Mysteries abound in Harlan Coben's Shelter, because the first three episodes of the new thriller are out, and the first one is packed full of questions that are sure to find answers later on in the show.
Harlan Coben's Shelter is a new Prime Video young adult mystery series about Mickey Bolitar, a young boy whose family is plagued by drama. It's based on the same-titled novel by Harlan Coben, which is a spin-off of his Myron Bolitar series who is Mickey's uncle.
Here's how to watch Harlan Coben's Shelter, and the first three episodes landed at the same time on Friday, August 18. The pilot episode is absolutely chock full of drama, and the seeds of the mysteries that the next six episodes will unravel, and so a recap for it will probably remain pretty handy.
So here's our Harlan Coben's Shelter episode 1 recap, and obviously spoilers for it ensue.
An introduction
We start the episode in New Jersey in 1998, with a load of kids being shepherded into a sound-proof bunker.
A quarter of a century later the person doing that shepherding is taking a phone call on a beach in LA, telling someone he's back in the States. He's playing basketball with his son, Mickey Bolivar (Jaden Michael), our main character. Mickey's mum is also there, as all three have just moved to Los Angeles.
Driving home from their beach basketball session, the family is singing along to a song — until a truck drives straight into them. Mickey sees his dad taken off by a paramedic while him and his mom lay injured in the car.
Flash forward four months. The dad is dead, the mom is in rehab for a drug problem she's developed and Mickey is living with his aunt Shira (Constance Zimmer) in New Jersey, preparing for his first day of school.
First day of school
Waiting literally outside the front door as Mickey leaves is Arthur (Adrian Greensmith), a dorky kid who's on the welcoming committee, and has been sent to escort Mickey for his first day. The bereaved kid wants to walk to school alone though, and as he does so he passes a creepy-looking house, with someone peering out the window at him, and this is the town's Boo Radley-style boogeyman. We also learn that Mickey's uncle was a basketball prodigy in the school (though everyone thinks it was Mickey's dad), and this is a reference to the Myron Bolitar books as he's a sports agent in those..
At school Arthur is back, giving Mickey advice. Mickey also meets the basketball jocks, who court him for the team (if you'll pardon the pun), and another girl who's having her first day, a prospective cheerleader named Ashley (Samantha Bugliaro). Ashley and Mickey hit it off, also bonding over the fact they have dead dads and have European History class together, and set up a date for that evening. Mickey clearly has some slick moves!
Through this, a bald bearded man watches them, and he takes a picture of Ashley before leaving. We also see that Ashley has got a gun in her backpack. Plus, the inside of her locker has a butterfly logo scratched in it, that she covers up with a hippo magnet.
Later Mickey sees a basketball game in action, and although reluctant, he joins in. His talent makes an enemy of the jock he met before, Troy (Brian Altemus). We learn that Mickey's family moved back to the States after years abroad so that he could pursue a basketball career, but the death of his dad discouraged him.
On his way home, Mickey passes the creepy house again, and sneaks into the garden. A song playing from the window is the same as the one his dad was listening to before the crash, a single grave stands for one E.S., and a creepy woman is on the porch. She tells Mickey that his dad isn't dead, before scarpering into her house.
As Mickey bangs on the door Ema (Abby Corrigan), a goth girl, appears and tells him to cut it out, thinking he's another jock playing a trick. Mickey leaves and goes to his date instead, but Ashley never materializes. Maybe Mick doesn't have the moves after all?
Upon going home, Shira is on a call with her ex-husband, complaining about how Mickey is hard to work with. When Mickey returns he proves her right, as he wants to visit his mom but she says it's not possible. He criticizes the fact that she doesn't like his mom, which apparently put in motion the events that saw his dad killed, and then he runs away.
The bald guy from before receives a text from someone, telling him "find her or we are all dead", suggesting that he's not to blame for Ashley standing up her date.
Mickey returns to the creepy house and bashes at the front door, calling for answers, before he's arrested by the police. When he's let go later, Shira tells him that his dad also went into that house and it changed him. We see a flashback from her perspective, to a longer version of the phone call at the beginning of the episode, as Mickey's dad seemed to know that the 'accident' would happen.
The 'haunted' house
As it turns out, the policeman who arrested Mickey is Troy's dad. The next ay Troy and his friend taunt Mickey, and also Arthur when he shows up, but Mickey knows some fighting techniques so protects Arthur when the friend attacks him.
Ashley isn't in the European History class, and so misses a very prescient talk on Anne Frank and Lizzy Sobek, with the important detail being that there's no evidence that either is actually dead (like Mickey's dad, perhaps?), and also that the latter helped children escape the Holocaust (not the first time this episode has mentioned someone helping children escape something, after that first scene). After class, Mickey talks to one of the cheerleaders, who suggests that Ashley simply stood Mickey up.
At lunch, Troy's friend starts taunting Ema, until Mickey steps in, and they bond, particularly when Mickey mentions that he visited the creepy house (the Bat Lady House). When he goes back that night they pop up too, having worked out that he hadn't told them the whole truth about it.
Mickey sneaks in while the two keep watch. He finds the record that was playing before, which has a butterfly album artwork, and also finds the magnetic hippo that Ashley had. Ema and Mickey had to scarper because another (different) bald man showed up, but they meet after.
Since Arthur is on the school welcoming committee, he can find out Ashley's address, but instead of coming along Ema goes home. We see that, on her shoulder, she has a butterfly tattoo just like the one scratched in the locker and on the album artwork.
Police surround Ashley's home, and a body is being wheeled out on a stretcher, with a forlorn woman walking behind it. Mickey calls out for Ashley, but the woman says that she doesn't know who that is, as she has no daughter. Watching this all from a dark car is the bald man.
At the end of the episode, we see a few quick clips:
- Troy's cheerleader girlfriend has Ashley's backpack, and finds within it the gun.
- The aunt is looking at a photo of a child on a computer, and the child wears the same hat that's used as decoration in the family house. Presumably it belongs to Myron or Mickey's father.
- The bald bearded fellow reports in to the crazy woman from before, who's looking decisively less crazy now. He suggests that Ashley is in fact still out there somewhere, however he's then shot and killed by the other bald guy who scared off Arthur and Ema from the Bat Lady House.
Phew. So at the end of the episode we're left with hundreds of questions: what's the relevance of the butterfly, is Mickey's dad still alive, who is the crazy woman who has all these bald men working for her, is Ashley still alive and why are people after her, what's Ema's link to it all and lots more.
