The Missing Season 1 Episode 3 Review: “The Meeting”

The time has come again when I settle down with a cup of tea and a scone to discuss the latest episode of the epic (I know it’s only been three episodes but I’m calling it epic) The Missing. The first two episodes were used to establish the mystery and the characters that are affected by the abduction but this week we focus more on the police and their past and present investigation into the case. We’ve seen how the troubled parents have dealt with their loss with Tony’s life stopping the moment Oliver was taken and how Emily has tried her hardest to move on, as well as gotten an insight into the pedophile Vincent who is guilty of his impure thoughts but apparently not of the abduction so he was cleared as a suspect many years ago. A large part of “Pray For Me” was seen through Vincent’s perspective and this week is the turn of Julien.

I feel that Julien is probably the most interesting character within the series (after Tony of course) because he is an experienced police officer, partaking in these types of investigations is unfortunately the norm for him which is seen in the opening episode with his cool exterior when informing Laurence that they may never find Oliver. I mentioned before that something must have happened to him within the last eight years if he is willing to come out of retirement against the wishes of his wife and blackmail a mayor in an attempt to give Tony some much needed closure. In “The Meeting” we get to witness his behavior at the early stages of the investigation after they have to cut Vincent loose, and they bring Tony in because of his violent past (and present if his confrontation with Vincent is anything to go by). It felt like they just wanted to pin it on someone to make the case go away, Tony was is a father who has just lost his child and in absolute anguish. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that Julien is so involved in the present? The press get wind of Tony’s past and pretty much call him guilty in print, which could have hampered the investigation. Maybe Julien feels guilty because he accused an innocent man? I would.

We’re also introduced to Adrian in this episode, an undercover police officer working within a local criminal gang who believed that they may have something to do with Oliver’s disappearance. The gang usually deal with drugs but now are importing goods to Thailand, and the police assume that that means the gang are involved in sex trafficking with Oliver possibly being one of their victims. This is the reason I love the flashbacks! They introduce so many different ideas of things that could have happened to Oliver and it drives me insane but makes me fall in love with the show every week. Yes, I understand that it’s quite dark because I’m adoring a show about a missing child but I guess I’m just not right mentally. Julien turns super cop as he’s trying to pursue this new lead and gets into a car chase that I didn’t know the show needed until now. This episode shows that the pacing of the show is picking up and we begin to unravel the mystery surrounding Oliver in the upcoming episodes.

The 2006 scenes also feature the smarmy Ian Garett who seems to have links to some high powered personnel as he discovers about Tony’s questioning much earlier than anyone else. Through this he worms his way even more into Tony and Emily’s lives partially in an effort to keep suspicions away from Vincent and I have a feeling there is another reason for it. Perhaps I was incorrect about him being a red herring, maybe he does have something to do with Oliver’s disappearance? He also helped me come up with a pretty wild theory about it, perhaps he has a link to the criminal gang and their sex trafficking operation, with people in positions of power (police, politicians ect.) are also involved? Maybe that’s why they were reluctant to open the case? Perhaps that’s how the basement that Oliver was held was abnormally clean, like a professional had done it? That may just be me reading too much into things, the side of my brain that deals with the conspiracy theories does tend to work over time.

In the present we have Julien and Tony working on the investigations by questioning residents of the street that Oliver was taken to but of course eight years have passed so they probably don’t remember much and the duo almost come up empty. Emily arrives in the middle of the meeting purely to inform Tony to let it go. She travelled to France to tell Tony to give up on trying to find out what happened to Oliver and move on. The further we go along in the story the less I feel I understand her character, I get that she wants to move on and doesn’t want to raise her hopes but there is actual evidence. Sure there may not be that much but it could lead to something else, but Emily pretty much said she’d rather not know what happened to him which doesn’t really feel like something a mother would say or feel. Does she really want to forget her child so badly? Well it doesn’t look like she’ll have a chance to because before the episode closed Julien discovered video footage of Oliver at the house, clearly in distress as a concealed figure is restraining him. This should hopefully kick the investigation up a notch, it’s the first solid lead they’ve had of him in eight years so it can’t just be brushed under the carpet by the higher ups.

Malik is still worming his way into peoples lives to get a story out of it and make me want to hit him, but he does give us our first glimpse of Ziane behind bars in present day. Clearly Ziane feels a lot of contempt toward Malik, he’s probably the reason he was imprisoned, we all know that Malik had some information on him that he was blackmailing him with. Heck, Malik blackmailed him just to get a meeting! Malik loves blackmailing. The Rottweiler wanted a meet with Ziane so he could find a way to get in touch with Vincent, or to see if Vincent had revealed anything to him in their time in solitary confinement together. Malik is also still convinced that he knows what happened to Oliver, but I call bull. There is no way he knows what happened and didn’t publicize the hell out of it before, the guy is all about the glory rather than hard evidence. Anyway, he does eventually track down Vincent but Vincent doesn’t respond to his request to talk. I was expecting Vincent to feature heavily last week and less so in following episodes but it looks like his story lines will be woven into the main arc. Maybe my far fetched theory isn’t so far fetched, Vincent may be involved as well. But that would only pan out if Vincent was lying about never acting on his urges when Tony attacks him. I’m so confused. My head hurts.

I think I’ve summed most of it up, I’ll just be going through different theories in my mind till next weeks episode. Maybe I can factor Aliens in some how? Maybe there’s an Alien/French Government/French Gangsters alliance going on that Oliver got caught in the middle of? Well one thing is for sure, the pacing of the show has picked up and we will get to see more of the investigation than we had done previously. I don’t for a second think we’ll get any answers anytime soon, probably a lot more questions that may or may not get answered by the last episode. Let’s hope they do though.