The Missing - Série 1

This crime thriller about the fine line between determination and obsession starts off promisingly and then branches out in multiple different directions without losing sight of the disappearance referred to in the title. The secondary storylines functionally complement and push the main one forward and, at the same time, are variations on Tony’s story. Other characters also struggle with their natures, hiding something dark from others and trying to do their best for their families with a certain stubbornness. After the riveting start, the alternation of two time planes helps to hold the viewer’s attention. The jumps in time rouse curiosity about how what we see in the present came to be in the past and raise questions, some of which are answered in the given current episode (why Rini has a neck bandage), whereas others are answered much later (why Baptiste walks with a limp, how Emily got together with Mark). Each episode revolves around a moral dilemma, which contributes to the thematic cohesiveness of the individual episodes (in the episode revealing the circumstances of the divorce, for example, it is discovered that the perpetrator of a certain crime snapped after breaking up with his wife). Thanks to the raising of more and more questions and cleverly doled out twists (often in the form of cliffhangers), the pace does not seem to be too slow and the excessive space devoted to the suffering of individual characters isn’t overly bothersome. Despite a certain degree of inertia in the later episodes (Baptiste and Tony usually find a new witness, who, however, conditions his or her cooperation on something and, after the condition has been fulfilled, sets the protagonists on the trail of someone else), The Missing still manages to be surprising due to, for example, its unreliable narrative (a dead character is presented as alive but turns out to be a figment of another character’s imagination) or a dive into very dark waters, which retroactively relativises the initial image of a harmonious family (somewhat stereotypically, only the wife remains an innocent victim until the end). A superbly directed one-shot car chase elicits regret that the series does not contain more action scenes. On the other hand, The Missing demonstrates how viewers can be effectively hooked for eight hours without such scenes. All that requires are excellent actors, focused direction and a screenplay that does not offer any easy solutions and does not make compromises with respect to the characters. 80% (30.12.2016)