The Missing - anyone watching this?

You have to keep up with the sub title that tells you what year you're in.
There's been sufficient pieces of the jigsaw given out to put you on the right track.
It will all become clear.

I think it's very good.

previous was very good with nesbitt in

So, unless the DNA test results were falsified, Sophie came back impersonating Alice and put the real Alice's body in the shed before burning it and disappearing again.   

Who is the third girl? What bad sh1t were Henry Reed and Adrian Stone into? (child abuse or trafficking? Or both?)

It's superb. Outstanding performances from Keeley Hawes (as ever) and Tcheky Karyo in particular.

Or...it's the 3rd girl in the shed.

Yes that was a bit of a shocker that they confirmed the dead body to be Alice. If the DNA results were falsified, that wouldn't work as an explanation as the burned out girl couldn't then appear 2 years later in Switzerland. So I came to the same conclusion as you that Sophie must have put the real Alice's body in the shed, burned it and then disappeared. How she could do that (she was locked in on her own) and why she would do that doesn't add up, so figuring there is surely a third explanation we haven't spotted.

The girl in the shed shares a DNA match with David Morrissey so don't see why it would be the third girl and not the real Alice they put in there.

It would mean that the 3rd girl was fathered by Morrissey.

Accepting that he is a randy goat, what are the chances of him fathering two girls, who live separately and don't know each other, who both get abducted? I guess not implausible but it would therefore mean these are not random abductions and that they have been targeted to get at him.

unless the Morrissey character is also the father of the third girl? (implausible I grant you).

Theoretically she could have got a copy of the key cut after her previous night in the shed (maybe that was reconnaissance mission for what she planned to do?) and passed it to an accomplice (Adrian Stone?) who let her out and helped put the body in there before setting the shed alight?

Like you though, I'm struggling to identify her motives.

soz Ozy - did n't read yours before my last one.

The necklace on the 3rd girl in the roller coaster.....was that not also on the skeleton in the shed?

They definitely focussed on it like it was very significant so quite possibly.

Did the brother not see his " sister " moving in the shed as she was burning to death ?

OMG!

OMFG!!

looks like we might be right about it being the 3rd girl in the shed.....gettrick faked the dna match presumably?

Yep, it will have been the 3rd girl.
It was already stated in earlier episode that the army lied about the DNA being a match.

Wow, this is shaping up to be a belter of a finale. I think it's the third girl in the shed and the DNA was faked by Getrick.

Interested to know how they will track him to that Swiss town though.

And why Sophie felt the need to walk back into town in the first place, and why she felt the need to pretend to be Alice. No-one was on to them, couldn't they have all just fecked off to Switzerland without turning up in town?

They will track him because he didn't have cash to pay for the toy...will have used his credit card.

Sophie needed hospital treatment for her appendix...hence her reappearance.

Really? He would be that stupid knowing that everyone would be looking for him and that his card would be traced? If that's how it pans out it's a bit of poor plotting. Covering up 25 years of total abuse without ever getting caught and then using your card when you've legged it?

But if she did need to come back for treatment, why come back as Alice and not Sophie?

Yeah its weak alright...but why else make the point about not having cash?

As for coming back as Alice......not sure......maybe Gettrick is connected soomehow to Sophie and for her to turn up in his town would have drawn attention to him?

That will really disappoint me if such a slick programme goes that route to explain tracking him. He just wouldn't do that. Not sure you'd do it for vital supplies let alone a fecking monkey doll you don't need.

Any thoughts on why she didn't return as herself and pretended to be Alice?

The clumsiest and most irritating part of the plotting for me came last week when the Keeley Hawes character was left on her own in Eve Stone's Army office, and just happened somehow to be able to fish out of Eve's computer all the records of personnel who served in Iraq in 1991. and printed them off for good measure. Hence the French detective was able to go and see the butcher's wife tonight and learn about Gettrick's covered-up antics in Iraq.

That was pretty poor.

Are we all now convinced that the David Morrissey character fathered (at least) two almost identical girls, with different mothers?  BOTH of whom were kidnapped by Gettrick???

