The Missing 30/11/2016

“Absence diminishes little passions and increases great ones, as wind extinguishes candles and fans a fire”.

You all know how much I love a Julien Baptiste quote and this one was no different. Oddly enough, it sums up how I’m feeling right now – and most likely you, too, as you’re reading this. After eight magical weeks, what on earth are we going to do with our Wednesday evenings without The Missing? It quite literally feels like a piece of us will be missing (yes, I cringed writing that). As though something isn’t quite right. 

But we’ll pick ourselves up and we’ll carry on and we’ll watch other original British drama series and we’ll think yes, okay, we’ve moved on from The Missing and we’ve stopped speaking about it now. Before we know it, in the most sneaky way possible, we’ll hear a whisper of a third series. And we’ll be right back to where we are now, obsessively clicking on the hash tag for The Missing on Twitter and calculating the likelihood of different theories.

As always, for anyone who hasn’t caught up on tonight’s episode, please don’t read any further than this. I don’t want to be the one to spoil the fun for you. But go and watch it, enjoy, then come back and read this afterwards.

Tonight’s episode was the final in the second series and it tied up the majority of the loose ends we had. It answered the majority of our questions. But not quite all of them. 

In tonight’s episode, we saw Alice and Sophie in their basement prison in a flashback to 2014. Sophie was close to death, as she lay on a filthy makeshift bed on the floor, clutching her abdomen in pain. She had appendicitis and without medical intervention, it was inevitable that she would die. Bearing this in mind, creepy psycho crazy Adam came up with the ludicrous plan which would have Sophie be discovered, pretend to be Alice, get better and then return to Adam and Lucy (and poor Alice). 

Before shooing her into the wild, Adam flashed her one tiny photo of Christian Hertz, the butcher who went on to be arrested for a crime he didn’t commit. 

This is where my first question arose. For those of you who are regular readers of my blog, you’ll know that I questioned this last week: is it really plausible that someone would hold such a grudge against a person for twenty three years because they hadn’t organised a search party when they went missing during the war? I just couldn’t buy into it. 

Last week, I hoped more would materialise and perhaps explain why Adam decided to pin the entire debacle on a person he barely knew anything about. Sadly, we didn’t get that answer. It turns out that Adam was so bitter about Nadia Hertz’s lack of response when he went missing in Iraq in 1991 that he decided to frame her husband for a despicable crime. Out of everything that unfolded throughout the series, I think that was one of the aspects I was the most apprehensive about believing. 

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that Adam Gettrick was a mentally unstable man with psychotic tendencies and inexplicably unbalanced behaviour where anything was possible but it just seemed so extreme.

Then I think about Adam’s house on the military base in Germany. Now, for those of you who’ve never had anything to do with military accommodation before, let me explain. Housing is provided for British soldiers and their families, wherever they may be based. The houses are relatively small and plain but they do the job. There are multiple inspections during a family’s time staying in military accommodation and if the army aren’t happy about something, it has to be changed. I know this from experience. 

So, let’s consider the thirteen years Adam was keeping the girls hostage (we don’t know the length of time Sophie or Lena were held hostage but Alice was definitely gone from 2003 when she was abducted to present day when she was rescued). Adam had a two bedroom house. Why? He didn’t have any children as far as the army were concerned. These houses are like gold dust. Perhaps he got lucky. I’ll buy into that. 

But the two windows at the front of the house being boarded up for years on end? I would bet my life that within a week of boarding up your windows in a military house, you’d have the officials knocking on the door demanding to know why. Perhaps Adam was so secure in his job with the information he had on people like Adrian Stone that he thought he was invincible. I struggled to buy into this as well. 

(Without going into too much detail about what I didn’t like – because these are literally teeny tiny points that are enormously overshadowed by everything that I loved – I also didn’t like the Swiss waiter storyline tonight. It felt a little too similar to what I like to call a Harry Potter get out clause. 

You know how in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One film when Hermione and Harry are looking for Harry’s parents’ grave? In a graveyard with hundreds of tombstones, Hermione bends and wipes the snow off one random grave and goes oh, look, it’s your parents’ grave, Harry! I cannot abide laziness like that. It felt a little similar tonight with the Swiss waiter. He looked down, saw the photo and didn’t say anything but his face gave the game away. I wasn’t massively keen on this but I’ll let it go. Stranger things have happened.)

Speaking of Adrian Stone, cast your minds back to my very first blog weeks ago. I said from the word go that I didn’t buy his dementia sob story. I smelt a rat from the moment he switched conversation at a very convenient moment. Tonight, it wasn’t necessarily confirmed but it was certainly suggested that Adrian Stone is a little Billy Bullshitter. 

The moment he suspected he was going to be rumbled for his involvement with Sophie’s abduction, he planted the seed of doubt in Eve’s mind that his memory wasn’t what it used to be. A little too convenient if you ask me. Perfect timing. 

Then let’s just take a second to think about what Adam said to Adrian Stone about their similar sexual preferences. Adrian Stone was a bad, bad man. I began to wonder whether that was why he was so insistent on going to search for Adam in Iraq when he’d heard that Adam had slept with a thirteen year old girl. Appalling behaviour and I had him sussed from day one. Just call me Baptiste.

Anyway, while I let my increasingly large head deflate, I will say how Sam Webster’s death took me by surprise. I really didn’t expect it and was sad for him, as a father, that he hadn’t got chance to bond with his daughter following her rescue. But in a weird way, perhaps he felt so at peace with finally fitting the missing piece of the puzzle together that he simply let go. 

Speaking of which, we saw Julien about to undergo what appeared to be a very intense operation. Presumably, this was the operation that was needed to keep him alive (fingers crossed) but what if it wasn’t? The last we saw of Baptiste was in Switzerland, a country where euthanasia is legal in certain medical centres. Perhaps, in a similar way to Sam Webster, the mystery was solved and a very tired, very ill Baptiste simply wanted to put things to rest. Quite literally.  

I hope not. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Julien Baptiste is the Albus Dumbledore of the detective world.

Something I just want to touch on – there has been a lot of confusion over the bald chap that Baptiste kept seeing. Perhaps I’m wrong here, but I’ve always just assumed he was a hallucination from Baptiste’s brain tumour. Nothing more to it than that. I’ve read some wonderful theories that this man was actually the brain surgeon tending to his tumour and the whole storyline was really a hallucination or a product of the anaesthetic during his surgery. 

I admire the creativity of this theory but I think it was just the result of a very sick man. Nothing more, nothing less. 

What I was still a little disappointed about was that we didn’t learn particularly much, if anything, about the abductions of any of the girls. We know that Adam knew Lena’s family and we know he worked with Alice’s dad, but how on earth did he know Sophie Giroux? And why did he take them? Was it premeditated? Did he plan to take those specific girls or just anyone he could find? 

And why was his relationship to Alice so much colder than his infatuation with Sophie? Was it simply because Alice was more likely to speak her opinions? Why did he bother keeping her then? Lena was clearly at his disposal for being “annoying”, yet he chose to keep Alice with him for over a decade. Was this just another of his psychotic tendencies coming to light?

