So are you baffled by THE MISSING links?
Hit TV series is confusing millions... but here’s all you need to know
IT’S THE addictive thriller series about a girl who returns to her family after disappearing years before – and more than five million viewers are tuning in each week hoping to work out what happened to her.
But the second series of the BBC1 drama The Missing has also left many fans scratching their heads as they struggle to follow a complex storyline jumping across three different timelines.
The series stars David Morrissey and Keeley Hawes as the parents of Alice Webster, who goes missing from a British Army base in Germany where they live. When she apparently returns there are doubts if she really is the same girl.
The drama shifts back and forth between the events surrounding her disappearance, her return, and the present day – by which time she is dead. Fans have taken to social media to share their frustration.
One posted: ‘Well this is intense... I have no idea what’s going on.’
Another said: ‘Absolutely confusing but incredible.’ And another wrote: ‘Head is baffled.’
Even the cast admit it’s tough going. French actor Tcheky Karyo, who plays detective Julien Baptiste, said: ‘This series is like a rollercoaster. It will provoke the audience and keep them on the edge of their seat.’
If it’s all become too much for your baffled head, here we pose ten crucial questions and provide answers that, hopefully, will penetrate the mysteries of The Missing…
(Spoiler alert: If you’re recording the series to watch later, you may not wish to read on.)
1 Why does Alice Webster look so much like the the demonically possessed child played by Linda Blair in The Exorcist?
It is an entirely appropriate look for a very dark soul who is determined to wreak havoc on anyone who crosses her path. Our initial sympathies for Alice dissipated very quickly when doubts about her true identity emerged.
As things stand at the moment Alice is almost certainly Sophie Giroux, a French schoolgirl who was abducted at the same time as Alice.
2 Why don’t Alice’s parents demand a DNA test when doubts about who she is begin to emerge?
Alice’s mother Gemma, played by Hawes, does demand a test but she is over-ruled by her soldier husband Sam (Morrissey) who thinks his daughter has suffered enough. Sam, who is a staff sergeant in the British Army, says: ‘Do you not think I know my own daughter? Stop it. After everything she has been through.’
Of course, the absence of a DNA test does sustain the mystery, and getting a sample may now be impossible after the girl claiming to be Alice apparently burned to death in a fire she almost certainly started herself.
3 Who are the people who appeared in episode three hidden behind the bizarre animals masks?
In a heart-stopping moment, these thugs brutally attacked Nadia Hertz, the former army officer who is the wife of the prime suspect in Alice’s disappearance, butcher Kristian Hertz.
Could Alice’s brother Matthew be one of the attackers? He has been keeping company with some very unpleasant local thugs.
4 What is the significance of the red camper van fleetingly glimpsed at the start of episode three?
Spotted by a child playing ‘I spy’ during a family holiday to Switzerland, this now seems to be the vehicle used to abduct school girl Alice from her home in Germany.
Viewers got a glimpse of a yellow van creeping up on Alice as the series began – and a botched paint job can’t hide the van’s sinister past.
5 Why does Julien Baptiste sport two such very different hair styles?
This is the programme’s oh-sosubtle way of emphasising the fact that the drama is unfolding across different time lines. When we see Baptiste and his trademark grey hair we know that the action is set around the time of Alice’s return in 2014. When we see him with shaved head we know the character is in the present day when he is also battling cancer.
6 What happened to the character played by Roger Allam?
Isn’t his Brigadier Adrian Stone meant to be a good guy? Yes he was – but only for about ten minutes. The Army officer, who helped with the original hunt for the girls, is also hiding a dark secret. Shortly after her return, Alice confronts Stone and asks him: ‘How can you live with what you’ve done?’
Stone now has dementia so his recall of the past is not as it once was.
7 Why is butcher Hertz’s wife Nadia seen with a pair of false teeth?
Nadia appears to be dealing with the aftermath of the brutal attack on her. She is paying the price for standing by her husband who is the local butcher. In addition to protesting his innocence she has destroyed incriminating photographs which display the couple’s passion for sado masochistic sex.
8 Why are we suddenly in a war zone?
Detective Baptiste travels to Iraq to find British soldier Daniel Reed, who has gone AWOL, after learning that Reed’s late father Henry may have been connected to both girls’ abductions. Daniel tells Baptiste that Henry was regularly transferring money to the bank account of a particular individual. Baptiste becomes convinced that Henry and the bank account are connected to the original disappearance of the two girls.
9 It can’t really be the butcher, can it?
Perhaps all too predictably, given his profession, butcher Kristian Hertz is the prime suspect. But though he is behind bars now the case against him is on very shaky ground.
In episode three Alice’s brother Matthew visited the prison and passed on her apologies for falsely naming him as her abductor.
10 The story already has plenty of twists and turns – did we really need the rollercoaster ride scene in episode three?
Shortly before her death, Alice shares a happy memory of her time spent on a rollercoaster ride. Her family is chilled to the bone by the recollection because it is not a memory they know anything about. Alice is in fact recalling a day out she enjoyed with her abductor. Gemma tracks down a photograph from the fairground which shows two teenagers on the ride. She recognises both. One is the real Alice, the other is the girl who is claiming to be Alice.
Episode 4 of The Missing is on Wednesday on BBC One at 9pm.