The Stolen Girl on Disney+: Eight most preposterous and baffling plot flaws and red herrings in TV thriller
By Helen Fear |The Stolen Girl has landed on Disney+ and packed a serious punch as a thriller, but I'd be lying - much like all the characters in the series - if I didn’t acknowledge it had some pretty big flaws…
The five-part drama about a child abduction was quite the ride, with a plot as tangled as a box of neglected Christmas lights. The reasons behind why Rebecca/Nina stole Elisa's daughter Lucia were complex and painful.
And some artistic license was most definitely used, meaning I really had to suspend disbelief to enjoy the journey. While this is true of multiple thrillers - I'm talking about you The Au Pair and The Crow Girl - there were some pretty baffling plot holes staring us right in the face.
Although, of course, this might be a flaw of adapting a hefty 464 page book into a TV thriller... Here's our top 8 most preposterous, baffling, and disbelief-suspending moments that stood out in The Stolen Girl on Disney+.
***Warning: spoilers from all episodes of The Stolen Girl ahead***
Baffling flaws in The Stolen Girl: Why did Elisa trust Rebecca in the first place?
There was a lot to love in The Stolen Girl, namely the badass (nearly) all female leads. But, the most BAFFLING question that screamed at us throughout the series was WHY ON EARTH Elisa had ever let her daughter stay with Rebecca in the first place.
It was a pretty huge error of judgement, that led to her daughter being kidnapped. In episode 1 of the Disney+ series, Elisa met Rebecca for the first time at the gates of the fancy private school Elisa's daughter Lucia was enrolled in. Within minutes she'd agreed to a playdate, which quickly became Lucia's "first ever sleepover".
Yeah, okay, so Elisa visited Rebecca's house first. But, really?! As a parent, I know nobody who would do this in real life. Especially in these days of helicopter parenting.
We later discovered Elisa grew up in a 'trusting' religious common, where responsibilities were shared, including childcare. But that wasn't enough of an excuse for her behaviour.
Elisa was ABUSED by her father, from the age of nine. Which surely meant that there was NO WAY she would ever let her own child (of the same age!) out of her sight.
The police were, frankly, rubbish
If you're a copper, look away now. As a journalist, we're often misrepresented on TV and film. No, we're not all evil. And, no, we won't all sell our souls for a story. But, this time, Selma was actually a pretty decent representation of a journalist. After all, she was the one who got ALL the leads.
In The Stolen Girl, it's the police who are made to look stupid. They don't actually help find Lucia at all. While the always brilliant Bronagh Waugh tried her best, her character DI Shona Sinclair was always one step behind.
In fact, she was barely a fully-fleshed-out character. In episode one of the thriller, Lucia's dad Fred was asked if he recognised Rebecca from a photo - of the back of her head... Quite the task!
Anyone watching The Stolen Girl would deduce that it takes a journalist to do a police officer's job. This might be true sometimes, but I felt the police were embarrassingly useless here.
'She's changed her identity'
In episode 2 of The Stolen Girl, Selma followed the first rule of journalism (and general stalking) these days - she tracked someone down on their socials.
Elisa was guilty of humble-bragging about her perfect life on Insta, but Selma couldn't find any trace of her before eight years ago.
Wearing her Most Puzzled Expression, she said: "Elisa's been all over social media for the past eight years. Before that, nothing. I think she's changed her identity."
Wait, what? Did I miss something? Just because she wasn't on social media eight years ago, it meant she'd changed her identity? That's quite a leap. And assuming Elisa is the same age as the actress who plays her - that's 45 - it's not at ALL unusual for someone to not have been on social media! Ladies of a certain age (cough, cough) weren't born with social media accounts.
Anyway, this was all a pesky red herring. There was no reason for Elisa not to have been on social media. And she did not change her identity. This was all to support the idea that perhaps Elisa wasn't Lucia's mum after all - something the plot led us to believe for a few episodes.
Are mothers really as vile as The Stolen Girl portrays?
In episode 4 of The Stolen Girl, Elisa encountered a pretty hideous mum. I know there's the famous breastapo and the judgey mum-upmanship on the playground, but THIS was something else.
A mother at the park became angry when Elisa tried to take a picture of her son Georgie playing with another boy. Despite having previously had her back turned to her own son while browsing books, the lady sneered: "Don't film Oscar. You can use your son all you like, but you won't use mine. I'm his mother. It's my job to protect my son. Just like it should be your job to protect your son."
She continued: "Just to be clear, the way you make your son perform so you can be in the centre of everything makes me nauseous."
In all my days, I have never encountered anyone cruel enough to verbally attack a woman whose child has gone missing. Behind their backs, or anonymously on social media? Sure! Us Brits are great at that! But to their face? Nope. Never.
A social worker later visited the Blix household after receiving "multiple calls about George's wellbeing"... We're pretty sure social services would not visit a family just because the mum posted a few pics of their son on social media.
More inconsistencies in The Stolen Girl
Also during episode 4, Nina was on the hunt for a falsified passport in order to take Lucia out of the country. She could have actually just driven across the border to Spain without the need, but never mind.
Remember this was a woman who had kidnapped a child and was wanted by the police. A woman who had every reason to know you should never leave your child alone...
However, she consistently left her daughter Josephine and nine-year-old Lucia alone in the isolated French farmhouse. With criminals like Milan lurking about.
Not to mention how Nina seemed to have so many contacts in the criminal underworld!
Where did Nina's money come from?
Talking of passports, Nina seemed able to access large sums of cash out of nowhere. She agreed to pay João a whopping £15,000 to get a passport for Lucia.
Where was all her money coming from? This was never explained. Oh, and while we're on the subject of Nina, why on earth did she risk her only remaining child to kidnap a stranger's daughter? Had Nina been caught, her daughter Josephine could have been taken into care.
Elisa had a private jet on speed dial
Private jet flight attendant Elisa grew hopeful when she finally tracked down kidnapper Nina to France. So what did she do? She somehow managed to grab herself a private jet in a matter of minutes.
Without a spare moment to pack any undies, Elisa jumped on her luxury taxi - along with journalist Selma - and arrived in France seemingly the same day. We're not sure even the King could do that!
What happened to Marcus in The Stolen Girl?
The real victim in The Stolen Girl was poor cuckolded Marcus Turner. Once a high-flying, Champagne-guzzling, private jet traveller. Later, a man so infatuated with Elisa that he went to jail for her.
That alone seemed totally preposterous. I mean I love my husband, but... At the end of The Stolen Girl episode 5, we discovered that Elisa would finally pay for the heinous crime of killing Nicolas Thibault and his daughter Rose, as well as allowing Marcus to take the blame.
But what happened to Marcus? We never found out. While I assume he was released having already spent four years in jail, this was not divulged. Anybody else feel a bit sorry for the poor sod?
Marcus, like Elisa's husband Fred, were just side characters in a cast of female powerhouses. While I love a strong female lead, a bit of meat on the male characters would have been nice, too.
