The Netflix series Just One Look, based on a novel written by Harlan Coben, follows the life of a young woman named Greta, who tries to find the truth behind her husband’s sudden disappearance. I personally didn’t find the series as impactful as I had expected it to be. There were many subplots that weren’t necessary at all, and even the main conflict, and the big revelation that happened at the end, seemed a bit convenient and ineffective to me. So, let’s find out what happened in the series and if Greta was able to uncover the truth about her past life.
Spoiler Alert
Where did Jacek go missing?
Jacek and Greta had the perfect life, and they had no clue that there were people out there who wanted to disrupt everything and bring chaos into their peaceful existence. Jacek and Greta came back from a vacation, and the latter had sent in some photos to get developed. Greta collected the photos from the studio, and she found an old picture of people she presumably didn’t know thrown into the mix. Greta saw the photo, and she felt that one of the individuals in it was Jacek. But Jacek just laughed at her misconception, but then quite suspiciously, he vanished and didn’t return home. He didn’t say where he was going, and after he did not return for a couple of days, Greta felt a bit worried.
We came to know in Just One Look that, back in 2009, there was an incident at a music concert. Unfortunately, a man named Wiktor Lewinski set the arena on fire, because of which 28 young people ended up losing their lives. Greta was also present there, but fortunately, she survived. After that incident though, Greta ended up losing her memory. Time and again, she got flashes from the concert in her nightmares, but she didn’t remember what exactly happened on that day. So Greta, after 2009, was in a very vulnerable state, and she had a hard time coping with the trauma of her past life, even more so because she couldn’t be sure of anything after her memory loss.
How did Greta come in contact with Borys Gajewicz?
At the beginning of Just One Look, we saw that Borys Gajewicz, a prosecutor, came to the prison to visit a man who had been serving time there. This prisoner, Marek Skalewski, had told the authorities that he only wanted to talk to Borys, and so the authorities informed the latter about it. Borys was told by this prisoner that, back in 2009, Marek had killed his daughter Alex, aka Alexandra. The prisoner told him that though he was a contract killer, he had some rules that he never broke. Killing a woman was something that he had never done, but he mistakenly assumed that Alex was a man, because of which he agreed to do the job. Now that he was dying of cancer, he decided to break this shocking news to the father, who deserved to know the truth about his daughter’s demise. For the longest time, Borys believed that his daughter had met with an accident, and he was shocked to know that it was a planned murder. So Borys went to meet Greta, and he didn’t tell her that he had been fired from his position and was no longer a prosecutor. He told Greta that one of the girls in that photo that had appeared out of nowhere in her collection was his daughter.
It seemed as if through Greta, Borys wanted to find out the truth behind his daughter’s murder, but in reality, he had some very different intentions. So Borys knew that Greta’s husband, Jacek, had been missing, and that she had no clue where he was. Borys wanted to join forces with Greta, as he believed the one who was responsible for the murder of his daughter was the person who had kidnapped Jacek. But Greta was a bit unsure at that time, at least, as she had no clue about Jacek’s past, and she didn’t even know if he had been kidnapped or if he had gone somewhere out of his own free will. Borys also added that Alex and Jacek were in a relationship back in the day, and showed Greta a picture of his daughter, claiming that she was pregnant with Jacek’s kid at that time.
Were the police able to catch Jacek’s kidnapper?
Greta was in touch with a man named Karol Wespa, whose son, Rafal, had also died in the fire that broke out during the concert. Karol had developed an affinity towards Greta, probably because she dated his boy back in the day. Karol made sure to send flowers to her on every anniversary of that fateful incident. Karol wanted revenge for the death of his son, and after he got to know that the prime accused in the arson case had completed his sentence and was going to be released, he became even more cautious about Greta’s safety. Soon after Wiktor was released, Karol’s men killed him, though he had had no clue that there was a much larger conspiracy at play there.
Greta had gone and filed a missing person’s report, and that’s how Tomasz Dalewski got involved in the case, and he started looking for evidence that could lead to the truth. The detective got a breakthrough when the dead body of a man who was identified to be Roman Kowalik was found in the trunk of a car that was parked in the basement of a mall. Dalewski, after interrogating Roman’s wife, came to know that a man named Robert Bonczyk was behind Jacek’s kidnapping. He also found out that, back in the day, Robert shared his prison cell with Marek, the same man who had been hired by someone to kill Alex. Jacek was tortured by Robert, but one thing that became quite clear was that he was working for somebody else, as he kept updating some unknown person about what he was up to. Meanwhile, amidst all the chaos, Greta also came to know that her husband had a sister, about whom he’d never spoken. Sandra, a well-known lawyer, was apparently Jacek’s sister, and the weirdest part was that she was the one who was handling the case of Wiktor Lewinski, the man responsible for setting the concert arena on fire. Greta realized that her entire house was bugged and that people could keep track of her movements. Robert probably didn’t get compensated for his job, and for the longest time he held Jacek in his custody. In the end, Robert decided to make a rash move and abduct Greta, probably because he didn’t have any other option. But that move proved to be detrimental for Robert, as Greta was able to get the better of him, and during the scuffle in the car, she ended up shooting the man. Robert was killed, and Dalewski and his associate Agnieszka were able to locate Jacek. Greta was traumatized by what had happened, but the good part was that she had not suffered any injuries. One weird thing that Dalewski found was the name of Szymon Adamiuk on the wall where Jacek was held captive. Dalewski had no clue what could be the relationship between Jacek and Adamiuk, and neither did anyone else around him. But it was a huge respite for the police department that the victim was found alive, though it would have helped their case even more if they had been able to catch Robert alive.
