Series / Fool Me Once

Fool Me Once is a 2024 thriller limited series. It is a British adaptation of Harlan Corben's 2016 novel of the same name for Netflix. It is written by Danny Brocklehurst and stars Michelle Keegan, Richard Armitage, Adeel Akhtar, Emmett J. Scanla, and Joanna Lumley.

When ex-Special Ops Pilot Maya Stern witnesses her recently-murdered husband Joe Burkett on her secret nanny cam, Maya's investigation into this impossibility uncovers a deadly conspiracy that stretches deep into the pasts of both the Burkett and Stern families.

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This series provides examples of:

• Adaptational Location Change: The novel is set in the United States, but as with many of the Coben adaptations done for Netflix, the location is changed to somewhere else - in this case, the United Kingdom.
• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: This is the cause of Theo Mora's death, as his friends got drunk after a sports victory and hazed him, and accidentally got Theo to overdose on alcohol. However, it then gets subverted with the reveal that Joe intentionally exploited the trope and set up this exact scenario as cover for murdering Theo.
• Arc Words: "Death follows you."
• Batman Gambit:
  • Maya's test to settle her lingering doubts on whether Joe killed Claire or not: she swaps the Glock handgun in her gun safe with an identical one that is deactivated and kept in a display box nearby, then threatens him so he will come to the nearby park to meet her. Knowing that Joe (in spite of his dislike of guns) had added access for himself to the gun safe prior to Claire's murder, she knows that, if Joe is truly guilty, he will grab the weapon and try to kill her, so by making the swap Maya ensures he can't kill her. When Joe attempts to shoot her, Maya sees it as the final irrevocable proof of her husband's guilt and kills him.
  • Maya ensures the Burketts' Engineered Public Confession because she knows Judith won't be able to resist admitting the truth of what she and her family have been up to if given good enough bait. She also leaves her gun unattended so someone will shoot her while its being livestreamed which serves as the final nail in the coffin for the Burketts'.
• Betrayal Insurance: This is part of how Joe covered up Theo's murder. By engineering the fatal hazing accident, Joe ensured all of his friends were accomplices and thus couldn't come clean without destroying their own futures. Everyone followed his lead out of self-serving interest (or in the case of Christopher Swain, because he was too terrified of Joe). Andrew was the lone dissenter and it ended up getting him killed.
• Cain and Abel: Joe murdered his brother Andrew in 1996 to prevent him from confessing the truth about Theo Mora's murder.
• Dead Guy Junior: In the Distant Epilogue, Lily decides to name her newborn baby Maya.
• Deal with the Devil: Claire cut one with Corey to protect Maya from the full brunt of the overseas incident's fallout. Corey leaked the footage, but withheld the damming audio.
• Defiant to the End: Once Joe realizes that he's just exposed himself as Claire's killer to Maya, who pulls a gun on him as a result, Joe's last words are him gloating that she'll never prove he was Claire's killer. Maya agrees and shoots him dead instead.
• Digital Head Swap: "Joe" in the Nanny Cam footage. It was actually Luka posing as the physical body of "Joe" (and with his head swiped out for a Deep Fake sourced from Maya and Joe's Wedding Reception video).
• Dirty Cop: Caroline uncovers financial evidence that Kierce is on Judith's payroll. After sharing it with Maya, it drives a wedge between her and the Detective (who vehemently denies it). However, it's eventually subverted when it's revealed the financial evidence was actually faked; Judith fed misinformation to her daughter knowing she'd pass it along to her sister-in-law and would thus sabotage Maya's efforts.
• Distant Epilogue: The closing scenes jump ahead 18 years after Maya's death and the downfall of the Burketts.
• Doesn't Like Guns: Prior to his death, Joe was known publicly for hating guns. This is why Maya first became suspicious of her husband, as Joe uncharacteristically added his own access to her gun safe prior to Claire's murder (and gave a very flimsy justification when she asked why). An examination of the safe also reveals someone recently held her active Glock (and improperly wiped it), which is what prompts Maya to have Shane analyze and compare the bullets from the gun and the crime scene.
