The British TV show The Stranger depicts the life of Adam Price as his picture-perfect life spirals into chaos and sadness with the appearance of The Stranger. Adam’s family is broken apart as The Stranger reveals more and more shattering details about Adam’s life.
In similar fashion, the lives of many characters in the series are torn apart as a result of the revelations given by The Stranger. While a second season may or may not be released, season one has provided enough characters and plotlines, in fact, there might be a tad too many characters than required.
Adam Price played by Richard Armitage has a seemingly perfect life, he loves his wife and he has loving kids.
He has everything he could wish for but then The Stranger, played by Hannah John-Kamen, comes into his life and tells him that his wife faked the pregnancies of their children.
His suspicions increase as he finds that the ultrasound of their third child is different from that of their first two sons. After finding his wife’s bank statements have a company called Novelty Funsy, the contacts the bank.
The bank sends him a list of websites that the bank acts as an umbrella for, he then finds a website on the list that acts as an umbrella for a fake pregnancy website.
His wife also disappears and does not attend an event she was supposed to.
After this, many ancillary plotlines also start intensifying, such as the decapitation of an alpaca as a result of a drug-fueled episode of rage by Doug Tripp’s (Adam’s neighbor) son.
Later Adam’s plotline becomes even more mysterious as he does not know the whereabouts of his wife. He finds that his wife knew of his affair with Sally Prentice.
Richard Armitage is the lead actor in the series and as always, he has given an excellent performance as the troubled yet curious Adam Price.
The plot revolves around him and the disappearance of his wife making him the central figure in the story.
Similarly, Siobhan Finneran plays Detective Sergeant (DS) Johanna Griffin and is one of the characters that will pull you in constantly even though you might not like her at times.
Shaun Dooley as Adam’s neighbor Doug Tripp whose son killed the alpaca. The neighbor also adds to the mystery of the show.
Price’s wife Corinne Price is played by the Dervla Kirwan and her character might be the most mysterious character in the whole series bar The Stranger. Hannah John-Kamen acts as The Stranger in the show.
She is the catalyst to every event in the show and every happening on the show relates back to the time she first told Adam about his wife’s fake pregnancy.
The series also stars Kadiff Kirwan, Downtown Abbey, Jennifer Saunders in titular roles.
The series as a whole has been well received by fans but many fans also feel that there are too many plotlines and characters on the show. Most of the auxiliary plot lines are not even necessary to the central story.
In fact, most fans feel that there are too many stories and characters on the show. Over the 8-part series that was released on Netflix on 30 January 2020.
In spite of all of this, the show has above average rating on various outlets. IMDb has rated the show 7.4/10. Rotten Tomatoes seemed to love the show more and rated it 86% while common sense media gave it a 3/5.
The final episode of the first season managed to tie up some pretty loose ends and fans finally knew why The Stranger was doing what she was doing.
The final episode also makes it clear to the audience that most of the characters are absolutely useless and are not even related to the main story.
A second season has not been confirmed yet but fans are speculating a surprise as 2020 comes to an end.
Did You Know?: Harlan Coben makes a cameo as a detective on the show.