Fool Me Once (TV series)

Fool Me Once is a British thriller television series, produced by Quay Street Productions for Netflix. It was adapted by Danny Brocklehurst from Harlan Coben's 2016 novel of the same name. It features Michelle Keegan, Adeel Akhtar, Dino Fetscher, Richard Armitage and Joanna Lumley. The series premiered on Netflix on 1 January 2024.

Fool Me Once
Genre	Thriller
Based on	Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben
Written by	Danny Brocklehurst Charlotte Coben Yemi Oyefuwa Nina Metivier Tom Farrelly
Directed by	David Moore Nimer Rashed
Starring	Michelle Keegan Adeel Akhtar Richard Armitage Joanna Lumley Dino Fetscher Emmett J. Scanlan Joe Armstrong Marcus Garvey Jade Anouka Dänya Griver Anthony Howell Laurie Kynaston Hattie Morahan James Northcote
Theme music composer	David Buckley Luke Richards[1]
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language	English
No. of episodes	8
Production
Executive producers	Harlan Coben Nicola Shindler Danny Brocklehurst Richard Fee
Producer	Jessica Taylor
Running time	35–55 minutes
Production company	Quay Street Productions
Original release
Network	Netflix
Release	1 January 2024 (2024-01-01)

Premise

Following the murder of her husband Joe Burkett, Maya Stern is given a nanny cam by her friend Eva Finn to watch over her daughter Lily. When watching the camera footage she sees Joe who was presumed dead, visiting their daughter. Meanwhile Abby and Daniel, her niece and nephew, seek to find the truth about the murder of their mother Claire Walker, and the possible connections between both cases.^[2]

Cast

• Michelle Keegan as Maya Burkett
• Adeel Akhtar as DS Sami Kierce
• Richard Armitage as Joe Burkett
• Joanna Lumley as Judith Burkett
• Dino Fetscher as DC Marty McGreggor
• Emmett J. Scanlan as Shane Tessier
• Joe Armstrong as Alexander Dosman
• Marcus Garvey as Eddie Walker
• Jade Anouka as Nicole Butler
• Dänya Griver as Abby Walker
• Anthony Howell as Christopher Swain
• Laurie Kynaston as Corey Rudzinski
• Hattie Morahan as Caroline Burkett
• James Northcote as Neil Burkett
• Natalie Anderson as Claire Walker
• Daniel Burt as Daniel Walker
• Adelle Leonce as Eva Finn
• Craige Els as Coach Phil Dawson
• Natalia Kostrzewa as Izabella