A nice unexpected twist at the end was Christian Hertz’s total lack of interest in his wife once he had been released from prison. I wasn’t sure how he would react to the news that it was someone he vaguely knew who had framed him. I guess in some respects, they didn’t really know one another at all. Christian was unaware that his wife knew about the rape of a thirteen year old girl and the murder of a nine year old girl, yet never reported it. Nadia didn’t believe her husband, despite him protesting his innocence throughout the series.

It would be interesting to see if they ever worked through these issues.

The worst and best part of a drama series coming to an end is trying to piece together all the little bits and wondering what, if anything, would ever happen. Eve Stone, for example, carrying Sam Webster’s baby. Eve and Gemma Webster forming an unlikely alliance. Alice returning to her family. Matthew potentially on the road to recovery from years of shutting himself away from his family. Eve getting the truth from Adrian. Sophie’s relationship with Lucy. Sophie’s relationship with her father.

Finally, we are all desperate to know if The Missing will return for a third series. At the end of series one, we got a sneak preview of series two and I was hoping for a repeat of that tonight, but alas, it didn’t materialise. 

There was, however, a wistful feeling drummed up inside me when Baptiste fell asleep on the number “trois” when counting backwards. Perhaps this is an indication of a series number three?

All I can say is that the last eight weeks have been an absolute ball. We’ve gasped and wondered the whole way through and I can only hope that in two years time (if not sooner), we are sat on our sofas as equally obsessed with series three as we were this time and last time.

Until then – it’s been a pleasure! 

The Missing 23/11/2016

Last night’s episode of The Missing had Twitter exploding, as viewers struggled to handle their shock. After last week’s blog entry where I said I felt slightly disappointed with the episode, I began to feel ashamed of myself for even thinking that once I was five minutes into last night’s episode. It was phenomenally good. It was BAFTA worthy. Absolutely brilliant.

Now, as always, if you didn’t manage to catch last night’s episode of The Missing (why the hell not?) and you plan on watching it without any spoilers, this is your warning – DO NOT READ AHEAD.

As we all know, last week’s episode ended – rather limply – with Nadia, the butcher’s wife, accepting that she did know something about what happened to Mirza Barzani’s sister in Iraq, 1991. Last night’s episode opened with her version of events.

We were taken back to Iraq and it was everything we’d imagined it would be: hot, dry and deserted. Nadia, despite her youth, was a more senior ranking officer than Adrian Stone and Henry Reed. Nadia was also ill, although trying desperately to hide it, as she barked out orders that Stone and Reed were forbidden to look for Adam Gettrick, who had been missing for days.

Going against her wishes, the two young officers formed their own search party as the two of them snuck off to find him. They’d heard a rumour that Adam had been caught in bed with a thirteen year old girl, so the first place they checked for his whereabouts was the girl’s house. They met her father, who told them that he was well aware of Adam’s behaviour and had sent him packing. The soldiers smelt a rat and waited in a car until they were certain the girl had left and her father had gone to sleep.

They discovered the young Mirza Barzani, who they ushered out of the house as they found what they’d suspected – that the young girl’s father was keeping Adam hostage. Barely alive, Stone and Reed dragged his body through the house and were discovered by the girl’s father, who Stone shot dead. To cover their tracks, Stone poured petrol in the house and set it alight once they were all safe outside.

Or so he thought.

It turned out that there was a nine year old girl trapped inside the house. Needless to say, she perished. Reed, seemingly more guilt stricken than Stone, got Mirza Barzani’s details and presumably, this is when he began to send money over to him, as a way of saying “Sorry we killed your dad and your sister and blew up your house”.

So, what was the relevance of knowing about this story? Well, originally, we all suspected something more sinister had happened. I for one was beginning to picture a horror story unfolding of three twisted soldiers and a nine year old girl, so in a strange way, even though a child and her father ended up dead, it was somewhat of a relief. Furthermore, we got to see that Henry Reed appeared to be a decent person. And more importantly, we saw that even as a man in his early twenties, Adam Gettrick was a monster.

Nadia found out about what happened, presumably after seeing the state Adam was in once they’d returned to camp. Desperate not to tarnish her reputation, she decided not to tell the powers that be what had happened. As such, the story remained between the four of them. Could it be that Adam was bitter about Nadia telling the other two not to search for him? If so, is this why he framed her husband for the abduction of Alice and Sophie?

It seems incredibly extreme. Why wait all those years? And why frame him and not her? There’s got to be more to it, which is why I suspect Sophie asked Matthew to tell Christian that she was sorry.

Speaking of which, we see Adam leaving Germany to meet Sophie (formerly known as Imposter Alice – which, ironically, I’ve called her since the start of the series and last night, Gemma Webster called her! I actually cheered.) in Switzerland. He brought little Lucy with him and it was uncomfortably clear how vulnerable she was, sat in the back of the car in total silence, with what can only be described as a predator looking after her.

We got to see more of the relationship between Sophie and Adam and it appeared more apparent than ever that Sophie was awash with a combination of disgust, hatred and fear for Adam. I started to wonder whether Sophie was playing a game. Is she going along with his little plan to ensure the safety of Lucy, so that once they were reunited, she can kill Adam or run away?

Whatever she’s planning, fingers crossed she doesn’t forget about Alice. Yes, that’s right, you read correctly. Last night, we saw the real Alice Webster for the first time since she disappeared in 2003. In the creepiest sequence of events, Adam decided to buy Lucy a toy to replace one she had left behind in Germany. He chose a creepy monkey that no one in their right mind would buy. He realised he had left some cash at home, however he still purchased the monkey, so did he buy it using a card? Potentially linking himself to Switzerland for anyone looking for him?

Back at the cabin, Sophie, Adam and Lucy are reunited and once Lucy falls asleep, Sophie spots the toy monkey. She assumes, naturally, that it is for Lucy. In a jaw dropping moment, Adam announces that the toy is for “her. She’s been good. I didn’t hear a peep out of the boot the whole way here”. Chillingly, he unlocks a padlocked door and out crawls the emaciated figure of Alice Webster, dragging her lifeless body across the floor like a dog.

It was pitiful to watch. I was sat eating a Toblerone at the time and I felt sick to my stomach as it was clear that this poor girl hadn’t eaten a morsel in weeks. Her skin was sallow, her hair was lank and greasy and she was filthy. Heartbreakingly, she promised Adam that she would be good. Again, the treatment of her and the way she was behaving seemed more like an abused animal than anything else.

Really, we shouldn’t have been shocked. This is The Missing, for crying out loud. Nothing is impossible. As the penultimate episode, we should’ve known something huge was bound to happen. Somehow, I don’t think any of us expected to feel as thoroughly repulsed as we did. I was accompanied by my The Missing buddy, my mum, and we just sat in silence for minutes. It was sickening, as if for a brief moment we thought what did we just watch?

It makes you wonder why Adam has chosen to treat Alice in such a degrading demeanour. Is it just purely down to his psychotic behaviour or has Alice done something during her years in captivity which has given him “cause” to lock her up? (I say that lightly, for obvious reasons.) As in, has she attempted to run away? Or did she alert Henry Reed of her presence, meaning Reed had to be taken care of?

Thinking back to little Lucy two weeks ago when she’d drawn “me and mummy in the basement”, we all presumed she was referring to herself and Sophie, but could she really be Alice’s biological daughter? As Henry Reed is a medic, could he have been on hand to assist with the birth? Which would account for the blood on the floor in his house. We know Sophie has given birth as this was reported shortly after her return but does it have to have been with Lucy or could there be another child somewhere?

