Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Woods’ On Netflix, A Polish Adaptation Of A Harlan Coben Novel That Spans 25 Years

Harlan Coben‘s novels lend themselves to TV adaptations because their mysteries are twisty without being confusing, and the protagonists are just conflicted enough to be interesting. What’s interesting is that Coben’s novels, most of which take place in his home state of New Jersey, seem to translate quite well to other locales around the world. The Stranger was adapted for a British setting, and The Innocent was made into an upcoming Spanish series. Then there’s The Woods, which is Netflix’s second Polish original series. Based on Coben’s 2007 novel, it spans a quarter-century, bouncing back and forth from 1994 to 2019.

THE WOODS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A middle-aged man, tears budding from his eyes, stares at the barrel of a gun. “Things do not slow down when you’re staring at a gun,” a voice says.

The Gist: As he’s staring, a shot rings out. Then we go back to August, 1994, in the Korczak High School Summer Camp. In the woods near the camp, a young man spies a crime scene being processed and a body being zipped into a body bag. When the detective on the scene catches his eye, he slowly backs away.

That man is Paweł Kopiński (Hubert Miłkowski), a junior counselor at the camp. It’s near the end of the summer, and the kids are having a good time. He’s interested in a fellow counselor named Laura Goldsztajn (Wiktoria Filus), and his sister Kamila (Martyna Byczkowska), also at the camp, pokes fun at his crush, asking him if he likes her or just wants to get laid. Also at the camp is their mother (Ewa Skibińska), who is the camp’s doctor. Another person at camp is Artur Pekowski (Adam Wietrzyński), whose mother (Izabela Dąbrowska) works at the camp as a custodian.

One night, Laura, Paweł and Artur spy an abandoned car in the woods just beyond the camp fence; Artur leads the way to seeing if they can go for a joyride; as they speed through the woods, they hit a bump, and Artur wonders if he hit someone.

Cut to 2019. An adult Paweł (Grzegorz Dami��cki), a prosecutor and single dad, is at his daughter’s diving meet with an adult Laura (Agnieszka Grochowska), who is still a close friend; in fact, his late wife is Laura’s sister. She watches his daughter and hers at her apartment after the meet because he has to go back into the office to review a case. While there, a detective enters and asks him to come to the morgue. There, he meets Inspector Jork, who shows him the body of someone who had clippings about Paweł’s cases. Paweł doesn’t recognize the person or his name, so he tells Jork that he has nothing to do with this person.

Back in 1994, Artur makes out with a pretty, popular camper named Monika (Kinga Jasik), but is interrupted by his mother. That night, the campers are dancing to the Spin Doctors during one of their nightly parties, when Atrur spies Monika kissing another guy, he runs in and starts a fight, and the other guy makes fun of the fact that his mother “cleans my shit.” After that, realizing that he liked Monika more than she liked him, he and Paweł get drunk with some other counselors.

In the present, Paweł comes back from the morgue and talks to Laura about how his mother just up and left him and his father when he was a kid. The case he’s working on, a rape accusation against two boys, is complicated by the fact that the father of one of the boys, Krzysztof Dunaj-Szafrański (Cezary Pazura), doesn’t think his son is guilty and wants to pay Paweł to forget the whole thing. When Paweł refuses, Krzysztof promises he’ll dig up dirt on him, because “everyone’s got secrets. And I’m a fucking good reporter.”

At camp, Paweł and Laura sneak away into the woods on the last night to finally consummate their budding romance. But, just as they’re getting started, they hear the yelping of a coyote and they run off.

Paweł calls Jork and asks to see the body again. He tells the inspector that, during the summer of ’94, four campers where he was a junior counselor went into the woods and never came back out. Two of the bodies were found; the other two, including Artur and Paweł’s sister Kamila, were never found. Once he realizes who the body he’s looking at was, he wonders if his sister is still alive.

Our Take: The Woods (original title: W głębi lasu) is an adaptation of Harlan Coben’s novel, replacing the novel’s New Jersey setting with Poland (Coben is one of the executive producers). Much of what you’d expect from a Harlan Coben adaptation is there, though; a complex mystery involving a missing person, a conflicted and emotionally-crippled protagonist, and people that help and hurt his case along the way. The big difference here is that we’re flashing back between 2019 and 1995, with each person in the present having memories of what went on in the past to inform both the case of Kamila’s missing body and Paweł’s current rape case.

That back and forth makes the first episode of this six-episode first season a bit disjointed, as we don’t get a full picture of Paweł’s life in the present, and what we see in 1994 is more in the form of snapshots. There seems to be a connection between what happened the night Artur thought he ran over someone in that car and the crime scene Paweł observed, though the thought is that the body that was there was likely already dead before Artur ran it over. But that’s just a guess.

The scenes in the camp feel more like nostalgic ’90s flashback scenes of teens drinking than anything having to do with the tragedy that happened at the end. In fact, we don’t even know who the other two teens who went missing, besides Artur and Kamila. It’s weird how writers Agata Malesińska and Wojciech Miłoszewski spent the entire first episode setting up what went on in the camp, and then just had Paweł explain what happened to Inspector Jork when he returned to the morgue. We’re also not sure how Paweł remembered who that body might be. Was it through the flashbacks we saw?

When we get into Laura’s memories of the summer, and the path the two of them took from being together to being in-laws, things will solidify more. It’s also pretty obvious that the reporter dad of one of the rape case suspects will dig up info on Paweł’s time at the camp that’s going to affect both the past and present cases. Just how much time is spent on either case will determine how effective the mystery at the center of the show is.

Sex and Skin: Some very clothed sex between Paweł and Laura in the woods, and that’s about it.

Parting Shot: After identifying the body as Artur, Paweł tells the story about what happened at the end of the summer, and is overwhelmed by the idea that his sister might actually be alive.

Sleeper Star: Wiktoria Filus is excellent as the young Laura. We’ll be seeing a lot of her in Laura’s flashbacks, and we’re very happy about that prospect.

Most Pilot-y Line: Could the choice of music played before the Artur fight scene, “Two Princes” by Spin Doctors, be any more 1994 if they tried?

Our Call: STREAM IT. The performances of both the young and middle-aged versions of the main characters in The Woods are a good reason to keep watching. But the mystery is just complex and intriguing enough to justify watching those performances.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream The Woods On Netflix