Harlan Coben’s Lazarus Review: Boring Thriller Leaves Us Very Confused

Harlan Coben’s Lazarus Review: When his father commits suicide, forensic psychologist Dr Lazarus returns home and is sucked into solving cold case murders with the help of visions of people who have died.

The horror-thriller miniseries has 6 episodes, each with a runtime of around 45 minutes.

Harlan Coben’s Lazarus Review

Many crime-thriller shows leave us a bit confused at first and promptly pick up the pace when it’s time to reveal the truth. However, Harlan Coben’s Lazarus is one of the most boring shows I have watched in a while, which had me fighting with myself to stay awake at every turn. The series follows a troubled psychiatrist grappling with his sister’s and father’s deaths, and consists of too many slow-paced moments where nothing takes place and people just talk about the most mundane things to fill the time.

It’s a bit confusing to watch the show as Joel Lazarus sees apparitions/spirits of the dead who tell him very important things about what has happened or what’s about to happen as he tries to get to the bottom of the mystery. Although the police rule his father’s death as suicide, Joel, for some reason, believes that it’s murder because the apparitions say so… or something.

Either way, he starts to try and solve Jonathan’s old clients’ mysterious cases, which all connect the different dots surrounding the deaths of his loved ones. That’s all well and good, but the series is just so convoluted and under-explained that it’s not only confusing but soon gets boring. Nothing of note happens for long stretches of the runtime. When something remotely entertaining happens, we switch to Joel fighting or flirting with someone, which has literally nothing to do with the subject at hand.

As I result, I found myself struggling to follow the few threads in the series. I think the series can be broken down into two distinct parts wherein the first part is completely uninteresting and the second, consisting of the last two episodes, have all the interesting things that will leave you shocked. The last two episodes are perhaps its best, as well as most surprising, elements that somewhat tie the story in while bringing forth interesting conversastion surrounding mental health and how much of that we inherit from our parents.

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That being said, I do have another problem with the series, which is its ending. Although interesting, it ends rather abruptly, surely leaving us on a cliffhanger in hopes of getting another season out of this. I think Harlan Coben’s Lazarus‘s ending feels sudden and makes you question everything and not in a good way. It makes you wonder how or why this development came to be and it’s difficult to put two and two together as a result.

Overall, I found the series lacking in twists and feeling rather silly and childish. There is hardly any tension for most of its runtime, and whatever little there is goes away because Joel needs to have another long, stupid conversation about nothing. There is some tension in the later half, but, by then, you might have given up a bit. The ending, on that note, doesn’t help at all.

Final Thoughts

Harlan Coben’s Lazarus is lacking in the storytelling and tension department and leaves you confused about the whys and hows more often than not. Its biggest problem is that it’s not entertaining at all, and a lot of scenes feel irrelevant and boring.

What are your thoughts on Harlan Coben’s Lazarus? Let us know in the comments below.

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