The Perfect ‘Gone Girl’ Replacement Is Officially Streaming for Free Next Month

The streaming world loves a mystery to solve. In the past year, some of the biggest shows on streaming have seen troubled crime-solvers putting the pieces together on a tricky puzzle, including Chris Chibnall‘s Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials, the latest installment in Rian Johnson‘s acclaimed Knives Out series, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, and, of course, the latest Netflix adaptations of the bestselling crime writer Harlan Coben.

The most recent of these Coben adaptations, the eight-episode mystery series I Will Find You, proved an enormous hit that defied even the highest of expectations. No doubt inspired by the fame of stars Sam Worthington (Avatar) and Severance‘s Britt Lower, the show became one of Netflix’s top ten most-watched English original scripted shows of all time, as global subscribers proved yet again how much they love a twisting mystery. For those who loved Coben’s latest adaptation, one of the most underrated mystery novel adaptations in recent years is about to make its way to a new streamer.

Based on Gillian Flynn‘s best-selling mystery novel, which has accumulated over 823,000 user ratings on Goodreads, Dark Places will be available to stream for free on Plex, starting November 1. Penned three years before her most famous novel, Gone Girl, Flynn’s Dark Places is a truly twisting tale that more than deserved its big-screen adaptation. This adaptation came just one year after the beloved, Rosamund Pike-led Gone Girl, which earned more than $370 million worldwide. Dark Places, which stars Charlize Theron, sadly collapsed at the box office, earning just $5.6 million against an $11.9 million budget.

Four criminal masterminds. One of them was always going to be yours.
Here is who comes for you, why they picked you out of everyone available, and what they want from
the encounter.

Your nemesis does not want to beat you. He wants to know you
completely, and he is patient enough to wait for it. The frightening part is how good the
conversation is.

• Lecter is the most dangerous kind of opponent: the one who finds you interesting. He
  never raises his voice, because he has never needed to.
• You keep a great deal to yourself and you are careful about what you show. That reserve
  is exactly the door he would knock on.
• The films understood something other thrillers missed. The horror is not the violence.
  It is being perfectly understood by the wrong person.
• He would be unfailingly polite about all of it. That is the worst part.

Your nemesis is not after money, territory or revenge. He is
after a demonstration, and you are the person he has chosen to prove his point on.

• The Joker only picks opponents who believe in something. Your decency is not a defence
  against him. It is the entire reason he showed up.
• He has no plan you can predict and nothing you can take away, which removes every tool
  you would normally reach for.
• His whole argument is that you are one bad day away from being him, and you would spend
  the rest of your life proving him wrong.
• He would call it a magic trick. You would call it the worst night of your life.

Your nemesis respects you, which sounds flattering until you work
out what it means. He chose you because nobody else was worth his time.

• Moriarty is the original criminal mastermind, the template every later one borrows from:
  a mind the equal of the hero’s, pointed the wrong way.
• You enjoy being the cleverest person in the room. He is counting on exactly that, and he
  has already built the room.
• This is the rare nemesis who would be genuinely disappointed if you lost badly. He needs
  the game to be worth playing.
• It ends the way these things always end. Two people, one problem, and only one way down.

Your nemesis has no personal interest in you whatsoever, and that
is precisely what makes him unsurvivable. You are not a rival. You are a stop on the way.

• Chigurh does not negotiate, gloat or explain. He arrives, he asks one question, and the
  answer was decided long before you opened your mouth.
• You trust yourself to handle things. He is the one problem in the world that has no
  interest in how capable you are.
• No Country for Old Men rewrote the screen villain by removing the thing audiences
  quietly rely on: the sense that talking might work.
• Call it. He will wait.

What Did Critics Say About ‘Dark Places’?

    &lt;<img src="https://static0.colliderimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/collage-maker-08-feb-2023-02-21-pm.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" />
    Image via A24</figure>