Spoilers for Harlan Coben’s I Will Find You ahead.
Harlan Coben’s Netflix reign is back in business, baby. Half a year after Run Away dropped on the streamer in January, he’s back with a new hit, I Will Find You.
This time around, we follow David Burroughs (Sam Worthington), who is serving a life sentence for the murder of his son, Matthew.
When his ex-sister-in-law, disgraced journalist Rachel (Britt Lower), finds evidence that Matthew might still be alive, the race is on to prove David’s innocence and find his son.
The result is a chaotic cat-and-mouse chase between David, Rachel and the FBI that gets more disturbing by the minute.
If you’ve been watching along with a completely scrambled mind, I’m on hand to help. Let’s debunk everything that happened in the final episode of I Will Find You, including its unexpected ending.
Who kidnapped Matthew?
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Hayden Payne (Milo Ventimiglia) is behind the kidnapping. Why? In a nutshell, he believed that Matthew was his biological son.
At the same time David and Cheryl (Erin Richards) were together, Hayden and Rachel were also in a relationship. Before becoming pregnant with Matthew, Cheryl went behind David’s back to explore getting pregnant using donor sperm, using a fertility center called BERG.
Not wanting David to find out, Cheryl signed up using Rachel’s name. The catch? BERG is owned by the Payne family. With Rachel’s name on the client list, Hayden was using his own sperm to secretly try to get her pregnant.
Cheryl gets pregnant with Matthew, and Hayden finds out that Rachel is really Cheryl on the BERG books around the same time, so he incorrectly puts two and two together. When Hayden later sees Matthew at a family Fourth of July party, he’s immediately convinced that Matthew is his son.
Hayden kills a child at a Swiss orphanage that the Payne family also knows and plants his body at David and Cheryl’s house, kidnapping Matthew at the same time. Payne family lawyers and doctors covered things up, planting enough evidence — including fake blood samples from Matthew — so that David would be framed for Matthew’s murder.
Are David and Matthew reunited?
Yes, but with some difficulty. While David has been in prison for the last five years, Matthew has been raised by the Paynes as Theo, and has completely forgotten who his real family is.
After breaking into the BERG clinic, David, Rachel and Cheryl find out that Hayden is responsible for the kidnapping. However, FBI agent Sarah (Logan Browning) is hot on their heels, but can’t officially be seen to be investigating David’s case, which she has already been removed from.
In order to capture Hayden, the quartet hatches a plan. Earlier on in the series, Hayden asked Rachel to run away with him, and Rachel thinks that if David is reported as being re-arrested, Rachel could convince him to wait for her before he flees with Matthew and Gertrude (Madeleine Stowe).
Pulling a few strings with her contacts at the Globe newspaper, word about David’s “arrest” gets out. Meanwhile, Rachel calls Hayden in tears, asking to be taken along on their getaway. Hayden agrees, with Rachel heading to the Payne mansion.
Meanwhile, David and Sarah reluctantly team up to try and bring Hayden in. Sarah can’t call for official backup, so David is her only hope (who is wearing handcuffs in case the two are caught).
Gertrude is furious that Hayden has given in to Rachel’s request, and immediately guesses that she’s trying to get Hayden arrested from the inside. A news report of David’s capture plays on a local news channel, with Hayden convinced he’s now in the clear.
As Rachel texts Sarah her whereabouts, Gertrude’s lackey uncovers that the FBI has no idea where David is, meaning the arrest story is false. Rachel is uncovered as the Globe’s anonymous source, but she immediately turns the tables back on them.
Rachel asks Hayden if he ever saw the paternity test confirming that he is Matthew’s father, discovering that Hayden has just taken Gertrude’s word for it. Gertrude admits that she made the results up, meaning that Matthew is biologically David’s child.
Cheryl has told Max (Chi McBride) that she had the blood from the crime scene independently tested, confirming that it wasn’t Matthew’s body uncovered at the crime scene. This confirms David’s innocence, meaning that the FBI can pursue Hayden with legitimate evidence.
Who dies in the season finale?
Gertrude is our first victim. After discovering that Matthew isn’t really his son, Hayden shoots her in a blind rage.
This results in Sarah and David, who are on the property, catching up with Hayden, who holds Rachel at gunpoint as a hostage. A shootout ensues, with Hayden pushing Rachel to the ground and escaping with Matthew in a car.
They don’t get very far, though, as Sarah successfully shoots out their back tire. Matthew makes a break for it on foot into the woods, with Hayden trying to follow. Matthew’s chat with David has confused what he knows to be true, planting seeds of doubt about Hayden.
When the group tracks each other down, Hayden shoots David in the leg when he approaches Matthew. Just as Hayden is about to shoot Rachel dead, Sarah gets there first, making Hayden the second victim to die.
Is Hayden jailed?
As you can probably guess from what I’ve just written, no… but the good news is that David isn’t sent back to prison either. A few weeks after finding Matthew, we learn that David’s sentence has been overturned, making him a legitimate free man once again.
As the Payne family, ahem, no longer exists, there is no outright public justice in that sense. However, the first scene after Hayden’s death confirms that Rachel writes a Globe magazine spread and a book about David’s journey.
How does I Will Find You end?
I Will Find You ends with Lenny’s death, with Cheryl, David, Rachel and Matthew all in attendance.
We learn that Cheryl has given birth to her baby girl, and has reconciled with her husband after Matthew was found alive. Adam (Jonathan Tucker), who was suspended from the police force for his part in David’s escape from prison, is now working as a PI with another former colleague.
Matthew struggles to remember a life before being Theo, and is frustrated with the fact he cannot remember the events of the Fourth of July picnic, with Lenny talked about before his death. “The good thing about memories is that you get to make more of them,” David reminds him.
It’s implied that David and Rachel begin a romantic relationship, but this isn’t explicitly confirmed.
Is there a link to other Harlan Coben books?
As you might have gathered from reading through the above, there have been subtle changes to the Netflix adaptation from Coben’s original novel. However, in keeping with the growing Coben-verse, there could be a direct link to come.
Gertrude is the cousin of Windsor Horne Lockwood III, who appears in the Myron Bolitar Series as well as the 2021 book Win. If any of these are adapted for the streamer, could we see Stowe return?
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