I Will Find You on Netflix: 'Unhinged' reason why Matthew was kidnapped and by who in ending of 'wild' Harlan Coben thriller
Well that was a ride!
I Will Find You landed on Netflix this week and, like all Harlan Coben adaptations, many of you have already binged it to its bonkers ending.
The streaming service described the eight-part series as a “jaw-dropping” thriller and they weren’t half wrong. Our jaws certainly DID drop, and not always for the right reasons… Perhaps the series should be renamed I Will Find You But Not Before Eight Hours of Red Herrings and Preposterous Distractions.
I Will Find You introduced Sam Worthington’s David Burroughs, a man serving a life sentence for the murder of his son. However, he was innocent of the crime – and helpless to prove it.
When his former sister-in-law Rachel visited him in jail with proof that his son Matthew was in fact alive, he broke out of the prison to uncover the truth. Don’t worry about any current prison inmates getting any ideas though… The prison break was SO preposterous, there’s no way in hell it could have happened in real life.
But then, this IS a Harlan Coben thriller we’re talking about (based on the 2023 book of the same name). If you wanted realism, you took a wrong turn. As with all of his books and subsequent adaptations, you need to leave all thought at the door and just enjoy the ride. The plot holes just won’t stand up to scrutiny.
Here’s the ending of I Will Find You on Netflix unpacked, in which we discovered who really kidnapped Matthew and the unhinged reason why.
***Warning: spoilers from I Will Find You ending ahead***
Was Matthew alive in the ending of I Will Find You?
Matthew was very much alive in the gripping ending of I Will Find You on Netflix. He had been kidnapped from David and Cheryl’s home during the night, while David slept and doctor Cheryl worked a night shift at the hospital. The blood and dead body found in Matthew’s bed? Tragically, the body was actually that of an orphan called Martin Bischoff.
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Five years ago, in Geneva, Switzerland, a young boy called Martin was left orphaned when his parents died. However, when he was taken into foster care, he vanished – three weeks before Matthew disappeared. He was the same age, and had a similar appearance to Matthew.
Although the DNA found on the dead body matched Matthew’s, we discovered that all the medical evidence had been tampered with and couldn’t be trusted. This is because the people responsible for Matthew’s kidnapping were very powerful people, who didn’t understand the word ‘no’.
In fact, the orphanage that magicked Martin away was privately funded by The Payne Foundation. But what they didn’t know was that Martin had a rare genetic disorder called Metachromatic Leukodystrophy, also known as MLD. When the DNA evidence was reexamined, this proved that the dead body was not Matthews.
What was glossed over in the series was that those responsible had actually murdered a young child in order to get their hands on Matthew, and frame David. Of course, this meant that no one would be looking for the boy.
I Will Find You ending: Who kidnapped Matthew and why?
Cheryl’s ex-boyfriend Hayden Payne kidnapped Matthew, and was complicit in the death of Martin. We knew he was too good to be true right?! Which proves that even incredibly handsome men with huge fortunes can be wrong’uns. He then raised Matthew as his own in secret, and renamed him Theo.
His mum Gertude, as nefarious as they come, ran The Payne Foundation and had her finger in all the pies. She helped Hayden with his side hustle of parenting. She knew what he’d done, and why. And would do anything to protect him an his secret.
So why did Hayden kidnap Matthew? Well, this is where the plot gets so ludicrous you need to be sat down. Hayden believed Matthew was his. Stay with us on this one. When Cheryl and David were struggling to conceive, she visited a fertility clinic called Berg Reproductive, part of The Payne Group. Although she did proceed with the insemination behind her husband’s back, it turns out she was already pregnant. The day after attended the clinic, Cheryl “woke up sick” and “took an early pregnancy test, which was positive”. She was pregnant before she even went to Berg. Matthew was the son of Cheryl and David. But Hayden didn’t know that.
When Cheryl attended the clinic, she used her sister’s name Rachel Mills in a bid to stay incognito. (Why not just make up a name? Never mind.) When Hayden somehow heard that his ex-girlfriend was receiving fertility treatment, he “wanted her to get pregnant”.
I Will Find You ending: ‘I was meant to be his father’
Hayden did love Rachel in his own warped way. During their eventual confrontation, he told her: “All I ever wanted was to be with you. And then I found out you go to Berg to start your own family. Only it was supposed to be you. The whole point of any of this was for us to have a child.”