• Doom Magnet: Eddie says that "death follows Maya" because of her sister and her husband being killed in the space of four months. He later apologizes for this comment.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Phil Dawson hurls vicious verbal abuse at his soccer players, even going as far mocking Abby's weight when she gets injured during a game. Maya says that she's known sergeant majors who were less harsh him.
• Driven to Suicide: While Andrew Burkett's drowning in 1996 was officially classified as an accident, characters alternately speculate it was actually a suicide out of grief over the death of his close friend and classmate Theo Mora. Theo's mother, by contrast, agrees it was a suicide, but believes it was actually out of guilt rather than grief. It's eventually revealed all parties are wrong; Andrew's drowning was actually a murder by Joe to prevent his brother from going public with the truth about Theo's death.
• The Dreaded: Joe was this to Christopher Swain, who recognized how ruthless and terrifying his classmate was. It's why Christopher kept silent about the truth behind Theo Mora and Andrew Burkett's deaths, and why he doesn't come clean to Maya until after Joe's killed.
• Drowning My Sorrows:
  • Eddie initially deals with Claire's death by drinking the day away and angrily rebuffing Maya's attempts to help him. He eventually, if slowly, begins sobering up thanks to Abby.
    • Kierce likewise began hitting the bottle for the exact same reason (after his first fiancée's murder).
  • Christopher Swain's extreme alcoholism is eventually revealed to stem from his deep guilt over his role in the deaths of Theo Mora and Andrew Burkett (and how terrified he was of Joe).
• Enemy Mine: Despite her hatred of Corey the Whistle for exposing her actions overseas, Maya grudgingly joins forces with him to avenge Claire's death and investigate the conspiracy.
  • In the final episode, Kierce joins them to assist in bringing down the Burketts.
• Engineered Public Confession: While it costs Maya her life, she successfully engineers one to bring down the Burketts.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: While it is repeatedly made clear that Judith has a mutual dislike for Maya, she does seem to genuinely love her family, and cared for and adored her granddaughter Lily.
• Failed a Spot Check:
  • Maya didn't realize that the head of the deceased "Joe" on the Nanny Cam was actually footage sourced from their Wedding Reception video.
  • Joe didn't realize Maya had swapped out the secret Glock with the deactivated Glock.
  • Judith and her children didn't realize Maya had set up a Wi-Fi camera to record and transmit their confession until after they've shot her.
• Fatal Flaw: Ultimately, Joe's psychopathy is what got him killed. The main reason Maya start suspecting him of killing Claire was because of his coldness and Lack of Empathy following Claire's death, despite working with her.
• Faux Affably Evil: Joe is ultimately revealed to be this.
• Fire-Forged Friends: While Kierce does not initially care for Marty, the two grow closer over the course of the investigation.
  • Likewise, in the Distant Epilogue, Kierce has remained on good terms with Eddie and become a friend of the family after they took in Lily.
• Friend on the Force: Deconstructed with Shane, who initially aids Maya's investigation with his role as a Military Policeman. But Maya's secrecy and lies, combined with her increasingly illegal requests, end up straining their close friendship to the breaking point over the course of the series.
• Framing the Guilty Party:
  • An accidental variation after the reveal that it was Joe who killed Tommy Dark. As the earlier flashbacks show, Joe used Maya's car to move Dark's corpse into his storage unit's freezer, but he didn't do a thorough job of wiping down the vehicle for any trace DNA. 6 weeks later, when Maya and Corey discover Dark's body and call it in, Kierce has to impound her car as part of the investigation process. Once the forensics team does a pass on the car, they find the traces of Dark's DNA that Joe left behind and Maya becomes the police's top suspect. So, Joe unwittingly and unknowingly framed his own murderer (i.e. Maya) for a murder he committed. Even better, Maya initially thinks it was Corey who set her up; she doesn't deduce it was actually Joe until the penultimate episode.
  • Maya framed PJ and Rambo (who were guilty as purse snatchers and were in the vicinity) for Joe's murder.