And now we bring ourselves back to the age old question: WHO WAS THE BODY IN THE SHED? Presumably, it was Lena. The third missing girl, from the rollercoaster, who we’re none the wiser about because only poor Jorn had linked her to the storyline at all. If it was Lena, then someone had to have rigged the DNA test results. Either that or Sam Webster has been sowing his seed a lot more than we realised.

Speaking of which, Eve Stone is still pregnant with his child. We didn’t see a great deal of Eve last night, other than a little surrounding her father’s attack. She was referenced in the 1991 scenes in Iraq, though, for those of us with hawk like eyes. When Stone and Reed were discussing Adam’s exploits with a thirteen year old, Reed pointed out that she wasn’t “much older than Eve”.

Perhaps our suspicions that she was also an abducted girl, brought up by Stone, are wrong but there’s still something fishy there, I just know it. I started to wonder whether Eve was also subjected to abuse from Adam. If so, now that Adam has been accused by Baptiste of being the girls’ abductor, will Eve come forward to convince the authorities that Adam is a bad man?

Let’s not forget that Adam’s uncle, also working for the military police, previously owned the cabin in the woods in Switzerland. Is he in on the whole thing? Will anyone work out the link between the two of them?

Before I call it a night, I just want to reiterate my thoughts on Adrian Stone. He is not to be trusted. Don’t forget that Stone recognised Sophie when she returned as Imposter Alice and intimidated her in the garden, away from prying eyes and ears. She asked him “how can you live with yourself?” What was she talking about?

It seems unlikely that she’s simply referring to the story of the young girl in Iraq, which she could only have heard from Adam. Unless of course Adam has filled her head with years full of nonsense and perhaps pretended that Stone was the one who had raped a thirteen year old.

Regardless of what’s happened, I don’t like him and I am desperate to know if his dementia is genuine or not.

Next week is the very final episode of The Missing and we have high expectations. I read an interview with Tcheky Karyo, the actor behind Julien Baptiste, where he said although there are shocks, the final episode is more about putting the final pieces of the puzzle together. Hopefully we will find out more about the body in the shed, Henry Reed’s suicide, the blood that Daniel Reed cleared up, the transvestite, the bald twins, the apology to Christian Hertz, the flowers on Reed’s grave, where the girls stayed all those years, who else knew about it, when people will realise that Jorn is missing and most importantly – will Julien Baptiste live?

The Missing 16/11/2016

This may be an unpopular opinion and if it is, I apologise in advance, but I was a teeny tiny little bit disappointed with tonight’s episode of The Missing. After watching it, I turned to my mum and the only words I could use to sum up how I was feeling were “well, at least it answered a lot of last week’s questions”. 

After last week’s firework of an ending, it would’ve been brave to repeat the same amount of drama in the following episode. Plus, we’re so close to the end now that time is of the essence, so I fully understand why tonight’s episode mostly answered questions instead of raising them. Saying that, I still have a few. Of course.

As always, if you don’t want to know what happened in tonight’s episode of The Missing, then please don’t read any more of this blog. 

As I say, I was slightly disappointed. Maybe disappointed is the wrong word to use. Perhaps frustrated would be a better choice. If there’s one thing I dislike about writing, it’s lazy endings. By that, I mean anything where the main character wakes up and we realise that the entire storyline has been a dream (think The Wizard of Oz) or where the answers are given to us too readily, so we’re spoon fed rather than working it out for ourselves (think Poirot or Jonathan Creek). 

Sometimes the whole “waking up and realising it’s been a dream” pantomime can be done quite cleverly, but it’s rare. In fact, the only one I can think of where it was done well is in the first series of The Missing, where Ian Garrett’s wife was hallucinating that her and Ian were on a private yacht, when in reality, she was in an insane asylum. 

Anyway, I digress. The point I’m trying to make is that lazy writing irritates the hell out of me. If I’m being completely honest, I found the ending of tonight’s episode of The Missing just a little bit lazy. It was very much a ploy to get us to watch next week’s episode. Yes, I know, that’s the point of having a drama series. But with The Missing, we don’t need to be convinced! We’ll be sat on our sofas watching it regardless. 

So, when tonight’s episode ended with Julien confronting Nadia, the butcher’s wife, about her involvement in the murder of Mirza Barzani’s sister in 1991, Nadia reluctantly appeared to be about to confess as she boldly declared, “I’ll tell you what I know”. Cue the credits. 

If we skip back to last week’s blog entry, I’d already suspected that the third person involved in the 1991 murder in Iraq was Nadia. I found Adrian Stone’s wording a little too careful – “what the three of us did to that girl” – note: not specific to men. So, I was pleased to see this week that I was correct. Although when Nadia opened a package and discovered her husband’s missing camera containing a photograph of imposter Alice, she gasped and appeared shocked. Perhaps it was just sheer horror that her husband was capable of such an atrocity. 

I think the reality is someone had sent the camera to her to scare her or warn her that they know she’s involved. Perhaps the beginning of a blackmail situation, until Nadia ruined it by being in hospital for months. 

At this point, let’s discuss her recovery. Nadia was brutally attacked by two masked men shortly after her husband’s arrest. In tonight’s episode, we discover that Matthew Webster’s friends, the two bald twins, were the culprits behind this attack. However, if we think back to episode two when Matthew saw Nadia in a supermarket car park and began to heckle her, the two twins didn’t know who she was. Are they just dim-witted? Unlikely. The Williams brothers never write something in if it doesn’t have a purpose. So are they covering for someone? Or are they simply bragging about a crime they didn’t commit in a bid to look ‘cool’? 

Which brings me to my next point. Every so often, we catch a glimpse of a young boy who works at the butchers. He is seemingly a bit character who has very little to offer us. Somehow, I smell a rat. I don’t suspect him of illicit activity but I think he knows more than he’s letting on. I can only hope we get to know him more in the remaining two episodes. Or perhaps he’s completely uninvolved and it’s just a nice little extra part for a budding young actor.

In tonight’s episode, we see crazy Scottish soldier Adam cleaning up the aftermath of his wicked ways with a drill. What we didn’t see, however, was how he disposed of Jorn’s body or where he put it. Why was this? Also, no one appeared particularly phased by Jorn’s disappearance. Admittedly, Adam sent a text from Jorn’s phone to a colleague asking him to cover his next few shifts, but is this really believable? Why is no one questioning it more? Or maybe they will later in the series.

Tonight, we saw Julien’s illness truly get the better of him as he began to experience frequent hallucinations and even paranoia that he was being followed. As much as our hearts ache for poor softly spoken Julien, we also began to question whether or not he was as reliable as he once was. In his defence, he was the only person who noticed Jorn wasn’t around, so we won’t completely write him off just yet.

We also watched a particularly tense scene between Julien and Adrian Stone, where Julien was determined to extract the truth from Adrian about the 1991 murder in Iraq. Adrian strikes Julien with his hand and they begin to struggle before being discovered by a nurse. At this point, Adrian shouts to her “He attacked me!” 

Let’s just think about this for a second. Adrian Stone is a man who is so deeply lost to dementia that he cannot control his bowel movements. He doesn’t recognise his own daughter. He speaks to everyone as though he believes they are soldiers. Yet when he strikes out and tries to physically hurt Julien to prevent further questions about the murder, Adrian covers this up by saying Julien attacked him? It doesn’t sit right with me. I’ve said it for weeks now: I don’t believe this man has dementia.

