What do you get when you put together a hallmark-level performance, a load of former UK soap stars looking to branch out, and this story from a book that’s actually considered quite good? You get this latest inclusion on Netflix titled Fool Me Once, focusing on a minor stern after her sister and husband were killed.
We followed the police and her, looking to get to the bottom of who was behind the murders. There were many twists and an ending that was a bit ridiculous and unnecessary.
To be honest, I thought this show was pretty weak and lame. It’s not the best show to start the year off with, which is a shame. It felt like a book that hadn’t really been adapted well for TV. In the sense that it felt like the story was being told to us like a novel would be. Rather than changing the delivery so it felt like a TV mystery when it was being shown to us.
Plot & Review
There was almost too much going on at points, and what I describe as page-turners rather than watching the next episode. There’s something about these Harlan Coben shows that get made that just feel like they create them with the least amount of thought behind it in terms of the way that they get delivered. It doesn’t truly feel like a Netflix great, despite the fact that there’s been so many of them.
Michelle Keegan and Adeel Akhtar were definitely the best things about this show. Their performances were really solid when compared to the rest of them, and they were the main takeaways.
Like I said at the start, the show just felt a bit hallmark in terms of its style and execution. It didn’t feel like a dark, mysterious murder mystery that we’d often see on the platform, which is something that I thought was a shame.
Even the reveal of who the murderer was at the end was a massive moment that the entire show had been building towards, but it just didn’t really land with the weight that I feel it wanted to or needed to land with to really stick the ending to us
In terms of the runtime, I feel it could have probably done with being around six episodes instead of eight, especially considering that it’s a limited series. There were elements that I felt could have been cut completely, too.
Like Claire’s son from a previous relationship, it didn’t actually do anything for the development of the story other than make us think that there was something else that was going on with the suspects when, in reality, it was all just a bit pointless.
Filming Locations
Fool Me Once was filmed at a number of locations in Cheshire and the north-western region of England, including Bolton, Manchester, and Oldham. Southern Spain’s Almeria served as the filming location for the episodes in which the series flashes back to Maya’s army days.
Fool Me Once takes place in a fictional place called Winhurst, which we can presume to be in Cheshire. This is different from Harlan Coben’s book, which had New Jersey, USA, as its initial setting.
Alderley Edge
Maya’s home is gorgeous in a completely different sense. It’s blocky and contemporary and features large rooms that flow into the surrounding forest with straight lines. Although we don’t see much of Alderley, we do see a lot of the surrounding country roads. However, as gun rooms are, understandably, very uncommon in the UK, the gun room was added during production.
Arley Hall and Gardens
Judith, the matriarch of the Birkett family, lives in the enormous red brick country home. The actual estate is Arley Hall and Gardens, a historic mansion which is south-east of Arley village in Cheshire, close to Northwich. When Netflix isn’t using it for filming, it is the home of Viscount Ashbrook and his family. The site has been inhabited since the 12th century, despite the fact that the Grade II* house was built in the 1830s.
Alexandra Park
This Oldham park makes a brief yet gloomy cameo in Fool Me Once. This is where Joe gets shot in Maya’s flashbacks. Producer Jessica personally chose the area from Oldham. Jessica said that it’s a wonderful park that is underappreciated.
Even though it rained all night, it was the location where they recorded the flashbacks for Richard’s scene! Since Winhurst Park is meant to be there in the book, they decided to model it after Central Park in New York. They tried to capture the most stunning parts of it because it has a bridge and so many lovely Victorian beauties.
