Warning: This article contains spoilers for Missing You
Harlan Coben had us all on the edge of our seats with his latest gripping series – however, viewers aren’t too happy about how it all ended.
Missing You made quite the impression after it landed on Netflix on 1 January, thanks to its surprising celebrity cameos and GK Barry’s bombshell minor role.
And I’m sure I’m not just speaking for myself when I say that John Waite’s track ‘Missing You‘ has been playing on a loop in my head since binge-watching the series.
The mystery thriller centred around Detective Kat Donovan (Rosalind Eleazar) had us all on on tenterhooks, as there were so many twists that a lot of us are now in need of a neck brace.
The five gripping episodes follow the plucky cop’s pursuit for the truth, as she works to find out who really killed her father Clint (Lenny Henry) and why her fiancé Josh (Ashley Walters) suddenly walked out on her.
Kat spots her ex-fella on a dating app 11 years after he ghosted her, which ends up leading her on a wild goose chase as she tries to track him down. Dually, she’s desperately trying to get to the bottom of the mysterious circumstances surrounding her dad’s murder.
But it then emerges that the people closest to Kat have weaved quite the tangled web of lies over the years to ‘protect’ her – and eventually, it all unravels.
In the midst of all this, the detective is also trying to track down a missing mum who’s being held captive by depraved dog breeder Titus (Steve Pemberton).
So as you can imagine, viewers were expecting big things from the finale episode of Missing You, but a lot of people reckon the ending completely missed the mark.
Sorry Coben, but Netflix users aren’t too happy about how the hectic storyline was wrapped up – and who was revealed to be the killer.
Kat’s pursuit for the truth about her father’s murder unearthed some ugly secrets (Netflix)
In the final 45-minute episode, we found out that Kat’s late father Clint was a corrupt cop who was hiding a secret affair with his gay lover Parker (Cyril Nri).
One of his daughter’s pals, Aqua (Mary Malone), ended up spotting the pair canoodling in the street – and Clint heads to her home to warn her to keep her mouth shut.
He begs Aqua not to spill the beans to Kat, but the conversation ends up being quite explosive and he then attacks Aqua – who has rang Kat’s fella Josh for help. Josh then walks in to see Clint clutching a knife and as he struggles to get the weapon off of him, he ends up unintentionally stabbing his father-in-law to death.
Clint’s former partner in the police force, Stagger (Richard Armitage), then walks in, with the trio vowing to cover the murder up and to never reveal the truth to Kat.
It seemed as though the cop had finally got her happy ending at one point, as she was back with Josh after 11 years apart and had a degree of closure regarding her dad’s death.
But then, she is informed that her elusive other half’s finger print was found on the murder weapon – and her world came crashing down once again. Josh finally confesses exactly what happened while Kat is sat there in shock with tears streaming down her face.
Viewers were left disappointed by the ending of the Netflix series (Netflix)
The final shot then shows her reaching out to stroke Josh’s finger as they sit beside each other, both clearly reeling from the situation. And that was that – so I guess Kat’s fate is the last mystery which Coben wanted to leave us with.
However, fans of the show have been taking to social media to express their disappointment about the dramatic ending.
One X user said: “Missing You on Netflix has possibly the worst ending I have ever seen. She might as well as just woken up and it ‘was all a dream’.”
Another wrote: “I loved it up to the ending. What a letdown. I won’t spoil it for you but damn! It had everything, intrigue, a good plot, intense, a guessing game & then, nada.”
A third fumed: “Don’t waste your time on the series Missing You on Netflix. Awful, full of dumb plot holes, and an unsatisfying ending,” while a fourth commented: “I enjoyed Missing You but I think the last episode packed too much in. We could have got an additional two episodes to build up the conclusion.”
Others reckoned it was the perfect way to wrap up the series, with some saying they were ‘shook’ by the revelation that Josh was Clint’s murderer.
Netflix viewers have been left questioning themselves after seeing bizarre celeb cameos in the new Harlan Coben show, Missing You.
The show has continued the newly found Netflix Coben tradition of releasing a new series on New Year’s Day, and many fans have been binging the show to start off 2025.
It has already overtaken Squid Game to become the number one show in the UK, despite the hit Korean show reportedly having the biggest opening of any Netflix show ever.
The cast is packed with familiar faces even beyond the cameos however, with Slow Horses breakout star Rosalind Eleazar leading the show.
Add to that Sir Lenny Henry, Richard Armitage (of course), Ashley Walters, and Jessica Plummer, and it is an absolutely stacked cast.
When watching the new Harlan Coben thriller however, several viewers have been taken aback at some of the unexpected big names with small parts in the series.