I’m aware this is an unpopular opinion. Tonight, straight after the fight scene, I called Adrian Stone a “little Billy Bullshitter” and my own mother scolded me. She’s certain that he’s an ill man. I, however, smell a rat.

We also learn tonight that Eve isn’t planning on keeping her baby. Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but is there any possibility that Mr Webster isn’t the father? Does anyone remember Jorn’s mix tape? Was it more than just a crush?

Furthermore, when Mr and Mrs Webster are arguing about Eve’s pregnancy, Mrs Webster says “You said this before”, implying that a previous affair has taken place. Who was this with – was it Sophie Giroux’s mother? Lena’s mother? (Speaking of Lena, if Jorn was the only person to link the girl on the rollercoaster with Lena and Jorn has now died, will anyone else put the pieces of the jigsaw together?) 

Eve is furious that Julien is still sniffing around and she warns him off, not too long before Mrs Webster locates the military files that Julien needs. The more I started to think about Eve and Adrian’s relationship, the more doubts I have and the more questions I think of. I can’t forget Adrian’s line, “You remind me of a girl with alabaster skin”. 

At the time, I thought he was likening her to Alice Webster. As the weeks pass by, I’m starting to wonder if Eve is more involved with the story than we think. Not necessarily in a criminal manner but perhaps – and I’ve said this before – she isn’t Adrian’s daughter. Is there any chance she is Mirza Barzani’s sister? Or another abducted girl? 

Finally, we get to understand a little more about the relationship between imposter Alice (who from now on, I will call Sophie as that’s what Adam called her) and the little girl who rumbled Adam in last week’s episode. I think it’s easy to assume that Sophie is Lucy’s mother but is that too easy? Are we being false spoon fed? Is this child the child of someone else?

For the eagle eyed among us, we will have noticed that in Adam’s hell hole of a house, there were two boarded up doors. Behind one was Sophie and little Lucy. Who was behind the other? Alice? Lena? Or is this where Adam stored Jorn’s dead body?

We also detected a little French being spoken by Sophie, which didn’t go down well with Adam. It would be easy to question Sophie’s British accent if she really is a French girl living with a Scottish man but if Adam is crazily manipulative (and it looks like he is!) perhaps it’s a case of him brainwashing her with how he wants her to be. 

Throughout the scenes between Adam and Sophie, there was a growing sense of unease as we realised just how little Adam trusted her. Is this because she ran away? Or is it because she told someone – Henry Reed, for example? Are we being too naive to accuse Adam of murdering Henry?

Speaking of Henry Reed, the more I’ve dwelled on last week’s episode, the more I think there’s a reason for why the prostitute was a transsexual. As I’ve already said, the Williams brothers don’t write something for no reason. It will always have a reason, even if we don’t realise it at the time.

Perhaps I’m being pernickety here but in last week’s episode, little Lucy said her and mummy were kept in the basement, yet they were clearly upstairs in Adam’s house. Is this implying that they’ve not always been in this house and somewhere along the lines they’ve been moved? 

Another episode without Daniel Reed, although he was mentioned this time when Julien took a phone call off his ex-girlfriend who said something cryptic about his father. Hopefully more light will be shed on this next week.

No more questions to be asked other than the ones already asked above but I would like to hear people’s theories and suggestions, as always.

The Missing 09/11/2016

If you haven’t watched last night’s episode of The Missing and you’re planning on catching up on it, then don’t read this blog. There’s your warning.

Okay, so, if you did watch last night’s episode of The Missing, you’ll be as equally traumatised as me. Not just because unlike every other Wednesday night where I have a completely clear schedule, intentionally, last night I took my grandma and her partner to the theatre for their Christmas presents from me. Although I thoroughly enjoyed the play (“Paddy” at the Parr Hall theatre in Warrington) I was literally itching to get out of there and get home to watch The Missing.

At one point, I glanced down at my phone and saw I had ninety six tweets from people. Ninety six! I knew something huge had happened in the storyline and I felt sick with myself that I wasn’t there to watch it at the same time as everyone else.

It turns out I was right. Something huge had happened. The military soldier, whose name we learned was Jorn, was attacked in possibly the most unexpectedly brutal manner I’ve ever seen on a television programme that wasn’t a late night find on a low budget film channel. We don’t necessarily know that Jorn has died, but judging from the fact that he received a power drill to the head, I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet.

The person behind his early demise was none other than the seemingly cheery Scottish soldier, Adam, who had been liaising between the press and the Webster family following imposter Alice’s death. In last night’s episode, we saw him speak to Mr and Mrs Webster about a source who had informed the press that their son, Matthew, was responsible for locking imposter Alice in the shed prior to her grisly end.

Now that we know Adam is a bad egg, it poses the question: was this source really just Adam all along? And if so, what else has he fed to the press? And if he can feed things to the press undetected, can he also hide things from the military undetected? E.g. the DNA results.

More importantly, let’s discuss the reason why Jorn was killed. He had discovered a missing teenager who looked incredibly similar to the third girl pictured on the rollercoaster with both the real and the imposter Alice Webster during their years in captivity. He contacted the missing girl’s mother and had a conversation which we as the audience weren’t privy to. This resulted in Jorn arriving at Adam’s house to question him after discovering that the missing girl, Lena, was known to Adam as he was close with her family.

Adam was less than impressed when Jorn turned up unannounced on his doorstep and appeared reluctant to invite him inside. When we saw the state of his house, we realised why. Adam was packing and although he gave Jorn a cock and bull story about an early retirement, we immediately smelt a rat. And we were right. Cue an adorable little girl, of around five years old, who walks in clutching a picture she’s drawn. After a little pushing from a curious Jorn, the girl explains that the picture is of “me and mummy…in the basement”.

And that’s how Jorn ended up dead, clearly a very dangerous man’s desperate attempts to cover up the truth.

Naturally, this led to more questions. Presumably, the little girl is the child that imposter Alice referred to at the dinner table when she confirmed that she had given birth during her years in captivity. That would also tie in with the little girl saying that her and mummy had spent time in the basement. However, we don’t actually know that she is imposter Alice’s child. She could be Sophie’s child. She could be Lena’s child. She could genuinely be the child of Adam’s ex-wife, who he also keeps locked in a basement. Let’s face it. Judging from his behaviour in last night’s episode, I wouldn’t put it past him.

Also, if we cast our minds back to the beginning of the episode where we saw imposter Alice in Switzerland camping out in a deserted house, sat on a sad mattress, throwing glasses onto a wilting fire, could it be possible that Adam was hurriedly packing to go and meet her? Is the campervan his? Is he the mastermind behind this whole thing?

I think, based on imposter Alice’s wording at the dinner table where she appeared to defend her abductor, it’s more likely that she would strike up a sexual relationship with Adam than she would with Christian Hertz, the butcher. Adam’s younger, he speaks the same language as her and he’s not exactly hideous, whereas Christian is old and decrepit. (Then again, we haven’t exactly seen him on his best days, have we?)

