is an intricate mystery weaving together the disappearance of a teenage girl and the efforts to catch an online child predator.
Journalist Ema Garay (Soledad Villamil) is at the center of both investigations, and Caught is structured a bit more like a traditional detective story than Netflix’s other standalone Coben adaptations. Ema’s popular online series Caught, in which she confronts unsuspecting criminals on camera, has put her on the trail of an alleged abuser who recruits underage victims via an online video game.
As always in a Coben series, there are multiple interrelated mysteries playing out at the same time, but Caught keeps the focus on Ema, filtering all of the subplots through her investigations. The report about the elusive online stalker eventually dovetails with the disappearance of local teenager Martina Schulz (Carmela Rivero), who happens to be both a classmate of Ema’s son Bruno (Matías Recalt) and the neighbor of the former wife of troubled-teen counselor Leo Mercer (Alberto Ammann). Leo becomes the key figure in the overlapping storylines, especially after Ema makes a potentially tragic error about his involvement.
Early in the series, when Ema simply sees Leo as an advocate for the young people she’s trying to protect, the two of them form the kind of romantic connection that’s rare in Coben stories, which mostly feature established and/or estranged couples. The romance is doomed, of course, but it offers a different avenue for character development in a show that otherwise follows a familiar template for success.
That template is successful for a reason, and Caught is the latest Coben series (after the Polish production Just One Look earlier in the same month) to hit Netflix’s top 10, demonstrating viewers’ seemingly insatiable appetite for Coben adaptations. The six episodes are full of shocking reveals and unexpected plot developments, unfolding even after some aspects of the mystery seem to have been resolved. Coben fans will get exactly what they’re looking for, delivered in a slick, stylish package.
Series creators Ana Cohan and Miguel Cohan make effective use of the gorgeous Bariloche setting, highlighting the region’s unique position as a tourist destination and a magnet for wealthy developers. Those minor tweaks ground the story in a specific location while retaining the essential narrative structure of the novel. As in previous international Coben adaptations, his story proves reliably gripping in any culture or language.
With its comparatively streamlined ensemble, Caught puts the spotlight on veteran Argentine actress Villamil, best known in the U.S. for starring in Oscar-winning film The Secret in Their Eyes. Villamil conveys Ema’s conflicted position as her reporting unravels long-buried secrets with devastating consequences.
Ema also struggles to hold her personal life together, still grieving the husband she lost to a drunk driver. Although all of Netflix’s Coben adaptations are standalone stories, it’s not hard to see Ema returning for another season, taking on a new case. She falls in line with the long crime-fiction tradition of the reporter as detective.
For now, though, Netflix is on to the next self-contained Coben show, with several series in the works from other countries. Whether Ema Garay returns or not, Caught proves that Argentina is yet another locale where Coben’s stories can expand and thrive.
By clicking 'Sign Up,' I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
What To Read Next
Josh Bell is a freelance writer and movie/TV critic based in Las Vegas. He has written about movies, TV, and pop culture for the Boston Globe, Vulture, Tom’s Guide, Inverse, Crooked Marquee, and more. With comedian Jason Harris, he co-hosts the podcast Awesome Movie Year.