Netflix The Stranger - Anyone up for discussion with spoilers?

[Dennisreynoldsduster]

Just finished it and I’m curious to see what people thought - with SPOILERS allowed so don’t read on if you haven’t seen it or haven’t finished it!

Just finished it.
My main question was "who did hire the stranger?" Tripp denied it (and felt believable) so that was left out.
Was enjoyable tosh. I had read the book a while ago but could not remember any of that afterwards!

Can someone point to an example of what was so bad about the acting here?

For me personally it was the teenage friend, the one who was spiked. He made me cringe in every single scene he was in, I thought he was terrible.

who did hire the stranger?

That was Bob, the football coach. In the book it is Tripp, which makes more sense.

Also binged on this - agree about enjoyable tosh! Particularly the last 2 episodes when it just seemed to get more and more frenetic and make less and less sense!

Houses to die for and just loving the teacher’s salary stretching to the house, 2 cars inc Range Rover - made Tripp a shoo-in for a dodgy embezzler at the very least.

The bit with Bob the coach was really baffling and didn’t seem to tie in. Just another scene for Adam to run round confronting someone in his epic sprint round Manchester and surrounding areas. In fact there was a lot of jumping into cars and driving off fast!

Finally - what a cow Daisy was. Spiked someone’s joint with PCP and left someone naked in the woods in the pitch dark and didn’t seem to wonder what had happened to him at any point.

I also thought Dennis Pennis/Katz was a bit rubbish, acting-wise. He was just so ridiculously shifty and out of place (all the other coppers were rather shiny and well-dressed!).

Some of them were more like caricatures, if you know what I mean, like Bob, and the llama-killing teen. And yes, Daisy was rotten to the core I reckon!

Just started watching Safe but I'm not sure I can take that awful accent long enough to see it through.

If Chris and Main Guy grew up on a terraced street how come he didn’t recognize her?🤔

I enjoyed the nice cars and the flash homes!
The acting was a bit hit and miss at times but the lady policewoman was very good and I did enjoy it all overall. Binge watched it in the end.

YaWee I wondered that too. I have two theories: either they're far enough apart in age that she was just a child when he was last living on the street so he doesn't recognize her as an adult. She apparently left home at a young age and/or Adam's family moved away at some point. OR Chris mentioned (I don't remember exactly when or to whom) that she had had 'surgery'. I wondered if perhaps they were alluding to sex reassignment surgery and that's why Adam didn't recognize her.

(That last may be far fetched) 🤷🏼‍♀️

Across, funnily enough I was thinking exactly the same! I think that that would have been an excellent twist in the plot...

I binge watched it while on holiday, was pleased to recognise Stockport Market Hall. I enjoyed it despite the weird disconnect between the original plotline, very American, being translated to Manchester suburbia. All the actors appeared to be playing Brit versions of US characters. Maybe that’s why the acting was so dire.

I binged this yesterday after numerous recommendations and it was something that passed the time quite quickly. It was a bit Hollyoaks After Hours though, with the focus on the teenagers which amounted to nothing.

Presumably, there's a big age gap between Adam and Chris which would explain why the wouldn't know each other. Adam seems mid 40s and Chrissy late 20s at a push.

I think I am going to watch the last 5 minutes again as I couldn't pick up why Chrissy was still looming over them all in the final scene. I thought her and Adam would have bonded by then.

Naice houses!

Aah watched it again so now realise she absconded from the police. That's what happens when you try to watch something while overseeing a sleepover for four 8 year olds!

I was intrigued by the old trains ; the blue intercity ones with the British rail logo on the engine amongst others! I'm not a train spotter , but it brought back memories of going on one to Exeter from London in the mid 70s! None of them had northern accents either more London or Home Counties.
It must have cost a fortune to make as there was a lot of outside broadcasting going on and hiring out those lovely homes.
Overall I thought it was good but had a lot of plot holes as most dramas do!

For me personally it was the teenage friend, the one who was spiked. He made me cringe in every single scene he was in, I thought he was'

Ah, I thought he was fab.

The one who played Mike ( spiky hair) wasn't great ; the two sons were ok and plausible enough.
How did Tripp know they were tracing Corinne 's phone and managed to leave it by the bridge just in time? I'm thinking he may have taken them to the station via the app then driven off to the bridge knowing they would follow it. He was very quick there.
I can't recall Adam telling Tripp it had a tracker on it but when you binge watch you do miss things.
Clever how they fitted up Katz for the murder of both of them. He was evil though!
Having a funeral outside for Heidi was different and a bit American! Most funerals in the U.K. are held inside a chapel of some sort mostly.

I'm confused with the timeline where Daisy gave Mac the PCP at the rave, he beheaded the alpaca and then he turned up later at the house with it but before they all went off to the rave!

Mac? I meant Max, no I meant Mike!

I lot of it went into flashback mode so it was a tad confusing sometimes.
I thought they all went to the rave together but Daisy went off with Dante leaving Mike with the others then he went off to to find the random alpaca as he had taken the drug without knowing and it had taken effect by then? He showed up with the animal head in the bag after the eldest boy got back from the rave. The next time mike knocked for them was to go to another party another time?
It wasn't made clear really.

That of course makes perfect sense. I didn't realise that he turned up to the window twice.

I don't know if they went to two parties but I did get the impression they had more than one. The timelines were a bit muddled though!

Place marking without reading the thread as I’m 3 episodes.

The problem with Anthony Head being in things is that I get distracted by spotting how he’s hiding his hand.

Adam’s dob was shown as 1974 in the last episode so he’s at least twenty years older than Chris.

I’m glad someone named Safe upthread, I’ve been racking my brains to remember the title. Its another UK Harlen Coben adaptation that was on Sky a couple of years ago and is really similar. improbably beautiful houses, central Everyman character (missing daughter rather than wife), teens, lots of red herrings.

There was a bit that really annoyed me when Jo said to Adam that they'd checked the cctv at the airport and Corinne definitely didn't get a plane 'unless she was using a false passport.' Made no sense at all as surely they were checking the cctv in case she had used a false passport, to see if they could identify her. Made me realise the dialogue wasn't thought through at all.

That's interesting about Anthony Head's hand. I've never noticed it before.
Jeremy Beadle also had a withered hand.
I read it in a newspaper once years ago then he was on the tv on ' Beadle's about ' and I was fascinated by how much smaller it was than his other hand.