At this point, I think it’s important to discuss the Stones. Last night, we discovered the reason for why Eve is childless and I’d like to take a moment to say HA to someone on Twitter who sneered at my suggestion that perhaps Eve was a surrogate, because he said soldiers can’t be surrogates. Two years ago, I actually researched surrogacy quite in depth for a book I was writing, and I knew there were no rules about who can and can’t do it. I didn’t see any reason for why Eve Stone couldn’t be a surrogate and with two separate references made about her sister worrying, I suspected the baby was intended for her. More than anything, it was Mrs Webster’s wording that cast doubt over whether that baby had actually ever been Eve’s.

We saw Eve give birth to a baby girl (and no, for anyone suspicious out there, this baby can’t possibly be the little girl with the picture as she was older than two years old) and gave the baby to her sister and brother in law. She wheeled herself outside for fresh air, bumped into Mr Webster and they spoke a little. It was clear that he was really struggling and just as the conversation was getting interested, Adrian Stone, Eve’s father, arrived and pointedly said “that’s enough fresh air for you” to his daughter.

An odd thing to say considering she’d just given birth in quite traumatic circumstances, then handed her baby over to another woman. A little fresh air is hardly asking for much. So immediately, our suspicions are raised and we wonder what has happened between Adrian Stone and Mr Webster to warrant this comment. At this point, I’d also like to draw your attention to the atmosphere between Eve’s sister and Adrian. Was it just me that noticed how uncomfortable she appeared to be around her father?

Furthermore, during labour, Eve begs her father to distract her by telling her the story of when she was born. Adrian can’t – or won’t – regale her with this blessed event. Some might say this was the beginning stages of his dementia. I, personally, felt it was a little odd. Perhaps Adrian Stone couldn’t tell Eve about the day she was born because he wasn’t there. I’ll touch on the same question from last week: was Eve abducted by Adrian as a child?

In present day, Julien Baptiste arrives at the care home where Adrian, now suffering with dementia (allegedly) is living and he tells Eve that her father was involved in the murder of Mirza Barzani’s sister in 1991. We now know she was murdered. Last week, we were curious as to whether this girl was the third girl on the rollercoaster. Eve, naturally, is horrified and in tears, rushes off to be sick. (At this point, I said to my mum who was watching with me “She’s pregnant” “Don’t be daft, no she isn’t” – it turns out she is!) and Julien sneaks inside the care home to speak to Adrian Stone.

Personally, I got the impression that Julien was suspicious of Adrian’s dementia, or at the very least, quite dismissive of it. He humoured him good naturedly with some of the more strange questions he was asked, but overall I got the feeling that Julien smelt a rat. At one point, when discussing the events surrounding Mirza Barzani’s sister’s death in 1991, Adrian said “It was terrible, what the three of us did to that poor girl”. Julien pushed for more information but true to form, Adrian’s dementia got the better of him.

We know that Henry Reed was involved in the girl’s death. Based on the ending, I would say it’s easy to assume that Adam, the crazy Scottish soldier, was the third person that Adrian referred to. But I don’t think that’s correct. Note: Adrian said “the three of us”. Not necessarily men. We know they were out in Iraq. We know they were serving in the war. But could it be Nadia Hertz, the butcher’s wife? We know she knows Adrian Stone as we’ve seen them speaking and the atmosphere was rather frosty between them. Does she simply know his dirty little secret? Or was she involved?

The third person could also be Mr Webster himself. Again, let’s cast our minds back to the hospital scene where Adrian insisted that his daughter must go inside and end her conversation with Mr Webster. Why? Because he knows Adrian’s dirty little secret? Or, again, was he involved?

Back to 2014, Jorn and Julien attempt to contact Daniel Reed but the only person at his address is his recently made ex-girlfriend, who explains that Daniel left the day before. We know that he got in a taxi and asked to go to the airport but we don’t know if she knows this. For those of us with hawk-like eyes, we will have seen a photograph taped to the fridge of a baby. The baby was white, so it wasn’t Daniel Reed’s baby. Whose baby was it? His girlfriend’s from a previous relationship? Her niece/nephew? Or is this baby in any way linked to imposter Alice and her abductor?

Jorn and Julien discover repeat telephone calls to the same phone number on Henry Reed’s itemised phone bills. They track the owner of this phone down and we are introduced to a transgender prostitute who reluctantly tells us that on the night of Henry Reed’s “suicide”, she waited outside his house for him to arrive home. He never did. There was no car on the drive. Annoyed, and most likely freezing cold, she went into the house and found his dead body, lying in a pool of blood. Terrified, she fled. Julien points out that the following morning, Henry’s car was on the drive.

Who drove it there? It’s looking increasingly more like murder as the episodes go by, but we’ve been on to that since day one.

We didn’t get a huge look in on the Webster’s last night, other than both Matthew and Mrs Webster voting against the move back home to England, much to Mr Webster’s disappointment. However, I’m sure his disappointment paled in comparison to his reaction to the news that he was going to be a father again.

There was, however, an odd moment between Mrs Webster and Matthew, when discussing the potential move home. Mrs Webster said to Matthew, “your father took six months’ medical leave for you”. Perhaps just an odd choice of words. Maybe she meant “your father was signed off sick for six months dealing with the death of your sister which he still blames you for”. But if I know Harry and Jack Williams, and I think I do, nothing is said for the sake of it. Everything is heavy with reason. Hopefully this will be ironed out next week.

Question for next week:

When referring to “the three of us”, was Adrian Stone talking about himself and Henry Reed plus who? Mr Webster? Nadia, the butcher’s wife? Adam, the crazy Scottish soldier? Or someone else?

Who is the mother of the little girl with the picture?

Is Julien suspicious of Adrian’s dementia? If so, is he right to be?

Why couldn’t Adrian Stone be specific about Eve’s birth?

Why did Eve’s sister appear to be uncomfortable in her father’s presence?

What did Mrs Webster mean by the “six months’ medical leave” comment?

What was Adam actually packing his bags for? Was he intending to join imposter Alice?

Who was the body in the shed? Could it be Lena? After all, we saw imposter Alice burning a pair of glasses which looked similar to the ones Lena was wearing on the rollercoaster.

Is Mirza Barzani’s sister really dead?

Who is the baby pictured on the fridge? Or does the baby have any significance at all?

Who put the car on Henry Reed’s drive?

The Missing 02/11/2016

“The devil is in the details”. Very wise words from Julien Baptiste. If you don’t know who I’m talking about then you’ve been living under a rock for the past four weeks. Or possibly for the last two years. Julien Baptiste is the retired and woebegone French detective who is starring again in the second series of Harry and Jack Williams’ drama series, The Missing. 

When the first series of The Missing came into our lives in 2014, I thought I was one of the only people who had heard of it. I’d seen it advertised on TV and when the first episode aired on 28 October 2014, I was signed off work on sick leave with very little on TV to stimulate my brain. By the time the first episode had finished, I was sat in a state of shock. 

Not only had it captured my entire attention for the full hour (and even better, it really was a full hour as there were no pesky adverts) but I was in awe at the brilliant acting, the unpredictable storyline and the chilling questions I had simmering in the back of my mind all week until the next episode aired. 

I quickly found a little group of people on Twitter who all used the hash tag #TheMissing and together, we discussed theories, we formulated answers and we batted ideas back and forth with each other. People quickly cottoned on to the fact that I was keen on the show and I would get messages on Facebook, emails from people in work, tweets from total strangers, all asking me what I thought was going to happen next. I once spent an entire lunch hour discussing the finer details of the previous night’s episode with a person I had never spoken to before as we toyed with ideas and laughed at our old theories for the story. 