Episodes

No.	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original release date [3]
1	"Episode 1"	David Moore	Danny Brocklehurst	1 January 2024 (2024-01-01)
Former military captain and helicopter pilot Maya Stern Burkett attends her husband Joe's funeral on his mother's estate. Her friend Eva gifts her a motion-activated nanny cam for her young daughter's room. Maya has frequent flashbacks to both Joe and her deployments. DC Kierce is the detective overseeing the investigation of the homicide, who she contacts after Lily's nanny Izabella pepper sprays her and bolts upon seeing footage of Joe on the camera. After Maya physically confronts her niece Abby's football coach Dawson for being harsh, her brother-in-law Eddie forbids her from seeing his kids, citing that death follows her. Told that Izabella is at her mother-in-law Judith's, Maya tries to catch up with her unsuccessfully. She returns to Judith and confronts her for not detaining her. DC Kierce discovers that the Glock used on Joe by one of the two motorbike assailants was the same used to murder Maya's sister Claire not long ago.
2	"Episode 2"	David Moore	Danny Brocklehurst	1 January 2024 (2024-01-01)
DC Kierce re-interviews Maya in light of the two homicides' connection to the same gun. Claire worked for the Burketts' pharmaceutical company. Eva tells Maya that Claire had a "secret" phone, so she searches her house when no one is home. Just as she finds it, Eddie comes home. He does not recognise it, and Maya insists on taking it to investigate. The number it regularly connects to belongs to a video arcade, where the manager insists that he knows nothing. DC Kierce gets increasingly more concerned with his ever more frequent blackout spells. Maya is summoned to the reading of Joe's will, which gets postponed for lack of a death certificate. His sister Caroline has some conspiracy theories and shows Maya regular bank transfers to an account under Sam Kierce's name.
3	"Episode 3"	David Moore	Charlotte Coben	1 January 2024 (2024-01-01)
Maya attempts to get Judith to explain the payments to Kierce, but her son Neil intervenes. Claire's kids, Abby and Dan, find old photos of her young and pregnant and a guy they have never seen so track him down. Alexander Dosman recently relocated there. They organise to meet later. Meanwhile DC Kearce has tests run on him for his continual dizziness and occasional blackouts. Maya tracks down her lead to the arcade, finding the red car which has been following her. Without getting a clear visual of the driver, she follows but loses them. As Maya put a tracker on it, she gets her MP friend Shane to locate the car. While giving a helicopter flying lesson she tracks the car, lands and is found by Corey the whistle. He knew Claire because she wanted to protect Maya, so she helped him investigate Joe's company. In the process, they discover Tommy Dark has been receiving money from the Burketts for decades.
4	"Episode 4"	Nimer Rashed	Yemi Oyefuwa	1 January 2024 (2024-01-01)
Shane surprises Maya with a late-night visit, and they brainstorm. Dark owned the boat on which Andrew met his demise. Abby, upon meeting Alexander, asks what happened to her mom's first baby but leaves upon realising he has no idea about it. Phillip Dawson's motorbike is seen in CCTV footage near the park at the time Joe was killed, so is brought in but they are only left with the vague hunch that his son could be a suspect. Maya takes Lily to the park, meeting up with the Walkers and she and Eddie make peace. She tells him about Claire's contact with the whistleblower and wants him to be Lily's guardian if anything happens. Dark's wife Oona contacts Maya worried that he disappeared six weeks ago, shortly after Claire's death, but before Joe's. Maya asks Corey to search for him, insisting they need to find the connection between them. Abby and Dan corner Maya to ask about their mother's first pregnancy, showing the photo then revealing they met Alexander. They demand to know if they have another sibling, which she confirms, saying he is around 19 now.
5	"Episode 5"	Nimer Rashed	Nina Metivier	1 January 2024 (2024-01-01)
Eva shows up at Maya's upset, as her ex, Robby, has managed to hack a nanny cam and got incriminating photos. Realising someone could have hacked into her wifi and therefore planted the photo, Maya gets Shane to scan her house. Meanwhile, Abby finds a website which helps connect adopted people with their birth mothers. She is shocked to discover her half-brother is Louis, her football team's assistant coach. He explains he had connected with Claire, albeit briefly, shortly before her murder. Afterwards, Louis was unsure of how to approach them. Uncomfortable, she leaves. Maya visits the private school where Claire had taken Louis, which was the Burketts' alma mater. The headmaster finally reveals she had been asking about Theo Mora. He was a friend of Joe's who had died of alcohol poisoning on campus, a short time before Andrew's death. Maya interviews Theo's mother, who confirms he was Andrew's best friend but suspects foul play. She meets with Corey, who tells her about the pharmaceutical company being responsible for multiple deaths and confirms Dark has not resurfaced. They go together to look into Dark's storage space, which is in arrears, and find his body in a large freezer.
6	"Episode 6"	Nimer Rashed	Tom Farrelly	1 January 2024 (2024-01-01)
DC Kierce is summoned into the station, as Maya reported finding Dark's body. His rookie partner wants to hold her, but Kierce's instincts tell him they can help each other. When Maya accuses him of receiving regular bribes from Judith, he takes her to his apartment to show how poor he is. At Eddie's, she updates him about Claire seeking Dark, then finding his body. Maya next seeks Christopher Swain, the Burketts' schoolmate. DC Kierce's AA sponsor Nicole who talked him out of jumping off a bridge also gets him to open up at a meeting and tell his fiancée Molly about his inexplicable declining health. Eddie and Abby finally open up about Louis, who he invites to dinner so that he can finally meet Dan and start to get to know each other. He also offers to reach out to his father for him. Maya is brought into the police station as AB+ blood was found in the trunk, so she fingers Corey as she suspects he is framing her. She gives them his two hideouts and they end up splitting up. Maya meanwhile gets Judith to help her get to Swain. At the exclusive rehab center, Christopher reveals that Joe killed Andrew.
7	"Episode 7"	David Moore	Danny Brocklehurst	1 January 2024 (2024-01-01)
Christopher details Theo's and Andrew's deaths. After a football victory, five members of the team haze Theo, a common practice in exclusive schools. Joe ties him to a chair, and they use a funnel to pour copious amounts of alcohol down him until he dies. He swore everyone to secrecy, but when the group is out on the Burkett yacht, Andrew insists they confess. Later, while everyone else is below deck, Christopher hears Joe throw him overboard. Corey is found, and DC Kierce gets him into a sound-proofed room, so he tells him about the Burketts' pharmaceutical company killing patients and doctoring the side-effects percentages. The officer finally realises he has been hallucinating, as Nicole is his long dead fiancée, not his sponsor. Maya goes into stealth mode, getting a burner phone and a disguise. Having put a tracker on Izabella's husband's truck, she corners them in a parking garage. Izabella reveals they did a deep fake on her, videoing him dressed in Joe's shirt, then superimposing Joe's face. Just as Maya gets them into their trunk, Shane appears over her erratic behavior. She explains she had asked him to test the bullet to confirm who had killed Claire. Questioned by Shane, Maya shockingly reveals herself as Joe's true murderer.
8	"Episode 8"	David Moore	Danny Brocklehurst	1 January 2024 (2024-01-01)
Maya explains that once she had returned, she became suspicious of Joe, hence the testing of the bullet. She called him, asking he meet her at the park. Unbeknownst to him, she had switched the operable Glock for the deactivated one. When Maya says she will not rest until justice is served, Joe tries to shoot her dead. She hits him with three bullets to make it look like a robbery, then hugs him to stain her clothes with his blood. Kierce finds and threatens the second biker present in the park when Joe was killed, who identifies Maya as the killer. He catches up to her, so she tells him everything. Kierce goes off to talk to Corey, while Maya faces the Burketts. After listing the numerous people's deaths Joe was responsible for (Theo, Andrew, Claire and Dark) she admits to having killed him. Judith suggests they pin everything on Joe, so they all can start with a clean slate. Maya refuses, so Neil shoots her dead. She secretly had Corey and Kierce livestream the incident via a nanny cam, ensuring the Burketts seal their fate. 18 years later, everyone gathers at the hospital to meet Lily's newborn daughter, Maya.

