Well, here we are then... after eight long weeks, we’ll finally uncover the central mystery at the heart of ‘The Missing’, namely what happened to Sophie Giroux, Alice Webster, and whether or not they’ll be saved, or if they even want to be.
We uncovered a lot from the past in this penultimate episode. Following Julien Baptiste’s cosy chat with Nadia Herz - once they’d each put the butcher’s knife away - we’ve discovered just what happened back in 1991, in the Gulf.
Now we know that: Adam Gettrick was the third man referred to by Stone; that he went walkabout and slept with an underage local girl for which he was summarily punished; that Major Herz refused to give help, leaving Stone and Reed to retrieve him, possibly forming a lifelong bond, but leaving a nine-year-old girl to perish, and a young boy who saw everything.
But there are a lot of things we’re still scratching our heads about, namely…
Sam thinks that’s Alice on the right, Gemma is convinced that’s her on the left. Who’s telling the truth, and why is one who’s got it wrong so sure? There could be one final twist here, something to do with that DNA test - we’ve not forgotten “we matched her against her father”. Sam, you may yet have to explain yourself.
Why did Baptiste tell Adam Gettrick he knew about his sordid past, if he knew he was going to be arrested himself? “Gettrick knows I’m onto him, we don’t have much time.” You’re not kidding! If the wily Scot gets away with this, I’m afraid we’ll have to blame the good Monsieur.
So now everyone realises Matthew beat up Brigadier Stone - but why do these twins keep getting involved with all our main characters? First Nadia, then the Brigadier. Is there one final twist to be had here?
Oooh, we’ve had our first mention of Tony Hughes (that’ll be James Nesbitt, Series 1, for the uninitiated). Is there a link between that case and this one, after all?
In fact, these scenes, Baptiste’s return to his wife, Gettrick’s drive to Switzerland, all had the feel of a final episode, and we know from Series 1 that ‘The Missing’ doesn’t necessarily conclude with any satisfaction for us viewers, so that could have been that… until, Baptiste noticed those floor tiles. What, or perhaps more disturbingly, who will they find?
Because… it’s not Alice. She’s in Switzerland, finally making her appearance in extremely sinister fashion. It seems Gemma Webster was right all along. Meanwhile, she and Baptiste eventually made it round to Gettrick’s slightly inhospitable-looking pad, where purple wall paint has never been seemed so creepy. But how are they going to begin to find the seedy Scot, now he’s escaped over the border to those picturesque pines, and does Sophie, and even possibly Alice, even want to be discovered and rescued?
‘The Missing’ concludes this Wednesday 30 November at 9pm on BBC One.