Having never really gone in for the overwhelming amount of reality TV available to us, I’ve always scoured the TV guides for any original British dramas. Once I find them, I cancel plans and move things around to make sure that I can watch every episode and more importantly, make sure that I can watch the episode at the very time it airs to the public. I learned the hard way that it’s terrible stumbling across a spoiler for a programme that you haven’t had chance to watch. 

The types of British dramas I’m referring to are the likes of Happy Valley, Broadchurch, Ordinary Lies, Lightfields, Mayday, Paranoid, The Fall, The Level, Scott and Bailey and more recently, programmes such as One of Us and National Treasure. Anything that gets people talking about more than Kim Kardashian’s arse has got to be a good thing and if it’s written well, I generally enjoy it, but there are the odd exceptions to this rule. This may be an unpopular opinion but I really couldn’t get into Downton Abbey. 

I tried! God knows, I tried. I even asked for the box set for a Christmas present and devoted an entire day to lounging about in bed, nursing a stonking hangover, while I watched one episode after another. But I just didn’t get the same buzz from it that I did from other drama series I’d watched. I remember sitting in work on the day that the final episode of Broadchurch aired and I was literally counting down the hours to get home. 

Was this sad? Probably. Was it necessary? Without a doubt.

So, it might sound odd but by the time the very last episode of The Missing aired, I realised that the show had got a huge amount of attention and rightly so. The most refreshing part for me was that the show didn’t conclude in the way we would’ve expected. Thanks to programmes such as Midsomer Murders and Miss Marple, we expect to be almost spoon fed every answer, every clue. The Missing dared to be different. It made us think for ourselves. And even when we thought we’d cracked it, we were still on the edge of our seats. We ended the episode with unanswered questions, for which we suspected we may never know the answers to.

You can imagine how excited I was when my mum sent me a text message saying “Second series of The Missing starts soon – just seen the advert!” 

And here we are. Four episodes in. For years, I’ve toyed with the idea of blogging about the programmes we see on TV and week after week, I could kick myself for not blogging about The Missing. Tonight, I wrote down a few questions that I have following another nail biting episode and as a last minute thing, I decided to Tweet what I’d written. I went downstairs, made a cup of tea, came back and realised my phone was flashing and buzzing. 150 retweets. 500 likes. 214 comments. 300 new followers, all equally obsessed with The Missing.

Oh, I thought. Maybe they’re right. Maybe I should be writing this down properly. After all, that’s what I do with anything I’m thinking about, struggling with, confused over. So, here we go. Please note that the following comments made are simply my own thoughts and my own theories. None of this is to be taken seriously, nor is it gospel. I might make mistakes with my knowledge of the series so far. After all, I’ve only seen the same episodes as you. If I do make a mistake, apologies – please let me know if this is the case. 

More importantly, if you don’t want to come across any spoilers, this is your warning. Do not read ahead. 

Okay. So, in the first few episodes, we discovered that Alice Webster was a British teenager living on a military base in Germany when she went missing in 2003. In 2014, a young woman stumbled into the German Christmas markets and collapsed on the floor. She was emaciated, she was barely conscious and, most notoriously, she had lips drier than the Sahara desert. When being transported to hospital by ambulance, the paramedic questioned her and the only words the young woman spoke were “Sophie Giroux”. 

In time, we learned that the young woman was Alice Webster and although we might have expected that her return to her family would’ve been a joyous affair, her family (and particularly her mother) were wary. Mr Webster put his daughter’s nervous energy down to the simple fact that she had been held hostage for eleven years. Mrs Webster described Alice as being “different” to what she had remembered.

At this point, we are re-introduced to the fabulous Julien Baptiste, the retired detective hired by Mr Hughes in the first series to help find his missing son. The Hughes story has no relation to the Webster story. The only link between the two series is Julien and as time goes on, we discover that Julien was the lead detective in a different case of a missing girl years before. This girl’s name was Sophie Giroux. 

We also learn that Sophie’s mother committed suicide in front of Julien, something which Sophie’s father had never gotten over and appeared to blame Julien for. In the second episode, it becomes clear that during the investigation of Sophie’s disappearance, Julien either suggested or accused Sophie’s father of having some involvement and that perhaps this was the cause of Sophie’s mother’s suicide. 

Julien contacts the German military police who are investigating Alice’s return. The police are uninterested in his help and shoo him away. The main police officer we meet is heavily pregnant Eve Stone, whose father also works in the military. 

I should probably point out here that in typical The Missing style, the story isn’t just set in 2014. Oh no. It jumps from 2014 to present day. The only way we can differentiate between the two times is on the characters’ appearances. For example, in 2014, Eve is heavily pregnant but in present day, she is not. In 2014, Julien is relatively healthy but in present day, his health has rapidly deteriorated and he later declares that he has a brain tumour. 

It becomes apparent early on that Julien suspects that something is fishy regarding Alice’s return and he isn’t quite as protective of her as everyone else is. In the second episode, this is confirmed when Julien accuses her of not being Alice Webster but actually being Sophie Giroux. Alice leads the military police to the location where she has been held hostage for eleven years and upon investigation of the area (a deserted war bunker in the depths of a murky forest), Julien finds a receipt half hidden by mud and guck. 

The police use the information on the receipt to trace a butcher, who is instantly arrested, despite protesting his innocence. The butcher’s wife, seemingly totally unaware of her husband keeping two girls captive for over a decade, is later brutally attacked by two masked men.

At this point, I’ll switch over to present day. Mr Webster is covered in scars that look as if he has been horrifically burnt at some point between Alice returning and present day. He is also undergoing serious counselling as it appears the army have signed him off sick. Mr Webster is engaging in a sexual relationship with the now not pregnant Eve. And yes, he’s still married to Mrs Webster, who later discovers their affair by spying a pen her husband picked up from the hotel they frequent for their sordid business. 

Matthew Webster, Alice’s brother, has totally gone off the rails. He is hanging around with two bald twins, not doing anything particularly horrific, but recklessly causing trouble in supermarket car parks. At one point, we see Matthew becoming aggressive with the butcher’s wife – who is sporting a scar on her top lip. Matthew also visits the butcher, the man charged with the abduction and imprisonment of his sister, in prison and delivers a message to him which Alice has asked him to deliver. 

The message is “I’m sorry”.

We also learn at this point that Alice has died. Initially, we don’t know how but in the third episode (I’ve gone back to 2014 here) Alice asks her brother Matthew to lock her in the shed so she can sleep. Don’t be alarmed. This is usual practice for Alice and Matthew does it, albeit reluctantly. What he doesn’t know is that hours beforehand, Alice had ran away from the house (after hearing her parents rowing about how different she is compared to before she had been abducted) and she returns with a petrol can. 

You can probably guess what’s coming here but for those who are already baffled, I’ll explain. Mr and Mrs Webster are in bed when they see an inexplicable glowing light coming from the garden. Within seconds, we realise that the garden shed – where Alice has chosen to sleep – is up in flames. Mr Webster attempts to rescue her, which is unsuccessful, and in the meantime he suffers third degree burns. He later explains that he holds Matthew responsible for what happened. At the hospital, Eve Stone informs Mrs Webster that the DNA profile of the burnt body in the shed matches the DNA of Mr Webster.

