Warning: spoilers for Harlan Coben’s Run Away ahead.
For those of us committed to sitting on the couch for the entirety of New Year’s Day, Netflix has the perfect present for us. Eight-episode miniseries Harlan Coben’s Run Away is the first original project of 2026 to be released, and as it’s a Harlan Coben, you know it’s going to be thrilling.
Where is Paige?
In episode 8, we get a very simple explanation for this. Paige (Ellie de Lange) has been in rehab for the entire duration of the show’s events. Simon sees her busking in the park in episode 1, with Paige explaining that she had stints in rehab before and after he spotted her.
In a bid to finally break out of boyfriend Aaron’s (Thomas Flynn) cycle of drug abuse, Paige turns to mum Ingrid (Minnie Driver) for help. Without telling Simon (or anyone else, for that matter), Ingrid sends Paige to a rehab center she used to use as a young girl.
When Ingrid is put into an induced coma after being shot (more on that later), Paige eventually finds out what’s happened, making her way to the hospital halfway through episode 8.
In a nutshell, this means Simon is frantically running around trying to find answers for no good reason. But hey, where’s the fun in that?
Who killed Aaron?
This is where things get more interesting. In the same episode, we learn that Ingrid was actually responsible for Aaron’s murder, but she was unable to admit the truth because of her induced coma.
In earlier episodes, DS Fagbenle (Alfred Enoch) found CCTV footage of Ingrid leaving the hospital, where she also worked prior to the shooting, on the night of Aaron’s murder. She was spotted going to a nearby restaurant to order the shift’s usual takeout, but was never spotted leaving.
One of Ingrid’s colleagues gave her an alibi, which revealed she was alone with him at her flat later that night. This gave the impression that Ingrid was having an affair, which turns out to be false.
Instead, Ingrid was able to shake her colleague off after he followed her, heading instead to Aaron’s flat. By this point, she’d sent Paige away to rehab and knew she would be safely out of the way. Ingrid later told Simon that she had been planning to murder Aaron “the moment I found out he had beaten her.”
Both Paige and neighbor Cornelius (Lucian Msamati) briefly tried to take the blame for Aaron’s murder, with police initially believing it was Simon after a video of him beating Aaron up in the park went viral online.
While they were all innocent, two others did indeed intend to murder Aaron but got there too late: Ash (Jon Pointing) and Dee Dee (Maeve Courtier-Lilley).
Wait… who are Ash and Dee Dee?
As we learn throughout the series, Ash and Dee Dee grew up together in a horrific care home under the watchful eye of the genuinely evil Mrs. O’Hara. She used to burn any child who misbehaved with an iron, and Ash and Dee Dee’s brother-sister style relationship is bound together by the abuse they both suffered.
Years later, Ash and Dee Dee have found their way back to each other by being recruited for a job. The task? Kill a list of people given to them without explanation. Ash will do whatever as long as he can stick to the plan and get paid, but Dee Dee has deeper links to what’s going on.
At some point after she left Mrs. O’Hara’s, Dee Dee joined a cult called The Shining Haven, who are revealed to be the force behind the kill list. Dee Dee is convinced that what they are doing will further The Shining Truth, something she steadfastly believes in. Ash is incredibly skeptical, but wants to do right by the sister he loves.
Sadly, this doesn’t end well for them. When the pair eventually turns up to kill Aaron and discover he’s already been murdered, they run into Simon and Cornelius, who are on the same housing estate to meet drug kingpin Rocco and sidekick Luther for information about Paige’s whereabouts.
A huge shootout occurs, wounding Simon and Cornelius while killing Rocco, Luther, and Ash. Dee Dee chases Simon while shooting him, but the mysterious Mother Ardonia (Geraldine James) appears, pushing Dee Dee off a balcony to her death.
But who is Mother Ardonia, and what does any of this have to do with a cult?
What is The Shining Haven, and how does Aaron fit in?
The Shining Haven is a cult led by a man called Casper, who is widely believed to be The One. Not only does he share wisdom known as The Shining Truth (though what that truth actually is is never explained), he has two “divine” sons known as The Visitor and The Volunteer.
Their gated and highly secure commune has been going for at least three decades, and that’s meant a growing population of people (including Dee Dee).
Here’s the big secret – while Casper has two divine sons, he also has 14 not-so-divine sons that he’s tried to keep a secret. The biological mothers were all told that their babies were stillborn, with the boys illegally given up to the same adoption agency. They all started new lives being none the wiser of where they came from… well, at least until DNA websites became a thing.
Many of the boys used the sites and found out about their half-brothers, but this was a huge problem for The Shining Haven. Not only does it give away their illegal activity, but Casper is a dying man. When he croaks, his millions get split between all sons… so fewer sons living, more money for the divine two.
This accounts for everyone on Ash and Dee Dee’s kill list, including Aaron, who is one of the sons. Others include cases Fagbengle was already working on, and a young boy called Henry, whom private investigator Elena (Ruth Jones) has been hired to find. It’s what brings all the storylines together and embroils Paige in a much bigger mess than she realizes.
Mother Ardonia only reveals herself to Simon after saving his life. She tells him that her son was one of those on the kill list – a young man called Nathan, who we don’t learn too much about. Ardonia found out about Casper’s plans and was intent on stopping them, and we’re led to believe she managed that for Nathan.
She says she plans to return to the Haven to “rebuild,” even though Fagbenle and his team have raided the compound and rescued as many people as they can.
So who has ended up dead in all of this?
Unsurprisingly, Ash and Dee Dee eliminate almost everyone on their list. They don’t get to Aaron – because Ingrid has got to him first – but the other half-brothers are all taken care of. They also eliminate Mrs. O’Hara and a few rogue witnesses along the way.
They also kill Elena in episode 6, who is lured under the false pretences of following a lead about the adoption agency. It’s unclear how Dee Dee manages to intercept Elena’s comms, but she poses as the girlfriend of Elena’s target before Ash kills her in a remote cabin.
Ash and Dee Dee then both die in the estate shootout, with Rocco and Luther not far behind them. Simon and Cornelius survive their shot wounds, with Ingrid eventually coming round from her coma.
Any other secrets we’re unaware of?
Unsurprisingly, yes. We’ve got some other B-plots running through the story, including Simon’s other kids and Paige’s university friends. But there are only two you really need to be aware of.
The first is Elena’s backstory. She’s working on Henry’s case before she inadvertently teams up with Simon, but she’s also following another woman off the books. Elena’s husband died a few months before Run Away begins, and she’s since found out about a secret child he had during their marriage. She’s arrested for breaking into the woman’s home, but the truth finally comes out.
Her late husband actually helped a friend to conceive rather than having an affair, something Elena’s mother-in-law, Lou (Annette Badland), didn’t know either. The woman asks to meet Elena properly to talk, but Elena is killed before she gets the chance.
The second is a much more explosive secret. In the final scene of episode 8, Simon tracks down a photo of Ingrid before they met, and puts two and two together with conversations he had at Paige’s university. He reveals that Paige and Aaron weren’t a couple, but had actually found out they were half-brother and sister.
That’s right… Ingrid was one of the mothers at the Haven who was told her child was stillborn. This is also why she needed rehab in her early years.
Paige and Aaron had worked out the connection through different DNA websites, with Aaron plying Paige with drugs to keep her close and not lose family again. Ingrid was none the wiser about any of this, meaning she’s actually killed her own son. Bet you didn’t see that one coming.
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jasmine.valentine@futurenet.com (Jasmine Valentine)
