Stay close is a limited series produced for Netflix by the Red Production Company. It is very British and I watched it in one go yesterday evening.
I was drawn to the voice of the leading character, actress Cush Jumbo once she came on screen and I just decided to stay even though I wasn't sure that a murder mystery was something I was in the mood for. I am happy I made the choice to stick to it because this series is intriguing and mysterious enough to keep you guessing to the last minute, and wrongly too. Yes, I did not see the end coming. Not even close. It was that good.
The series is an interconnected one, revealing the lives of each character connected in some way to the disappearance and rumored reappearance of a man called Stewart Green whom everyone thought to have been killed some 17 years back. Stewart was a bald headed man obsessed with Cassie(Cush Jumbo) in her past life where she worked as a stripper. On the night of his murder, Cassie found his body in the forest, she ran and never looked back. She also ran away from the man she loved, a photographer called Ray Levine. She changed her name to Megan, rebranded, had three kids with Dave her new boyfriend and lived in this world until the woman Cassie had worked for turned up one day in her new life to inform her that Stewart was back.
After this, we hear and witness a new murder of a young man named Carlton who coincidentally also tried to spike Cassi's daughter's drink at a club. This is just one example of how interconnected these characters were without realizing at the time these events were occurring. The police team led by Detective Brooke and his ex wife find even more disappearances linked to specific dates in April where men like Stewart Green and Carlton had disappeared and this is where they get their first realization that this might just be the work of a serial killer.
While Cassie is trying to dig deeper without arousing her family's suspicions of her past and her angst, Ray Levin, the photographer she ghosted and who loved her was doing the same with the pictures he took on his camera as he suffered from a black out on crucial dates when the murders had occurred. There's a lot of flashbacks from the characters that it makes you suspect everyone in varying degrees of faltering in their recollection or hiding purposefully to protect someone they love from taking the fall for crimes they feel they committed.
This film shows that it can take years(it certainly did for Cassie) before your past catches up with you but don't mistake that for a forgetfulness in the way the universe works. It also makes you pause to wonder how well you really know a person. I thought Cassie had valid reasons for wanting to flee from her past but I could not help thinking her cruel with the way she ditched a man who loved her without saying goodbye, without caring to know if he took her disappearance well or if he was wallowing in emotional pain and had turned to dangerous coping mechanisms.
I recommend this series especially since it's a limited one and you know that once you're done with all 8 episodes you won't have to wait for two years for the next season or worse, hear that it has been cancelled. The pacing is great, the acting terrific and the suspense enough to keep you interested through the length of it.
I rate it a 9/10. Let me know in the comments section if you've watched it and how it made you feel. Thanks for stopping by!