The first and most obvious is GK Barry, who appears in the very first shot of the entire show, albeit slightly obscured.
The podcaster, who recently appeared on I’m A Celebrity: Get Me Out of Here, makes her acting debut in the show.
Without spoiling who she is playing, she is shown in the opening scene playing with her hair under a blanket in what seems to be a flashback scene.
GK Barry appears in the new Harlan Coben thriller (Netflix)
Lots of shocked viewers took to Twitter, with one saying: “GK Barry girl, what are you doing here.”
Another said: “No because why is GK Barry in the new Harlan Coben series on Netflix??”
A third tweeted: “I’m so confused just started watching missing you on Netflix and why the f*ck is GK Barry in it.”
The answer, unsurprisingly, is because they asked her to.
In an interview with Cosmopolitan UK, the podcaster said: “They approached my manager and said, ‘We’re doing this new Netflix show, and we’d love Grace to be a little part in it’.
“Well, I’m not going to say no.
“So we got on a call, and they were explaining who my character was, and it made me laugh so much because it’s very on brand”.
GK Barry, whose real name is Grace Keeling, is not the only celeb cameo however.
Matt Willis from Busted also makes a cameo (Netflix)
The other most notable one is Matt Willis, the co-vocalist and bassist for Busted.
Willis appears in the first episode on a date with Eleazar’s DI Kat Donovan.
One fan tweeted: “Started watching missing you on Netflix and up pops Matt Willis as a cameo didn’t even know, what a lovely surprise.”
Another said: “The Matt Willis cameo in #MissingYou is so fun will probs watch the series but 45 seconds or whatever it was of him was wasted we need him in more stuff”.
A third viewer posted: “This new Harlan Coben show giving me jump scare after jump scare. GK Barry? Matt Willis? Wtfffff”.
Harlan Coben appears to have made a sneaky cameo in the Netflix adaptation of his novel Missing You – and you probably didn’t realise it.
Premiering on New Year’s Day, Missing You is the latest of Coben’s mystery-thriller books to make the jump onto screen, following the success of Fool Me Once, The Stranger and Stay Close.
Based off his 2014 book of the same name, Missing You follows a detective who discovers her estranged fiancé on a dating app a decade after he went ‘missing’.
Starring Rosalind Eleazar as Detective Inspector Kat Donovan, she is determined to figure out what happened to her missing fiancé Josh (Ashley Walters), which then leads her to reopen the ‘unsolved mystery surrounding her father’s murder’.
Lenny Henry, Harlan Coben regular Richard Armitage, Mary Malone and Jessica Plummer also feature in the series.
Like Fool Me Once – which went on to be the eighth most-viewed English-speaking show of all time – Missing You is also proving to be hugely popular amongst viewers, with the five-episode series currently holding the top spot on the streamers Top 10 TV programmes in the UK at the time of writing.
But how many of these viewers spotted the sneaky cameo from author Coben himself?
Harlan Coben makes a tiny cameo in the series (Lia Toby/Getty Images)
For those who are yet to spot the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance, Coben can be seen during the series’ opening credits, which features a number of missing person’s posters.
Coben’s picture can be seen to the left of the screen, while Radio Times adds that a number of employees from Quay Street Productions, the company behind the author’s Netflix adaptations, are also included.
Did you spot this one?
The author isn’t the only person to make a cameo in the series either, with viewers also surprised to see podcaster and social media personality GK Barry (real name Grace Eleanor Keeling) pop up on their screens.
Coben can be seen on the left hand side (Netflix)
Barry has a tiny role as the character Vanessa, who is a foot cam girl in the series. The 25-year-old previously revealed in an interview with Cosmopolitan how the cameo came about, explaining that producers reached out to her management team with the role.
“They approached my manager and said, ‘We’re doing this new Netflix show, and we’d love Grace to be a little part in it.’ And I thought, ‘Well, I’m not going to say no’,” she explained.
“So, we got on a call, and they were explaining who my character was, and it made me laugh so much because it’s very on brand.
“They gave me a brief outline of what it was about and read me the lineup of people [involved] and I thought, ‘I absolutely will do that.’ I just wanted to do it because I thought it was kind of iconic. I want to build the CV up so my parents cannot moan about anything!”
A new Harlan Coben mystery thriller has landed on Netflix today, continuing the tradition from Fool Me Once of New Year’s Day releases.
Fool Me Once was a massive surprise hit for Netflix, becoming the platform’s eighth most-viewed English-speaking show of all time.
The streamer has decided to follow this up with yet another Harlan Coben adaption, which was released this morning (1 January).
