The Missing follows a tried and true formula of TV storytelling, a whodunit in which each

episode ends with such a compelling cliffhanger, it’s impossible not to dig into the next one right

away. There’s no need to binge the entire season, however. The only connecting thread between the two anthologies comes in the form of retired detective Julien Baptiste (Tcheky Karyo), and he’s now working an entirely new case. Baptiste is trying to figure out the mystery behind not one, but two missing girls, and the connection between their disappearances. Reminiscent of BBC’s mini-series Thirteen, or the movie Room, Season 2 of the Starz series

focuses on what happens after one of the missing girls shows up after being held captive for 11

years. When we meet Alice Webster (Abigail Hardingham), she is a shell of a human. She’s

been badly beaten and medical examiners find evidence she’s since given birth. Alice’s bleary

eyes gives off a deep kind of sadness, a kind pain only someone who’s spent over a decade

with an abusive rapist could emit, and for which you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy, let

alone an innocent child. While Alice’s family is over the moon she’s returned, that she’s alive, their reunion isn’t as

joyous as one would expect. Alice freezes up when her father Sam (David Morrissey) tries to

give her a hug. Gemma (Keeley Hawes), her mother, is walking on egg shells. She’s nervous

anything she says or does might trigger a bad memory for Alice. It’s clear both parents are

wracked with guilt over what their child’s been though, and are angry at their inability to protect

her from such unimaginable torture. Gemma is also terrified to admit her daughter now seems like a stranger. She addictively flips

through old photo albums, straining to find a spark of familiarity in pictures of the little girl she

once knew. Alice also feels uncomfortable being back in her old home. Life moved on while she

was gone. This is far cry from the fairy tale ending Alice’s parents and brother Matthew (Jake

Davis) envisioned her return would be. But the awkwardness might be due to the fact that Alice isn’t actually Alice. The series bounces

between two timelines, one in the year 2014 in which Alice first returns, and then to present day,

in which Baptiste is traveling around Iraq, still on the hunt for Alice’s kidnapper. In the final scene

of the premiere, Baptiste announces that the girl claiming to be Alice Webster in 2014, wasn’t

actually her at all.