• Gaslighting: Judith, Izabella, and Luka do this to Maya to try and expose her suspected guilt in Joe's death.
• Good All Along: Corey the Snitch is initially presented as an antagonistic force to Maya since he ruined her carrier after releasing incriminating footage of her shooting a civilian vehicle. However, while he is shady, he ultimately is seeking to uncover the truth, Maya truly was guilty of war crimes, and in the end, he is instrumental in taking down the Burketts'.
• Green-Eyed Monster: This is revealed to have been Joe's Fatal Flaw; he couldn't stand anyone being better than him. It's what got Theo Mora (a more skilled athlete than Joe) killed during the hazing incident in 1996.
• Happily Adopted: Louis after Claire gave him up as an infant.
• He Knows Too Much:
  • Claire was killed by Joe, because she (with Corey's assistance) had uncovered both evidence of the Burketts' pharmaceutical corruption and Joe's role in the death of his brother Andrew).
  • It's eventually revealed Andrew Burkett's death aboard the family yacht in 1996 wasn't an accident or suicide. He was intentionally murdered by Joe to prevent a guilt-ridden Andrew from going public with the truth about Theo Mora's death.
    • Likewise, this is also what eventually gets Tommy Dark killed. The Burketts bought their yacht captain's silence for 25 years... until Claire and Corey inadvertently discover the money trail while gathering evidence on the Burketts' corruption. Rightly suspicious of these unusual transactions, Claire starts digging and begins putting the pieces together about Andrew's "accidental" death (and by extension Theo Mora's) — which is what forces Judith and Joe's hands. After killing Claire, Joe then kills Dark to permanently silence him and protect the secret.
  • In the climax, the Burketts kill Maya to protect the conspiracy... which then backfires as Maya's final Batman Gambit hinged on them doing exactly this.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Testimony and flashbacks show Andrew Burkett and Theo Mora were close friends at school. It's why Andrew was consumed with guilt over his role in Theo's death and why he was about to go public (until Joe murdered him).
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Judith uses the nanny cam Maya installed to rattle the latter into making a mistake she could use to expose her as Joe's killer. Maya returns the favor by using the same nanny cam to stream Judith and Neil's Engineered Public Confession.
• Honorary Uncle: Shane is one for Lily and continues in that role in the 18 years after Maya's murder.
  • In the Distant Epilogue, it's all but stated Kierce likewise became one, having remained friends with Eddie and looking after Lily to honor Maya's sacrifice.
• Hypocritical Humor: Sami's talkative partner Marty complains about a detective named Schul being a chatterbox. Marty does acknowledge the hypocrisy when Sami gives him a knowing look.
• Insane Troll Logic:
  • When Maya calls the police after discovering Tommy Dark's body, Kierce expresses his doubts about her innocence due to the number of dead bodies surrounding her. Maya shoots this down by pointing out that it would make no sense for her to implicate herself by pointing the police to a murder she committed and that one of the murders he's accusing her of doing happened while she wasn't even in the country.
  • When Maya accuses of Kierce of taking bribes from the Burketts, he takes her to his house to show her his meager living conditions. Maya argues that this proves he is open to being bribed.
• It's All My Fault: In the aftermath of the climax, Kierce is left grieving and guilt-ridden by Maya's murder. He blames himself for not accompanying her to the Burkett Estate and feels he could've protected her if he had been there. An equally grieving Corey consoles him, pointing out that Maya knew the risks of confronting Judith and the others in their stronghold like this. More, Corey feels that on some level, Maya had been seeking death since the overseas incident; this was her way of atoning for her own guilt and protecting her loved ones.
• It's Personal:
  • While Corey was already determined to expose the Burketts, it then becomes personal for him after Claire's murder.
  • Kierce's alliance with Maya and Corey is kick-started when he realizes his health issues and neurological degeneration have been caused by the Burkett Pharmaceuticals medication he has been taking, the secondary effects of which were covered up by the Burketts.
• It Works Better with Bullets: When Maya told him to meet her in the park at night, Joe took a handgun from their gun safe, no knowing that Maya had switched it with the identical, deactivated one from the display case. When Maya told him she knew he killed Claire and intended to expose him, Joe pulled his gun on her and was surprised when it failed to fire.