Why Did Jimmy Get Killed?
Jimmy was a popular musician/rockstar, and back in the day, one of his songs named “Just One Look” had become a chartbuster. Jimmy shared a past with Greta, though the latter, because of her memory loss, didn’t remember anything. We came to know at the beginning of the show that Jimmy knew certain things, but he was not able to speak his heart out. He went to meet Sandra, and he even met Greta, which made us realise that both of them had done or seen things in the past that they were either hiding or, in Greta’s case, she was unaware of. Jimmy gave the video to Greta, and through it she came to know that Jacek, Alex, Justyna Dudzinska aka Sylwia Lesniak, and Szymon Adamiuk were a part of the same band that was called LAAD. Greta also came to know that her husband, for some unknown reason, had hidden his real identity from her. For the last 15 years, Szymon Adamiuk had pretended to be Jacek, and Greta had no clue why he would do that. Greta went to talk to Alina, Szymon’s mother, about it, and she realized that even she was aware of it. In fact, Szymon met his mother as frequently as he could, and Alina even had pictures of Greta’s kids at her place. Now, before Jimmy could reveal the truth to Greta, he was hit by a speeding car and killed, and that was when Greta got to know that there was somebody who was pulling the strings from behind the veil. Though Jimmy hadn’t told Greta everything, probably because of the fear of the unknown perpetrator, he did hint that the truth lay in the video that he had sent her. Greta went back to her home, and she watched the video on a loop to find out what she had missed out on. Eventually, she was able to make a shocking breakthrough, something that she hadn’t imagined in her wildest dreams.
What happened during the 2009 music concert?
During Just One Look’s ending, Greta got to know that her husband had pretended to be Jacek for the last 15 years, and this was confirmed when she met his mother, Alina. Greta went to meet an injured Szymon Adamiuk, and that’s when he told her the truth about why he had lied to her. So back in the day, Jimmy and the real Jacek had a fight, as the latter believed that Jimmy had stolen his song, “Just One Look”. Both of them got into a fight, and Jimmy ended up stabbing Jacek by mistake. Sandra arrived at the scene, and she saw what had happened. Even Greta opened the door of the green room, and she saw the real Jacek lying in a pool of blood. Jimmy went after Greta and told her not to tell the truth to anybody. Meanwhile, Sandra had a different game plan in her mind. She knew that her brother’s song was a hit, and she was also well aware of how she wasn’t going to get a single penny from the royalty of her brother’s hit song’s rights. She knew that in case of her brother’s death, the royalty would be transferred to her parents’ account or his brother’s spouse’s if he would have had one. So Sandra came to Szymon and asked him to commit identity theft with her. Szymon needed money for his mother’s operation at that time, and so after giving it a thought, he agreed to her proposal. Now, I believe that Wiktor putting the entire concert arena on fire came as a blessing in disguise for Sandra, and she used it to her advantage.Alternatively, it could have been possible that she was the one who asked Wiktor to do the needful in return for some compensation.
Nobody came to know that the real Jacek had been killed, and eventually, Sandra forced Jimmy to forfeit his song rights and transfer it to her name in exchange for her silence about the mishap that had happened after the show. Sandra might have tried to buy the other band members because they knew who the real Jacek was. I believe that there might have been some conflict between Alex and Sandra regarding this, because of which the latter would have felt threatened. So Sandra got Alex killed by Marek, and then after she got to know that Sylwia Lesniak was going to publish an article stating what had actually happened in 2009, she got her killed, too. After the photo resurfaced and Greta showed it to Szymon, the latter called Sandra and asked her what she was up to. Actually, the photo did not come out because of Sandra, but it was the doing of Borys, Alex’s father. His intention was to make the perpetrators feel threatened, and they took the bait. Borys hoped that he would be able to figure out the truth by creating a misunderstanding between the concerned parties, and that was exactly what happened. In the end, Greta got the better of Sandra, and the law enforcement authorities came and took her into custody. I believe it would be a tough task to prove Sandra’s guilt in a court of law despite the audio recording that Greta managed to record, and as Sandra was good at hiding evidence. But it was still a victory for Greta and people like Borys, who had been kept in the dark for a very long time.