Hayden’s assistant used to be the office manager at Berg, and saw Rachel Mills’ name in the files as a new patient. Dodgy fertility doctor Heller then “ensured that Hayden was the donor”. So Hayden’s sperm was inseminated into Cheryl, eve though she was already pregnant with David’s child. Ouch, our brains hurt.
Hayden later discovered that it was Cheryl who has visited Berg and NOT her sister Rachel. He “put it out of his mind” until he met young Matthew at a Fourth of July party. He explained: “And when I saw him for the first time, I understood everything. I knew I was meant to be his father.”
To justify the death of poor Martin, Hayden said: “He was going to die a painful death from his condition. It doesn’t matter.”
Understandably, a horrified Rachel told him: “You’re not well Hayden. There is something deeply wrong with you.” And that, readers, is the understatement of the year.
David finally got his son back and his freedom
Hayden was subsequently horrified to discover that Matthew was not, in fact, his son, but David’s after all. And this set the perfect scene for the final denouement, when a devastated Hayden finally lost what sense he ever had (not much).
After she gave him a few home truths, he shot his own mother in the head. She deserved it, but that’s not the point. This added to Hayden’s increasing body count, which already included the child Martin, and the Swiss detective Daniel Müller who he bashed over the head when he asked too many difficult questions.
As FBI agent house with David, Hayden took Matthew hostage and drove into the woods with him. However, the young boy was terrified by what was happening and the scary change in his dad. So he ran into the woods, and hid. When both Hayden and David chased him, it was only going to end one way. Hayden shot David, forcing agent Sarah Greer to shot him dead.
Luckily, David was not fatally wounded, and survived the ordeal to reunite with his son.
What else happened in the ending of I Will Find You on Netflix?
- In the emotional ending of I Will Find You, David was a free man, having had his conviction overturned. Of course, this allowed him to be a father to Matthew again. As Matthew tried to fit in with ordinary life again after his ordeal, David knew exactly how that felt.
- Rachel wrote a book about the ordeal, called Found, proving that there’s a silver lining – and cash to be made – from every tragedy.
- Cheryl gave birth to a baby girl with her new husband Ron Dreason.
- David’s childhood friend Adam Mackenzie lost his shield for helping David escape, but set up his own private investigator business with another former cop.
- Agent Greer took over from her dad Max as head of the Boston Fugitive Task Force.
- David’s father died, but not before spending several months with his grandson Matthew.
- And Rachel and David? Well, as icky as it is to get together with your sister’s ex-husband, it looked like they might have been more than just good friends in the final scene. Holding hands is first base, right?
Plot holes in the ending of the Harlan Coben thriller
There were so many plot holes and things that didn’t add up, we’d be here all day if we listed them. As well as the truly unbelievable prison break, there’s also the fact that there was no signs of forced entry in David and Cheryl’s house. So how did Hayden get in? Not to mention get the dead body of another little boy in the bed? All without waking up David? Trust us, if you’re a parent and your child is sleeping down the hall, you wake up at every cough, every cry, every creak. In fact, you never have a good night sleep again.
Don’t get us started on the whole Nicky Fisher/Boston mob/Skunk red herring, or we’ll be here all day. That was a whole side plot that distracted us for several episodes, but had no bearing whatsoever on the I Will Find You ending.
I Will Find You was a wild ride. Immensely enjoyable, so long as you suspended disbelief for eight hours straight.
Is there a series 2 of I Will Find You on Netflix?
Nope, like all Harlan Coben limited series, I Will Find You is a one-off. So don’t expect a second season.
Everything was wrapped at the end of the episode eight, so there’s nothing more to see here.
However, there are more Harlan Coben series coming to Netflix in the next year or so. The streaming service has already announced The Woods, starring Michelle Keegan. We’re hoping this will drop in the usual New Year’s Day slot.
Of course, there are dozens of Harlan Coben adaptations to reconnect with on Netflix. These include Missing You, Run Away, Fool Me Once, Safe, The Stranger, and Stay Close. There are also multiple foreign language series, including the original 2020 Polish version of The Woods if you want to binge that before the UK remake.
Read more: Michelle Keegan reunites with Harlan Coben for new Netflix thriller The Woods about a missing girl and a family torn apart
