The Disappearance
Episode 1 of Hold Tight starts with a frazzled mother called Anna worried about her son, Adam. She’s installing spyware on his phone, convinced that he’s not well. Her partner Michal isn’t exactly happy when he finds out. He’s quick to point out to her that it’s only been a few weeks since Igor died. Adam has clearly been rattled by this and Michal urges Anna to uninstall the software. She refuses to do so, using the pretence that she’s just a concerned mother. When she receives a ping from Adam, messaging his friend and claiming he’s to blame and it’s his fault Igor has died, Anna immediately exhibits concerns. Adam is skipping classes and is acting distant with them both, although Michal brushes this off as normal teenager behaviour. Anna is convinced there’s more going on here. Elsewhere, Marianna drowns her sorrows in alcohol at the bar. A couple head in and begin talking about Cain and Abel but in reality, this is all a pretence for what they’re really up to. They drug her, take her out and demand to know what she has done with a tape. How this ties into Adam’s storyline however, remains to be seen. Back to school though and Adam does show up in time for the memorial. As he notices a poster being put up, confirming the time of the memorial is at 3pm, he talks to his friend, Kaja, and once again admits guilt over what happened. Now, Igor took pills and washed them down with some wine. Kaja reassures him that the heart attack he had afterwards was just “bad luck.” As Kaja tells him, he wasn’t even there when it happened. We also later find out that Igor was actually suffering from depression too. With the memorial about to start, tensions arise between several of the students, although it’s unclear what’s provoking all this right now. However, what we do piece together are jumbled up with the text messages that Adam has been sending, intercepted by Anna and Michal. Within this, Adam talks to several people called “guru” and “ranger” who both discuss with him whether Adam is at fault for what happened. The school psychologist, Laura, is the first to speak at the memorial, which is attended by both students and teachers alike. A montage of Igor is shown off, with some of the kids struggling to hold back tears. One among them is Beata, Igor’s mother, who scans the room for the different faces. Beata is angry and bemoans why it’s her son that died. She also throws shade at Adam afterwards, asking just how he could have let this happen to his friend. Back home, Beata looks back over the footage of Iogr and notices a hooded jacket on the chair next to his. She immediately begins cycling through old photos and realizes the hoody belong to Adam. This only further reinforces her feelings that Adam could well have something to do with his death. The police have already ruled this out as foul play though and aren’t going to investigate this further, regardless of Beata’s pleading. Outside the station, Adam phones someone and tells them that Igor’s mother isn’t going to drop this and they need to deal with this. That night, Anna heads off in search of her son. After messing up Gajos’ party earlier in the evening, Adam is erratic and clearly not in the right headspace. Anna notices messages about Gajos, coupled with a location clue from Kaja. Lo and behold, she notices a super shady car ahead and she decides to follow them, all the way to a seedy underground club. Anna is refused entry to this private club so she heads round the back. Unfortunately, she’s stopped by that same shady couple we saw earlier in the episode. They beat her down to a pulp, despite Anna trying valiantly to stop them. In the morning, a bloodstained woman is found in amongst the trash. Now, it’s unclear whether this is Marianna, Anna or someone else at this point, but for now it’s an enticing cliffhanger to end things on.
The Episode Review
Ah, another Harlan Coben adaptation swings our way and this time it’s the turn of Hold Tight. This story has all the hallmarks we’ve come to expect from this crime thriller writer, including mysterious kids acting shadily, plenty of cryptic chatter and an enticing mystery involving assassins and a far greater conspiracy going on. So far, the episode has done well to introduce a rabble of people that could be responsible for what’s happened to Igor, and while Adam seems the likely suspect, it’s way too obvious to believe he’s a major player here. We’ll have to wait and see where this one goes next of course, but for now the opening chapter gets things off to an enticing start.