Production

Development

The series is set in the United Kingdom as opposed to the American setting of the novel. Coben, who wrote the original novel, was an executive producer on the show. It is one of several adaptations of Coben's work by Netflix.^[4] Danny Brocklehurst was head writer and executive producer, and Nicola Shindler and Richard Fee were executive producers via Quay Street Productions. The episodes were directed by David Moore and Nimer Rashed.^[5]

Filming

Filming began in Manchester, England, in February 2023,^[6] and other locations in the northwest,^[7] with additional filming in Spain. Production wrapped in August 2023.^[8]

Release

The series has been available worldwide on Netflix since 1 January 2024.^[9] Eight episodes were released.

Reception

The show has received mixed reviews by the critics. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 71% approval rating with an average rating of 5.3/10, based on 17 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "Fool Me Once's reliance on twists might be too much a turnoff for some to check it out twice, but game performances by Michelle Keegan and Joanna Lumley ensure that there'll be no shame for those who stick around".^[10] Metacritic calculated a weighted average of 55 out of 100 based on 4 reviews, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.^[11] Within its first week, it was watched by over 37.1 million Netflix accounts with over 238 million hours watched, one of the largest debuts of Netflix. All episodes appeared in the BARB Top 50 most viewed programmes of the week, with the opening episode attracting 6.34 million viewers, making the Top 10.^[12]

Keegan was nominated for Drama Performance with the show nominated for New Drama at the 29th National Television Awards.^[13]