And can we now also assume that the body found in the shed was the 'third girl' on that rollercoaster photo, the DNA test result having been faked by the Army bods? Unless D Morrissey's character fathered a THIRD girl.

The third girl wore a pair of glasses as I recall. The girl in Switzerland burned a pair of glasses in her fireplace in an earlier episode.

Why would he have needed to have fathered 2 girls if the DNA match for the girl in the shed was faked?

Yes the few minutes with the other woman's computer which allowed her to somehow find and print records from 25 years ago was utterly crap.

As was tonight's scene in Iraq where the two boys sat outside the house for hours, supposedly incognito.

All in all, apart from the few weak points discussed (every show has them), a great programme.

Why would he have needed to have fathered 2 girls if the DNA match for the girl in the shed was faked?

The two girls we saw at the end of tonight's show looked identical to me. That's why I'm guessing D Morrissey's character is the father of both.

I don't know whether the third one is also his (surely a plot twist too far) or the Army just faked the result of the DNA test.

The D Morrissey character was also been rather reluctant to discuss that photo Keeley H tried to show him, just as he has been reluctant to discuss the possibility that the one who came back was not Alice Webster.

Something to hide?

I think the reason they are similar is a plot device to allow one girl to impersonate the other.

And/or Gettrick has a type.

Is Gettrick not now technically awol from the army, given that last week he said he had to hang on in Eckhausen a bit longer to get his full pension.

He might have left a clue as to his whereabouts because he left in a hurry leaving the soft toy behind - which I assume was originally Alice's?

Nobody has raised the alarm about the murdered police officer yet either. Might Gettrick have neglected to dispose of the policeman's mobile which he used to text one of the policeman's colleagues saying he was ill and would be off work for a few days - and be traceable via that?

I have avoided this thread as have been playing catch up with recordings.

I presume Sophie had to get treatment for appendicitis and was released for that purpose, but why did she pretend to be Alice?  Surely a very high risk strategy.  I would say
almost impossible to pull off considering that she was in pain, on painkillers, general anaesthetic for long periods.  She should be up for an Oscar - the character that is!

I think a DNA switch, or lying about the results is more likely than further extra-marital exploits from Sam.

Agree about Gemma getting all that info while Eve had been called out of the room.

Also found Nadia Herz being in charge of Stone and Reid as far back as 1991? a bit unlikely.

I guess next week we will find out what what happened in Afghanistan in 2001.

We know Gettrick was injured there, perhaps Sam (Morrisey) was also in Afghanistan....perhaps he was responsible in some way for Gettrick's injury or they had a run in...and Gettrick taking Alice was, in part, some from of revenge.

Perhaps we will meet Sophie Giroux's parents too....perhaps her Father was also mixed up in Afghanistan at the time ('he used to be somebody important'). 

Alternatvey, Sam (Morrissey) was 'away' in 1992, aroud the time of Alice's birth, perhaps he was in France or met and had a ding dong wth M. Giroux.....leading to Sophie.....and Gettrick's discovered this. Seems a bit contrived to me.  Simpler explanation is faked DNA.

Lena, the third girl, looks **** she could be Irqai but looks too young to be the 13 year old girl from 1991, but could be the offspring of Gettricks rape in 1991.

My Guesses are that the 13 year old in Iraq is Stones older "daughter" that Eve gave the baby to, also could the rabic guy who was following Julian be the Iraqi girls younger brother.

yeah, definitely possible that the 13yo is Eves 'sister' ("abalaster skin").

I had in my mind that the Arabic guy following Julien was a hallucination connected with his illness.  Have we not met the younger brother...wasn't he the curator in the Museum?

"I had in my mind that the Arabic guy following Julien was a hallucination connected with his illness.  Have we not met the younger brother...wasn't he the curator in the Museum? "

Yes, you are right, forgot about him

Have to be wide awake to watch this . Any drooping of eyelids for a second or two, and you've missing a vital sub plot clue !!

I'm just catching up with this week's episode. I thought I was following it pretty well until I just read through this thread

Haven't looked on here until now as I have been a couple of weeks behind.

Good grief! Now I understand the thread

Concludes next week.

Grand finale @ 9.

Any final predictions?

'fraud not

'fraid !!!!

