After it recently landed on ITV, the gripping thriller The Stolen Girl is having another moment!
It's a twisty drama about a girl who is abducted while attending a playdate at a new friend's house, starring the one and only, Holliday Granger.
The five-part series follows Denise Gough as Elisa, mother to the abducted child Lucia, as well as Ambika Mod (who we loved in One Day), who plays a journalist working to get to the bottom of what's happened.
What is The Stolen Girl about?
Get ready for some *spoilers*!
The show centres on an ordinary family: mother Elisa, father Fred, daughter Lucia and her brother George. Lucia has just made friends with Josie, whose mum Rebecca invites her to attend her first sleepover at Josie's house.
However, the day after the sleepover, Lucia, Josie and Rebecca all disappear.
Then, as the show's official description puts it: "Elisa is forced to embark on a high-stakes cat-and-mouse chase across Europe to discover the shocking truth about her daughter’s disappearance."
What becomes clear is that Lucia was not a random target and, in fact, there is some dark family history connecting her and Rebecca.
Is The Stolen Girl a true story?
No! The Stolen Girl is not a true story, it's based off of the best-selling novel Playdate by Alex Dahl.
The novel is described as a story of a "seemingly average, seemingly happy family plunged into a life-altering situation".
Was Rebecca Lucia's real mother?
As the show develops, there are hints that Rebecca, whose real name is revealed to be Nina, may be Lucia's real mother - suggesting that Lucia was taken from Nina by Elisa and Fred.
In one scene, Nina shows Lucia pictures of her as a baby, alongside her distinctive birth mark. The images, however, are revealed to be photoshopped. They actually feature Nina holding her biological daughter, Rose, who died some years prior and is not Lucia.
In this episode, we see that Nina's daughter and husband died in a freak car accident, which we can assume caused her the mental instability that drove her to take Lucia.
Was Lucia a random target?
Be prepared to be gagged at this one.
It turns out that Nina's decision to target Lucia was due to a troubling and tragic connection she had with Elisa.
First up, some context. Lucia may be Elisa and Fred's daughter, but her brother George had a different father: Marcus, a man with whom Elisa was having an affair.
When she was pregnant, Elisa and Marcus visited Elisa's father, who was dying. She confronted him about her childhood and the sexual abuse he subjected her to and, during an argument, pushed him down the stairs to her death.
Fleeing the scene of the crime, Elisa and Marcus drove away: and this is where the connection with Elisa and Nina's connection began.
Nina and her family, which at the time included Josie but also her other daughter Rose and husband Nicholas, happened to be on the same road. In her distress, Elisa crashed into Nina's car, killing Nicholas and Rose.
Elisa never took the blame for the accident, as Marcus took the punishment for her, going to prison so that she could raise George and return to Lucia and Fred.
How does The Stolen Girl end?
The show ends with Elisa and Selma finding Nina in France, and in a dramatic culmination, Elisa manages to get Lucia back.
However, she returns to the UK, Elisa goes to prison for six years for killing Nicholas and Rose in the crash and for perverting the course of justice. Elisa also confesses to Fred about George's true parentage...
Nina remains on the run with Josie in France.
Did you see those twists coming?
The Stolen Girl is available on ITV1 and ITVX now.