Meanwhile, in present day, Eve is childless yet is very attached to the ultrasound scan photos which she stores in the bottom drawer in her bedroom. Mrs Webster has been given strict instructions from Julien to meticulously check every photograph taken on a rollercoaster at a theme park. We don’t know why until we flashback to 2014 and Alice boldly declares, whilst eating the driest roast dinner known to man, that her abductor let her and Sophie go to a theme park. Chillingly, she also explains that over the years, she and her abductor did have some happy times together.

At this point, the story line is reeking of Stockholm syndrome as Alice also confirms what the police had already suspected – that during her years in captivity, Alice has had a baby.

Meanwhile, in present day, a very poorly Julien Baptiste is a man on a mission in war torn Iraq as he searches for Daniel Reed, a solider whose father, Henry Reed – also a soldier – unexpectedly committed suicide in 2014. Before Julien’s search for him, the only time we get a real glimpse of Daniel is when he walks into a house and sees a pool of blood on the floor, which he quickly cleans up.

We later discover that Henry Reed paid a large sum of money every month to a mystery man. Julien is hot on the heels of the mystery man, who we later learn is named Mirza Barzani. After days of being shot at in Iraq, Julien tracks Mirza Barzani down and questions him about the monthly payments he had received from Henry Reed until his suicide in 2014. Disgustedly, Mirza tells Julien that Henry paid the money out of guilt due to an incident that occurred involving his sister in 1991. He also implies that Adrian Stone, Eve’s father, was involved.

Mrs Webster finds the photograph of Alice on the rollercoaster and realises that the girl she is sat next to is actually her daughter. Therefore, the girl who returned to the family in 2014 claiming to be Alice wasn’t Alice. She later zooms out of the photograph and sees a third girl, sat in the row behind Alice and imposter Alice. She is wearing a necklace very similar to the necklace imposter Alice wore the first night she slept in the shed.

Kept up so far? 

We’re nearly done. 

In present day, Adrian Stone is suffering with dementia and during a lapse, he tells Eve that he remembers a beautiful young girl with “alabaster skin”. This isn’t the first time our suspicions are raised by Adrian Stone, as in 2014, when the police presented imposter Alice with photographs of suspects of her abductor, Alice identifies the butcher, who at this point has already been arrested. She freaks out, goes to sit in the garden and is followed by Adrian Stone. Alice, inexplicably, says to him “How can you live with yourself?” They talk a little about a familiar childhood fable and the general message given by Adrian Stone is quite an intimidating one. 

Meanwhile, in 2014, Julien discovers CCTV footage from the three hour period that Alice ran away from home. She goes into a florist and buys a bunch of flowers. The florist explains that the flowers are a symbol of loss and that Alice had gone to the cemetery to place them on a grave. Julien, accompanied by a somewhat shady police officer, find the flowers on the newly dug grave of Henry Reed – Daniel’s late father.

At the very end of the fourth episode, we see a waiter in Switzerland attempt to woo a young woman and when the waiter heads off, unsuccessful in his quest for love, we see that the recipient of his affection was imposter Alice. Alive and well. (Having treated herself to a generous helping of lip balm.)

At this point, if you’re still reading, you’ll likely have a few questions. I’ve already asked some but I’m going to write them here so that hopefully we can answer them after next week’s episode.

The DNA profile matched with Mr Webster’s. Mrs Webster’s was not checked. Is it possible that Mr Webster is the father of both Alice and Sophie?

Mrs Webster’s wording to Eve was odd: “Have you never thought about having a baby?” when she knew that Eve had been pregnant just two years before. Why was this?

During the three hour window when Alice had ran away, could she have got a copy of the key to the garden shed for an accomplice to come and leave a body?

Does Adrian Stone really have dementia or is it a cover up in case he is linked to any criminal activity?

Was Mr Webster the father of Eve’s baby?

There have been three suicides so far in the story – Alice’s, Sophie’s mother’s and Henry Reed’s. Two of these suicides, Alice’s and Henry’s, were suspiciously out of character. Were they murdered?

Whose blood did Daniel Reed clean up?

What happened to the baby imposter Alice gave birth to? Or did she really have a baby at all?

The ultrasound scan photos Eve is attached to – are they all of her baby or could they be of imposter Alice’s baby?

Who is the third girl on the rollercoaster? Is she Mirza Barzani’s sister? We don’t know what happened to her in 1991, other than “something bad”. Did Henry Reed and Adrian Stone abduct her?

The camper van which was used during Alice’s abduction was last seen in Switzerland. Imposter Alice was calmly sipping coffee in Switzerland. What’s the link?

Why did imposter Alice want to let the butcher know that she was sorry? Is it because she knows she has foisted the blame on an innocent man?

Who was the girl with the alabaster skin described by Adrian Stone? Was it Alice? Was it Mirza Barzani’s sister? Was it Sophie? Or is there another girl involved? Was he describing Eve Stone? Is she really his biological daughter or was she abducted many years ago?

Was the receipt planted there to set up the butcher? If so, by who? Imposter Alice and the abductor who she is in love with?

Did the butcher’s wife have any involvement? So far, we’ve assumed that her being attacked was as a result of her husband’s involvement with the case. Is that a double bluff? Was she really involved? After all, in present day, we saw that someone had vandalised derogatory terms on the butcher’s door. Was it aimed at her?

If imposter Alice isn’t really Alice, then whose body was burnt to a crisp in the shed? The DNA matched Mr Webster’s, so it must be a relation of his. Does he have any more children we don’t know about? Or were the DNA results rigged?

Eve Stone received a phone call from someone saying they couldn’t watch over Adrian Stone because of a disturbance. Was this linked to Matthew Webster and the delinquent twins?

In the CCTV footage of imposter Alice emerging from the florist, we can see a van parked up. Is it the abductor’s camper van? 

Why was imposter Alice laying flowers on Henry Reed’s grave? Is it possible that Henry Reed rescued the girls and his ‘suicide’ is nothing more than murder to shut him up?

Where is Sophie Giroux? Is Sophie really imposter Alice, drinking coffee in Switzerland? Do we know that Sophie actually has any involvement whatsoever? Other than imposter Alice murmuring her name in an ambulance, there hasn’t been any proof she’s involved.

If imposter Alice really is an imposter, when did she get the tattoo on her hand? Did the third girl on the rollercoaster also have a tattoo?

The burnt body in the shed – was this person already dead when the shed went on fire? Could it be imposter Alice’s child? 

No Man's Land

Apologies in advance that I am writing this from a laptop which is on death’s door. It’s been on death’s door since well before Christmas and I keep meaning to buy a new one but then I’m torn between do I buy a tablet and keep up with the times or do I buy a laptop which I need for writing? It’s been a constant problem for months so me being me, I’ve done my typical response: I’ve buried my head in the sand and ignored it.

However, it’s getting pretty hard to ignore something where the fans have broken so it heats up uncontrollably and is currently burning me through my pyjama pants onto my leg. Also, the letters N and B aren’t working unless I really press down on them. So, I’m writing this hoping it will be worthy of publishing but suspecting it might not be.