• Karmic Death: Joe's death is revealed to be this; he broke into Claire's house, murdered her with his wife's gun, and then made it look like a burglary gone wrong. After Maya lures him out into the open she deliberately shoots him in such a way that it looks like a burglary gone wrong with the same gun to boot.
• Locked Out of the Loop:
  • Neither Eddie nor Alexander Dosman knew about Claire's first pregnancy until Abby and Daniel accidentally discover the photographic evidence.
  • Despite being her co-pilot, Shane did not know Maya had lied about receiving authorization to shoot the suspected terrorist vehicle. He only finds out the truth when Maya comes clean in the penultimate episode.
  • Kierce and Corey didn't know that Maya's final Batman Gambit against the Burketts required her willing death. So they're left horrified and grieving after Neil shoots her over the livestream, and there's nothing they can do to stop it or save her in time.
• Long-Lost Relative: Abby and Daniel discover by accident that they have a half-brother. After some research, Abby discovers it's Louis, one of the guys working at the football club where Abby plays.
• The Lost Lenore: Nicole is this for Kierce. Claire is also this for Eddie and Louis.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: How Joe covered up his murders of both Theo Mora and his own brother Andrew. Claire's murder was also likewise covered up as a "Burglary Gone Wrong".
• Mama Bear: Maya does not take kindly to Coach Phil's bullying of his players, including her niece. She pantses him in public for this.
• Mistaken for Cheating: Maya suspects that Claire might have been having an affair due to the presence of a second phone on which their friend Eva saw her having a rather angry conversation with someone on the other end. Claire was actually talking to Corey the Whistleblower about the Burketts' corruption.
• The Mole: Claire became one for Corey, using her position inside Burkett Pharmaceuticals to gather evidence of the family's corruption and crimes.
• Moral Myopia: The Burketts spend the entire series trying to gaslight Maya into admitting that she killed Joe and are infuriated when she admits to the truth but as Maya points out Joe murdered multiple people, including his own brother, and they are perfectly fine sweeping that under the rug.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Kierce's reaction when he sees Neil gunning Maya down, exclaiming he should have gone with her. Corey gently reminds him that Maya chose to risk her life by meeting the Burketts on her own.
• Never Suicide: Joe lied to Maya about Andrew's death being a suicide. In truth, Joe pushed him off the yacht to keep him from confessing the truth about Theo Mora's death.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Joe killing Claire to cover up Burkett Pharmaceuticals' corruption kicks off the events that lead to the public reveal of all the Burkett family's skeletons.
• Not Me This Time:
  • When Corey's taken into custody by Kierce, he admits he was at Dark's storage unit. But he insists he didn't kill Dark and that it had to have been the Burketts. He's ultimately proven right when it's revealed it was actually Joe.
  • PJ and Rambo, who both admit they were in the vicinity of Joe Burkett's murder that night, yet both vehemently insist they did not kill him (as they were instead involved in petty larceny). Indeed, it's Rambo who reveals to Kierce that it was actually Maya.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Maya has little love for the domineering Judith or the slimy Neil (though she's at least on semi-friendly terms with Caroline).
• Oh, Crap!: A spectacular one in the climax when Judith realizes Maya planted a nanny cam — the very one that set off the entire plot — which was recording and livestreaming their entire confession and murder of Maya on Corey's blog.
• Once More, with Clarity:
  • The flashbacks to Claire and Joe's murders are revisited multiple times and expanded upon as more and more evidence is uncovered. This culminates with the reveal that it was Joe who killed Claire (and likewise Maya who killed Joe.
    • Similarly, the deaths of Theo Mora and Andrew Burkett are also gradually revisited and expanded to reveal Joe's role in both deaths.
  • Maya's overseas incident is similarly revisited and expanded upon repeatedly until we finally get the full story during her confession to Shane in the penultimate episode.
  • Most of Kierce's scenes with his AA sponsor Nicole are revisited after the reveal that she was an hallucination (brought on by his tainted medication) and he was actually talking to himself in each instance.
