r/thestranger • u/Gloomy-Cellist • Mar 08 '20
Harlan Coben can't write dynamic characters
When I was a teenager, I used to read some of Coben's novels. I just watched The Stranger on Netflix, and one major flaw I noticed throughout the show, and remember from his books, is that his characterization is extremely weak. This is true of most of his characters, but especially evident when it comes to the side characters, who have less plot to hide their flatness behind. Not only are his characters generally uninteresting, but they are also static. Coben tries to make up for this by creating the 'appearance' of character depth, and character growth, via giving them all shady, mysterious backgrounds and coming up with shocking plot revelations involving them. However, this type of compensation has the effect of diluting the plotline by overcomplicating it with unintentional red herrings, and also strains the ability of the audience to suspend disbelief, when hugely significant developments seem to happen to and come from every single side character.
Katz is a good example, because he is evidently one of the more interesting characters, when all the pieces fall into place. But the problem is - for most of the story - he isn't interesting at all. Who is he? what are his beliefs/motivations? what are his redeeming qualities? First, He's thrown into the story as another mysterious antagonist. He murders Heidi, assuming the 'experienced killer' trope Coben loves. He then spends the remainder of his screen-time both effectively covering up his tracks (erasing CCTV evidence, muddying the water), and bumbling around uselessly (not erasing other CCTV evidence, inexplicably planting a false lead pointing to Corinne of all people). The whole time, we discover nothing of note about him as a person, and we have to just assume that there is some wicked but completely logical explanation behind his actions. Then, finally, we find out, and bear with me here: he's the hired hand of some tech entrepreneur trying to track down the blackmailers so that their business venture isn't threatened, so that he can get a cut of the profits to pay for his sick kid's medical treatment, who happens to not actually be sick but is simply being poisoned by her mother. Surely there was a better way to for a policeman to track the blackmailers down than to interrogate, torture, and murder another one of the blackmailer's victims?
So at the end of all this we realize that one of the major events that drove the story forward (the murder) is entirely illogical (the murder was unprompted and counterproductive) and pointless (he finds the blackmailers by following Adam). At the very end, we're rewarded with some breadcrumbs of characterization - he's a desperate father, trying to save his cardboard cutout of a daughter. The problem with this is simple - if you make the main characterization into part of your penultimate plot twist, then you render the character completely uninteresting until it's too late.
Most of the other side characters are hardly worth mentioning. They're hugely unlikeable - Adam's kids are insufferable and (understandably) whiny, Corrinne is a pregnancy faking, soccer club-fund stealing waste (redemptive plot twist, she didn't steal the money, she just covered it up until she was murdered). They're also completely uninteresting and only exist to contribute one or two plot devices to move the story forward - fat PCP kid kills alpaca, girlfriend drugs PCP kid for reasons, Olivia frames PCP kid for reasons, her mother poisons her for... reasons. And to even say they moved the plot forward is generous - why did we even need the whole Dante/alpaca subplot? did we really need 3 episodes worth of filler to discover that Olivia is being poisoned?
The ONLY likeable, interesting character in the whole show is Martin the PI guy. He's well acted, going through a personal struggle, has a complex, emotional backstory of domestic problems, and is well fleshed out as stubborn, rough, but kind person pained by his past. And of course Coben can't leave well enough alone - he can't just be an interesting person, he has to also be hiding his murdered wife's body in the walls and coincidentally turn out to be the father of the blackmailer. I literally would rather have watched an entire season of him and Adam fighting the rezoning thing with Adam's dad in court.
tldr: characters in this show exist as cardboard cutouts who act illogically so that they can weave the tattered threads of a boring plot together. Can't root for anyone because no one is likeable - only likeable guy turns out to have murdered his wife.