Making its Disney+ premiere on August 01, 2025,The Stolen Girlpromises to be the most intriguing new mystery miniseries on TV. Based on the 2020 novelPlaydateby Alex Dahl, the story concerns Elisa Blix (Denise Gough), an English mother whose world is thrown into a chaotic tailspin when her adolescent daughter suddenly vanishes from an innocent playdate. As Elisa desperately searches Europe for her missing child, a dogged manhunt spans from England to France.
The Stolen Girlboasts a stellar cast and includes five easy-to-binge episodes. In addition to guiding viewers on how and where to watch the mystery thriller series, it’s worth analyzing the source material, the talent involved, critical reception, and why fans should unpack the central mystery this Springtime.
The Stolen Girl
‘The Stolen Girl’s Release Schedule
Beginning at 10 PM ET on June 22, 2025, all five episodes ofThe Stolen Girlwill be available worldwide on Disney+.U.S. viewers can watch each episode on Hulu the following day. Meanwhile, for those who do not wish to binge the whole season at once or do not have a Disney/Hulu subscription,Freeform will air new weekly episodes every Wednesday at 10 PM ET.
Disney+ Release Date
Freeform Release Date
Apr. 16, 10 PM ET
Apr. 23, 10 PM ET
Apr. 30, 10 PM ET
May 7, 10 PM ET
May 14, 10 PM ET
What To Expect from ‘The Stolen Girl’
Based on Alex Dahl’s bestselling book,Playdate, The Stolen Girl’s plot thickens when Elisa Blix agrees to let her nine-year-old daughter, Lucia (Beatrice Cohen), sleep over at her new best friend, Josephine “Josie” Thibault’s (Robyn Betteridge) house in a posh English manor. When Elisa returns to pick Lucia up the next day, she is mortified to learn that her daughter is missing and that the English manor is a vacation rental house owned by someone else. Elisa turns to Josie’s mother, Rebecca (Holliday Grainger), for answers, who has hidden secrets of her own.
Once she realizes Lucia has been kidnapped, Elisa, her husband Fred (Jim Sturgess), and her mother Maria (Lisa Bowerman) participate in an international search across Europe. Yet, the more they unravel the mystery, the more Elisa and Fred are criminally implicated in their own daughter’s disappearance, forcing them to legally clear their names, find Lucia, and ensure the kidnapper is brought to justice.
Along the way, Fred and Elisa encounter Detective Inspector Shona Sinclair (Bronagh Waugh), Detective Sergeant Lizzie Walker (Layo-Christina Akinlude), clairvoyant investigative journalist Selma Desai (Ambika Mod), Selma’s boss and senior news editor, Kaleb Negasi (Michael Workeye), and other key characters who look for Lucia and raise a suspicious eye toward her parents to ensure their innocence.
The show’s compelling hook revolves around whether Lucia’s parents deserve to have their child taken from them and whether Lucia benefits. As Fred and Elisa fight for their innocence, their relationship with Lucia comes under suspicion, with the twists and turns raising the question: Is Lucia better off with her captor or safer at home?
Why ‘The Stolen Girl’ Is the Best New TV Mystery
The Stolen Girlpromises to be the most gripping new TV mystery due to the why, not the who. While most mystery shows revolve around who is responsible for the inciting crime,The Stolen Girlstates who’s culpable for Lucia’s abduction right from the jump. Therefore, the series is less about who is guilty and more about why the culprit broke the law. Notice the parsed language in Disney’s synopsis:
“As an urgent manhunt unfolds across Europe, Elisa and her husband Fred find themselves the object of police and public scrutiny. Elisa’s perfect family begins to unravel under the pressure, and long-buried secrets come to light.”
“Rebecca took Lucia for a reason. And as viewers learn more about the tangled lives of these women, the question of whether Rebecca was justified in kidnapping the little girl arises – and if she might be better off staying hidden.”
With viewers told who took Lucia from the start,The Stolen Girlbucks traditional mystery conventions and flips them on their ear. Through flashbacks, the nonlinear tale becomes more about Rebecca’s deep-seated motives and tethered past to the Blix family and less about identifying the kidnapper in the end.
Themes of secret family abuse, surrogacy, abduction versus adoption, and class divides begin to percolate around Lucia’s kidnapping, offering viewers more than a simple abduction mystery. This is where the show separates from the morass of formulaic TV mysteries, where the “who” in “whodunit” often takes precedence over the why.
All five episodes ofThe Stolen Girlare available on Disney+ beginning April 16 at 10 PM ET. Episodes will air the next day on Hulu, and Freeform will release new episodes every Wednesday at 10 PM ET.