• Pants-Pulling Prank: Maya does this to Phil for his verbal abuse of Abby and his other players.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Downplayed, but it's implied this is why the Burketts let Tommy Dark initially live after Andrew's death rather than silencing him. While Dark was a loose end, killing him was unnecessary at the time. After all, the book was closed on Andrew's death, everyone believed it was an accident, and Dark's subsequent death would've only attracted undue attention. So instead, they bribed Dark for the next 25 years, he kept his mouth shut, and it worked... until Claire started digging...
• Predatory Big Pharma: The Burketts own a pharmaceutical company and it is revealed by Corey that Claire was killed because she discovered that the Burketts were falsifying drug trials and hiding negative side effects of their medicine.
• Properly Paranoid: A villainous example. This is revealed to have been Judith's motive for gaslighting Maya. Judith is rightly suspicious of the circumstances of Joe's murder and suspects her daughter-in-law... because she knows Maya had a potential motive: that it was Joe who murdered her sister Claire. Judith rightly suspects Maya somehow found out the truth; the gaslighting campaign is thus to rattle Maya and trick her into making a mistake and exposing her guilt.
• Recovered Addict: Kierce is a recovering alcoholic who first turned to the bottle after his fiancée Nicole was murdered. When the series opens, Kierce has now been sober for just over 3 years.
• Redemption Equals Death: Corey believes this is the reason why Maya left her gun unattended on the table within easy reach of Neil since it not only implicated the Burketts in her death, spelling their death keel, but allowed Maya to atone for the innocent civilians she killed while on tour.
• Running Gag: Millennial cop Marty being unfamiliar with any pop culture from before around 2000 or so. At one point, Kierce tells him that Angela Lansbury was a member of Duran Duran, and Marty believes him.
• Secret Test of Character: This is what seals Joe's fate. Maya swaps her deactivated Glock with her normal one and meets him at the park, where Joe answers to her accusations of being the one that murdered Claire by trying to kill her, thus proving his guilt.
• The Sponsor: Nicole Butler has been Kierce's AA sponsor during his 3 years of sobriety and they're close friends. However, it's eventually revealed that "Nicole" is actually a hallucination (brought on by the Burkett Pharmaceuticals medication Kierce has been taking) of Kierce's deceased fiancée.
• Straight Gay: Marty is eventually revealed to be one.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: The downfall of the Burketts. It doesn't matter how influential or wealthy you are; you can't PR your way out of a globally livestreamed Engineered Public Confession that ends with you not only spilling all your dirty secrets, but committing murder in cold blood.
• Suspicious Spending: Inverted. When Maya accuses Kierce of being a Dirty Cop on Judith's payroll, it's the absence of this trope that Kierce uses to demonstrate the poor state of his finances and prove she's wrong or he's been framed.
• Wham Line: Christopher Swain gives a doozy in the closing minutes of episode 6.
  Christopher: Joe killed Andrew. [Maya's] husband...he murdered his own brother.
• Whatever Happened to the Mouse?: When last we see them in the final episode, Izabella and Luka are left stranded in the middle of nowhere by Shane (though he sarcastically and coldly points them in the general direction of the Burkett estate). Their final fates and whether they were taken into custody for their role in Judith's conspiracy is left unrevealed.
• Villain Ball: Joe would have gotten away with Claire's murder if he had used any other handgun (be it unregistered or from his family's security personnel), or even any other kind of weapon. Instead, he uses the one weapon he shouldn't have and uncharacteristically gives himself access to its gun safe — and ensures the one person he shouldn't have pissed off will realize the connection. Somewhat justified, as Claire was killed less than 24 hours after her visit to Joe's old school and her inquiries into Theo Mora and Andrew's deaths. Joe and Judith were both panicking that their pharmaceutical secrets and Joe's first two murders were about to be exposed and so Claire's execution was rushed with no logistical planning. Similarly, they might have had more time to cover their tracks if Maya hadn't unexpectedly been discharged after her overseas incident.

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