Back to the problem with the laptop – I keep talking myself out of buying a new laptop for a couple of reasons. The first being the expense of forking out several hundred pounds. Every time pay day approaches, I make a mental list of things I need to pay for (usually my list complies of which child’s birthday is it this month?) and every time I mentally calculate my wages factoring in paying for a new laptop, I hesitate. It’s not that I desperately need the money for something else. Okay, last month I crashed my car again. (This time it was my fault. Luckily, no one else was involved. I drove into a wall. Okay. There. I’ve said it. Laugh away) 

So, yeah, okay, last month I had to fork out to have my car fixed. But other than that, I know that I could afford a new laptop if I just saved gradually, month by month. So why am I hesitating?

Because I haven’t written much in a while?

Because I’m constantly tired and struggle to find the time or the energy to write anything?

Or is it because I’m from a generation of people who were promised big things which have yet to happen?

It’s quite sad really. Sometimes, when I’m sat in particularly bad traffic coming home from work and I’m listening to the radio and shuffling along in first gear, my mind will begin to wander (perhaps this is why I’ve crashed twice in fifteen months?) and I’ll think about when I was a student at Priestley College. We were young, we were fresh faced and we were eager. So eager. Eager to please, eager to show off, eager to learn, eager to go out and get drunk and go to parties and get into clubs and start our driving lessons and lose our virginities and yes, somewhere in the back of our minds we vaguely thought about the future, but it didn’t worry us. We weren’t terrified when someone asked us “where do you think you’ll be in ten years time?”

Well, guess what. It is ten years. I started college in September 2006. That’s ten years ago. A lifetime ago. I remember my first day very clearly, when I was sat in the performing arts room wearing all black clothes with bare feet and we sat round in a circle and spoke a bit about who we were. I remember thinking God, I wonder who’ll make it first. Who will be the one to get the first BAFTA or the first to appear in a film?

It pains me to admit that it was none of us. The same goes for the wonderful souls I met at university and then at drama school. Hugely talented and incredibly driven people. But again, for some inexplicable reason, it hasn’t happened for them. We were the generation who were going to make it. We were the ones our parents proudly bragged about to friends they bumped into at the supermarket. We were the ones who used to see people lugging briefcases onto a packed train at seven thirty in the morning and we pitied them, because we didn’t for a moment think that would be us.

As the years have passed by, more and more people faded into the background. And now we are all approaching our twenty sixth birthdays. We will soon be in our late twenties. For the remaining ones still at home, we are feeling increasingly guilty and worried. Will I move out? Because if I do, that would most likely be the end of most of if not all creativity. Creativity is wonderful but I've discovered the hard way that it doesn’t pay the rent.

I remember a conversation with Eva McKenna, the actress who played the lead role in A Walk in the Park back in November. We were talking about her journey after university and I smiled in recognition as she admitted “I’m so lucky, I haven’t had to get a real job yet”. That is our generation down to a tee. A real job. Also known as a nine to five job. An office job.

How I wish I could wake up in the morning, lie in bed for another twenty minutes, shower, eat my breakfast and sit and write. And get paid. How I long for the day when I have my own theatre company and going to work is the thing I look forward to each day.

And on the days where I’m sat in stop start traffic, my left foot burning on the clutch, my mind will wander to why. I must know at least one hundred actors or performers of some kind, all of whom are disgustingly talented, yet haven’t had their lucky break. Why? I don’t think it helps that reality TV is overtaking the world. I read an article online the other day about how White Dee from Benefit Street has landed a role in the hit TV show Benidorm. It angered me. I thought about it for days. A woman who was made famous for being on benefits for her entire life who, thanks to more reality TV programmes such as Celebrity Big Brother, is now a millionaire and about to land her first role in a British drama.

I know so many actors and actresses who would kill for a role in Benidorm. They would most likely do it for free, just for the experience and the exposure. Yet once again, producers choose a familiar face to hopefully pull in the masses. The same as when Shane Ward landed himself a part in Coronation Street. Or how Katie Hopkins, who is only known for her wicked tongue after being on The Apprentice, is in the news day after day after day. Or when Cheryl Cole got a part in a film despite having no relevant acting qualifications. Repeat for Lily Cole in Snow White and the Huntsmen.

The less parts there are out there, the less new actors are needed and the more that happens, the more people lose their spark. There’s only so many times you can be told you aren’t good enough or you aren’t right for the part.

So the fading sparks seem to have split into a few groups. Some people went travelling after university. Others have started a family. Some threw themselves into building a career. And some people completely disappeared off the radar. But there’s a few – and it is only a few – who are stuck in No Man’s Land. Half in and half out of reality. Dipping our toe into the grown up world of holding down a full time job and saving to move out, but constantly hiding from the question “what did you study at university?”  

We are the generation who can’t quite let go. The generation who fiercely defend anyone who is still courageously striving for their goals. The generation who smile and hold back tears when explaining to our grandparents that it’s not that we don’t like acting anymore, we are simply trying to please everyone.

That’s why I hesitate before buying a new laptop. If I commit to spending approximately £400 on a new laptop, it is a commitment from me to continue to write. I enjoy writing and I know it’s something I’m good at – but it’s surely tempting fate to splurge such a large amount of money on an item that may not be used professionally again? The laptop I am typing this from is five years old. It is the source of many a good play and book. I’ve got hundreds of scraps of Microsoft Word documents containing snippets of a new book or an idea for a play. 

But will they ever be used? Or will they sit and fester in my documents, showing the last activity as being over two years ago? And if I decide to buy a new laptop, am I saying goodbye to the previous me? After all, I bought this laptop with the money I got for my twenty first birthday. I wrote A Walk in the Park on this laptop. And Scarlett Fever. And Vee for Victory. And goodness knows what else. If I accept that I need a new laptop, am I accepting that this part of me is all in the past?

Or am I being overly sentimental about a bloody laptop for crying out loud?

Do I just swallow and accept that I cannot live off solely a writer’s wage? Do I admit defeat? Is it better to throw myself into a more sensible career where admittedly, I might not be as happy, but on the other hand I’ll never be hungry?

No. I can’t.

Every time I hesitate and every time I worry and every time I question whether I’m doing the right thing, I have to give myself a quick kick up the arse to remind myself how I felt on November 13^th and 14^th. Seeing a play that I had written taken to the stage with a sell out audience for each performance was exhilarating.

I cried at the end of each performance. The first night, I just brushed away my tears and wandered over to the bar where people were foisting drinks my way (which I was glad of). The second night, I just gave in. My neighbours had come to watch it and when the lights came back up after it had finished, they were all in tears. Which of course set me off. I had this lump in my throat as I was passed from little old lady to little old lady, all of whom have known me from when I was in the womb, and they all sobbed into me as they told me it was the best thing they had ever seen. 

Perhaps they were just being kind. But it was what I needed to hear at the time. Not particularly that night. But at that stage in my life. I needed to hear that my writing was good.

It was life altering. I still can’t quite believe we pulled it off. It’s not something many people can say they’ve experienced. But I can.

So I guess yes, right now, I feel a bit lost. A little bit bewildered. But so much has changed in the last few years for me and the only constant has been my writing. It’s quite comforting really. Even just sitting here in front of my computer with a Word document open in front of me soothes me.

I think this is what I’m meant to do.

So how on earth can I give that up?