A new 2025 Amazon Prime mystery thriller TV show, directed by Wayne Che Yip joined our screens this October called Lazarus. Starring Sam Claflin as the main character, Joel ‘Laz’ Lazarus, as he follows the mysterious events that erupt after his father’s untimely death.

We are set up with the knowledge that the Larzarus family have a deep interest in the minds of other people, with their professions all revolving around the study and help of people’s minds. Joel, a forensic psychologist, follows in the footsteps of his father, Jonathan Lazarus (Bill Nighy), who was also a psychologist. The two share a traumatic and distant relationship, even though there is love between them. This is due to a horrific event that tore apart the family: the death of Joel’s twin sister, Sutton.

Sutton was murdered in their family home, and the killer was never caught, until the death of Joel’s father Johnathan, whose death prompted an investigation unlocking doors and memories that have been plaguing and haunting Joel for years. After Jonathan was found dead in the office of his clinic, and the police claim that it was suicide, Joel sees an apparition of his father in his office where he tells him that he was murdered. After seeing the first apparition of his father, Joel sees many more, clients and staff members of the clinic, but who is it that Joel is seeing, and is it all real, or is it in his imagination?

This story is procured from the imaginary mind of Harlan Coben, with his talent for thrilling and mysterious novels. The idea was carefully crafted for the screen by Danny Brocklehurst. As a viewer, it does feel like watching a good thriller book unravel on screen. There is an intensity to every harrowing second as Joel feels the chase catching up on him as he starts to meddle with clinical psychopaths and murder suspects. It is revealed that there is more than what meets the eye, and we are never sure if he is chasing the right thread or if maybe there is more than one villain in this story.

There are guaranteed twists and turns – sometimes something is as it seems, and sometimes the truth is a complete subversion. The characters are frustrated and pulling at each other as they spiral in grief – including Joel, who is the most devastated with the loss of his twin, wrestling with his own guilt, the blame of his father, and anger at the unjust circumstances. 

I thought of the namesake Lazarus and tried to trace back some of its origins, with it ringing a bell in my mind of religious connotations. It is in the Christian faith that Lazarus was resurrected by Jesus (in my interpretive theory, the resurrection could be likened to the apparition of Jonathan) and also a symbol of hope and new beginnings (Joel’s investigation, as a Lazarus, he is searching for the truth, besides the police, he is the hope to hopefully guide the family to new beginnings). Perhaps this layer of interpretive imagery was intentionally placed by the writers to add to the emotional depth of the story, perhaps I am being overly analytical!

Lazarus, from the Hebrew origin, means ‘God has helped’ – perhaps Jonathan Lazarus tried to ‘play God’ and meddle too much in things that he does not have the right to place action over when he sends help to Joel from the afterlife. As he is the hand that reaches down and helps Joel to uncover all that had remained unknown to him. I think this is perhaps one of the ways the series tackles grief. With the use of this imagery, Joel begins to sort out his past, with unresolved and complicated feelings for his father, and guilt that he carries over the death of his twin. 

Rating: 3/5

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