Meh...no backstory on why any of the girls were chosen...just random....

Really enjoyed it. Was worried they'd utterly ruin the ending a la Line of Duty but no, it was nicely nuanced. There's always going to be some suspensions of belief involved for something like this to work but it was well crafted and brilliantly acted I thought. One of the best dramas of the year.

A great series, no doubt.

Personally I needed a few more shocks in the finale, some breathtaking new twists that no one had foreseen.  The finale of series one had its own flaws (the fox, overly ambiguous) ....but in ways it was a more powerful ending.

For example... I would have loved to have seen a passing glimpse of Real Alice's inner wrist WITHOUT a tattoo..just to feck with our heads one last time...

Also nothing about why or how Sophie and Lena were taken, in Paris and Munich respectively....just random, unconnected, opportunistic  kidnappings.  I would have preferred some connectivity.

p.s. they should have found an actress to play Alice who actually looked like Sophie!.

Disagree, I think the disconnect was important to enforce the idea of how a family would deny the obvious reality in order to have their daughter back.

I know where you are coming from PP....but adult Alice had brown eyes....Sophie had distinctive light coloured blue green eyes, as did a young Alice.  Ok, more important that Sophie's eye colour matched Young Alice...but adult Alice was a strange piece of casting imo.  Not the end of the world, granted!

I really enjoyed it. Thought the ending was very good.

The ending was ok , they very often are terrible.
Surprised Lindsay Denton did not solve it quicker , mind.

Wonderful series - at last an ending that I liked were the baddy gets caught. So much stuff these days were the endings are left in the air and the baddy gets away with it! Ok, so I'm old fashioned.

I wish they could have started this 2nd season with the kids body from the 1st season eventually being found. I didn't like the ending of season 1 at all.

Agree with Ozy, if you are going to have a family convinced some other girl is their daughter, at least cast two girls who look a bit similar. Massively implausible. Nothing like each other. Other than that good stuff. Would also have liked a headf*ck in last episode - was almost a bit too straightforward after all the twisting.

the story line was pretty impressive if not totally impregnable.

As with the first series, the directing, production and some of the acting was almost unparalleled for this type of drama.

I liked first series more.

After a good start, this one, for me, tried to be too clever in its twists and turns and switches in time. Not so much confusing as annoying. To the point I lost interest and as a result didn't gain much empathy with any of the characters.

I agree with what Facts says above. I also agree with what Ozy says about the choice of actress for Alice.

The acting from all concerned was excellent so it was very watchable.

Have just had a dramatic lightbulb moment...our heads have been fecked with after all, we just didn't realise it....

Adult Alice, who we met in Ep 8, is not actually Alice at all....

NOOOOOO!!!!!

The Missing actor Tchéky Karyo has revealed that an alternate ending was filmed for the series two finale of the BBC show.

The drama first aired in 2014, with its second series concluding last night (November 30). It ended with a cliffhanger, leaving viewers to speculate on the fate of Karyo’s character Julien Baptiste as he undergoes brain tumour surgery.

Karyo revealed to Digital Spy that they shot an alternate ending where Baptiste “wakes up and asks, ‘where is my wife?'”

He added that he hopes for his character to return in a potential third series, saying: “We’ll see now if there are more skeletons in the closet. It looks like Julien Baptiste is becoming a [popular] figure. We had Hercule Poirot, now it’s Julien Baptiste!”

Writer Harry Williams recently said of a third series: “It would have to be very different, and not cynical, and it’d have to be saying something new. Never say never – but we haven’t had the idea yet, to be honest.“

Williams added to The Mirror: “I think the worst thing we could do is just rush another one because people love it, and leave a bad taste in the mouth. As and when we have the idea – if we have the idea – then I’m sure we will. But I think, for a little while, probably not.”


Read more at http://www.nme.com/news/tv/the-missing-alternate-ending-series-2-1884838#g6q...

Thanks, Bigmo. I had heard about this and was going to mention it but couldn't be bothered

You have done  a far better job than I would have done.

I should think that there'll be pressure from some quarters for a 3rd series eventually to be made as viewing figures were high  - 7 to 8 million per episode apparently!