The show is called Missing You and follows a missing persons detective who comes across her former fiancé on a dating app.
The twist is that he went missing without a trace years ago.
The cast is absolutely stacked, including Rosalind Eleazar, Ashley Walters, Richard Armitage (of course), Sir Lenny Henry, and Jessica Plummer.
Author and creator Coben told Tudum: “Suppose the love of your life vanished, then one day you’re scrolling through one of those apps.
“And all of a sudden he’s back, and it leads to death and destruction and family secrets and all sorts of buried reasons for why he left the first time.”
And the reviews have already been flooding in.
Collider has given the thriller an 8/10, saying ‘the show never loses momentum with a steady rhythm of episodes’.
It added: “Missing You is an extremely bingeable series that offers good answers to its mysteries if you stick with it.
“Before that happens, however, you’ll be on a rollercoaster of twists and seemingly random events that pay off sooner rather than later.
Jessica Plummer and Rosalind Eleazar (Netflix)
“It boasts excellent performances – especially from Eleazar – and, in general, is exactly what you expect from an investigative series. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it sure knows how to spin it.”
Fandom Wire gave the show 7/10, saying: “The new British Netflix adaptation of another Harlan Coben novel, Missing You, is elevated by a strong, layered backstory and excellent performance from Slow Horses’ Rosalind Eleazar.
“That’s not to say the series is a hard-hitting drama, but the series version of a beach read that is meant to be a crime mystery that is light and entertaining rather than something gritty.”
Missing You has also been praised for its diversity.
Sir Lenny Henry spoke in an exclusive interview with LADbible about this, in which he said: “I read the book first, when I was asked to check it out to see if I wanted to be in it.
“I just thought, ‘This is going to be awesome’.
The show landed on Netflix today (1 January) (Netflix)
“Then when I showed up on the set, it was very diverse. So there were black people and brown people and lots of women, and it was just a very diverse set.
“It’s something you don’t… having been in the business a long time when I did Three Little Birds, we did that because I was a producer, but generally, Quay Street Productions [co-producers of the show] have done a thing here.
“To put marginalised people at the centre of a story, to bring them into the centre space and go take the pointy end and to have it be like this, and to have it succeed it’s just a wonderful thing to be part of.”
Missing You is available to stream on Netflix from 8am on 1 January.
Gavin and Stacey fans all seem to have the same complaint after noticing a major character was missing from key moments in the finale.
This Christmas Day saw one of Britain’s most beloved comedies air its finale episode, truly the end of an era. And we’re still not over it.
Pulling in a massive 12.3 million viewers, Gavin and Stacey: The Finale finally (finally) saw the resolution of the show’s real love story.
We’re, of course, talking about the moment Smithy and Nessa were finally able to fully admit their feelings to each other after 17 years of will they/won’t they moments.
The big emotional pay off came after Ruth Jones and James Corden spent over an hour putting fans through the through the wringer one last time, as Smithy nearly married mis-matched fiancee Sonia, while Nessa travelled to Southampton in order to ‘work on the ships’ once again.
But it was all worth it to see the pair finally get married in-front of their family friends before taking a group photo together.
However, viewers were left a little confused after noticing that major character was missing in the finale scene.
Missing someone? (BBC)
Where the hell was Neil the baby?
Played by Oscar Hartland, Neil the baby was a huge part in Smithy and Nessa’s story, with the teenager amongst the congregation to stand up in agreement that his dad shouldn’t marry Sonia. However, Neil was surprisingly absent from the chaotic drive to find Nessa in Southampton and the final photo, a move which appeared strange given the fact that events involved both of his parents.
Viewers watching along at home were also baffled by the decision and headed to social media to share their complaints.
“Why was Neil ‘the baby’ left at his dad’s failed wedding with nobody he knows whilst all the others went to off to Southampton,” one user commented.
“Really feel for Neil the Baby. Smashes his ‘Blackbird’ performance but isn’t invited on the bus to see his mum and dad finally get together, a second person penned. “Socialising at a wedding is hard enough for a 16 year old.”
Neil the not so baby also wowed viewers with a performance of ‘Blackbird’ by The Beatles (BBC)
“Only issue I have with the whole episode is that Neil the Baby was left behind! It’s his mum & dad,” a third viewer commented, while a fourth added: “poor Neil the Baby not involved in the final pic, and how he didn’t make the trip on Dave’s coaches hahahah.”
Eagle-eyed viewers did notice that Neil the baby was present to watch his mum and dad exchange vows, with the final photo likely a final nod to the characters we’ve all grown to love over the years.
