Harlan Coben's I Will Find You Recap Episode 3: The Chase
- Jun 21
- 6 min read
The Rule of Cool in writing happens when what is awesome is prioritised over logic or realism. The understanding is that if something is cool enough, then the audience would love it, regardless of whether it could happen in real life or not. When a law professor who escaped from prison barely a day ago, who was shown to be overwhelmed by the outside world after rejecting visits from it for the past five years, suddenly jumps across a New York rooftop in a foot chase with an FBI agent, that is the Rule of Cool in action. Does it make sense to include it in a story about a father imprisoned for the brutal murder of his three-year-old son, who now was desperate to unravel the conspiracy in hopes of finding him alive? Maybe David Burroughs was a soldier or a secret agent before he became a law professor, and it was his past life that gave him both night terrors and the ability to leap across buildings?
We’re only on the third episode, and we don’t know much about his background yet. What we do know was that David was not without friends, and people who would risk their lives, livelihood, and freedom for him. Take his childhood best friend Adam, who was suspended from his job as a policeman for helping break David out of prison. On his way out, he grabbed the evidence box for Matthew’s case, and that’s just one of the things I’m going to have to accept is possible. Adam also dug up Matthew’s grave, hoping to get a DNA sample to ensure that the body that was buried was indeed David’s son. Only, someone else was there before him. Years before, someone executed a coverup so thorough that they took away the body of the buried boy to make sure it could not get re-tested.
Adam’s loyalty to David made me wonder – Was the aftermath of Rachel’s prison visit the first time David expressed his innocence? Did he for a time accept that, in the grip of night terrors, he did indeed brutally murder his own son? If he had been adamant on his innocence all this time, why did these people who were now risking everything not work all those five years in proving his innocence? Or did they think he was guilty as well, and it was only Rachel’s visit, and the subsequent attempts on David’s life inside prison courtesy of Ted Wesson, that made them think otherwise?
David’s father Lenny certainly thought he was guilty. On the night of the murder, the responding officers recognised David and called Lenny, so that he was on the scene before the detectives. He knew David would never consciously hurt Matthew, and his mind immediately jumped to night terrors. How bad were David’s night terrors before this incident? Did he have night terrors whilst he was in jail? Lenny thought that by burying the murder weapon, the bat, in the woods with his partner Philip, David had a chance to get off.
Bear in mind that both Lenny and Philip were police veterans who worked homicide. Even if they thought hiding the murder weapon would help David’s case, why would they bury it in the nearby woods, where someone could see and recognise them, where the police could search and find it? If not David, whom they thought was the only person at the house that night save for young Matthew, what was the alternative theory they wanted the police to think? As far as attempted coverups go, it was not great.
David had a more competent on the lam partner in Rachel, who took the time to use makeup to hide the still healing cuts on his face before they left Hayden’s massive flat in search of Hilde Winslow. They could not possibly sit outside the post office hoping Hilde would pick up her mail one day, and so David borrowed Rachel’s own PO Box key, stuck it in Hilde’s box, and got the guy there to get Hilde’s mail for him. It was through those letters that David got Hilde’s new address, which was another thing that stood out for me. If Hilde’s new address was printed on the envelope, would the letter not have been delivered directly to the physical address rather than the PO Box? But, I suppose Hilde could have used a premium forwarding service so that all her mail was directed to her PO Box rather than her flat.
Whilst David was getting Hilde’s mail, Rachel called Cheryl, and it was through their short and tense conversation that Rachel found out the FBI knew they were in New York. David figured the FBI must have found Matthew’s file and saw that he had circled Hilde’s name. This is one of the things I appreciate about these early episodes of the show – characters realistically figure things out quickly. The FBI immediately knew that Philip and Adam helped David escape, and Rachel, too. David immediately knew how the FBI followed him to New York.
Given that the FBI had already surrounded Hilde’s building, and placed an agent in front of her door, Rachel and David had to separate for them to get a chance to question her. Rachel gave David her burner phone, then casually walked down the street. In the commotion of her arrest, David slipped inside the building, punched and handcuffed the agent, and got a few precious moments to talk to her. After some hesitation, Hilde admitted that she lied to protect her daughter Elle. Elle had a gambling problem. A man showed up at her door and told her that if she helped put David away, they would forgive Elle’s debt. Her description of the man matched Skunk, a man David and Adam went to school with, who worked for someone named Nick Fisher.
The foot chase with Agent Greer happened after the FBI finally realised that Rachel had been stalling and that David was already inside the building with Hilde. Agent Greer almost had David until he jumped off a ledge and into a conveniently placed garbage truck down the street. Again, what was David’s background before he became a law professor? It is tempting to watch ahead but no, we will do these recaps as usual and watch one episode at a time.
Near the end of the episode, we saw the boy in the photo, whom a lady called Theo, playing with a dog on the beach. As cool as the Rule of Cool could be at times, the episode remembered what held the story together. A father had lived with the nightmare of his son’s death for five years. That he was possibly alive was what drove the narrative, more than improbably leaps, through buildings and story.
Rating: B-
Strays
🕵️Hayden was Rachel’s ex-boyfriend. Their breakup was amicable enough so that Rachel still brought him to a family fourth of July celebration. After Rachel was arrested, not just for aiding David in his escape but for accessory to the murder of Ted Wesson, Hayden returned to his flat (I should probably start calling this a penthouse) and found David there alone.
🕵️Skunk’s real name was Kyle Bergin.
🕵️Cheryl’s husband Ronald was very uncomfortable that Cheryl lied to the FBI about Rachel calling her. A couple of times, there was this focus on the agent’s card, Brian Simmons, which is making me think at some point either husband or wife would call the FBI.
🕵️Max totally knew that his daughter Sarah was moving to the Seattle office.
🕵️Lenny and David knew that Hilde lied on the stand. She could not have seen David bury the bat because they did that.
🕵️An upset Cheryl was crying in the washroom when she met Gertrude Payne, a wealthy donor and also someone involved in David’s incarceration. I can’t be the only one who saw the mesmerising Madeleine Stowe and immediately thought of her iconic Victoria Grayson role.
🕵️Immediately after David left, Hilde called Skunk. But Hilde also told David about the fire escape in her bedroom, to give him a chance to get away. Hmm.
🕵️ Cheryl notably lied to her husband and did not mention Matthew.
Episode Writers: Robert Hull and Steven Lilien and Bryan Wynbrandt
Episode Director: Maja Vrvilo
Original Release Date: June 18, 2026