Spoilers below for anyone who hasn't yet watched the Season 2 premiere of Starz's The Missing.
The U.K. drama The Missing premiered on Starz in 2014 and was easily one of the most emotionally gripping and devastating TV shows of the year, so there was little doubt that Season 2 would follow suit. The mostly standalone new story is indeed steeped in trauma and tragedy, but this year, the drama went harder on mystery than mental turmoil. The Missing star David Morrissey recently spoke with CinemaBlend about his powerful role in Season 2's U.S. debut, and he revealed a brief moment cut from the premiere that serves as a good indication of the slightly less-depressed vibe this season.
There's a little bit when you see our story start with the daughter, the young girl, being abducted. There's a little scene around that time where you see the parents reacting to the news of her abduction, which was cut out.
As viewers know, The Missing Season 2 centers on military man Sam Webster (David Morrissey) and his wife Gemma (Keeley Hawes), whose daughter Alice went missing in the early 2000s and inexplicably returns 11 years later, unlocking an expansive mystery that crosses both timelines and European borders. That's usually how dramas like this kick off a third act, not the first act of a season's first episode, so it was apparently quite important for creators Harry and Jack Williams to dive into the story's meaty thrust. And the final cut was done extremely well, with the sans-exposition opening going directly from Alice's final pre-abduction trek into the woods into her emergence (or whoever's emergence) from those same woods years later. It was just the right touch of foreboding discomfort without feeling heavy-handed.
As such, I fully agree with this not being the right place to introduce the Webster family, as focusing solely on the abduction and return is better suited to what drives the season. To set up this new plot by showing off how heartbroken and shattered David Morrissey and Keeley Hawes's characters were, as well as Jake Davies son/brother-to-Alice Matthew, it would have also maybe been too much of a reminder of how Season 1 left things off (which does get mentioned here), and viewers wouldn't be as quick to reach the more desired mindset of playing detective with Season 1's returning Julian Baptiste (Tchéky Karyo).
And David Morrissey didn't seem too keen on having it stay in the episode, either. Here's what else the former Walking Dead actor told me about the deleted scene.
But that was honestly just one little scene about seeing them get the news, really, that she'd gone. And it didn't really serve the story. I think it was great that you saw the abduction and then it just cut straight back into 2014. . . . You fill in the gaps pretty well as an audience anyway.
Indeed. I mentioned during the interview that The Missing Season 2 offers up many more emotionally wrought moments for Sam and Gemma anyway, and Morrissey agreed there wasn't much of a need to bring up such an obvious reaction so early. And if you loved how this first episode introduced the complex web of clues inherent to Alice Webster's disappearance, you won't be able to turn away from the next seven episodes, as The Missing is once again an easy candidate for the best drama of 2017. (Read my review here.)
You can check out David Morrissey introducing the new season himself in the post below, which begins with a nice little tie-in reference to The Walking Dead, which aired its midseason premiere tonight. Use it to show your friends that they should start binge-watching immediately.
With so many emotionally jarring twists and turns left to reveal, The Missing airs every Sunday night on Starz, but remember that you definitely don't have to wait, as you can stream all eight episodes on Starz's dedicated apps and On Demand. You do have to check out our midseason premiere schedule, though, to keep up with everything else that's debuting on the small screen soon.
