Summary
Missing You does a surprisingly good job of tying things together in Episode 6. It isn’t a perfect ending, but it’s about as good as could have been expected for such a dense plot.
To be clear, I was highly skeptical about the ending of Missing You. I just felt there was no logical way that so many interconnected plot threads could be tied together neatly, without straining credulity to breaking point. So, I’m pleased and a little surprised to report that Episode 6, titled after Diana Ross’s iconic “Chain Reaction”, does exactly that. More or less, anyway.
Sure, it isn’t perfect, and you could definitely poke some holes in it if you were that way inclined, but each steady revelation felt, at least to me, like the right one. When you look at the limited series holistically, it makes sense, and you can pinpoint exactly why each character made each decision they made. Again, for the most part. It also amounts to a surprisingly, almost daringly open-ended conclusion that doesn’t leave things open for a sequel, as all Netflix shows seem determined to do these days, but does leave plenty of ambiguity in the minds of the audience, who’re left wondering how these characters could ever reasonably move on from everything that comes up.
There’s a lot to go over here, so let’s get on with it.
On the Run
A key aspect of this finale is the idea of running away. In the case of Josh, who revealed himself at the end of the previous episode for the first time in 11 years, he’s running away from a secret too difficult to keep. In the case of Dana, she’s running away quite literally from a madman who wants to kill her.
This is where “Chain Reaction” begins. Josh explains to Kat that Sadie’s mother died a few years ago, and now her father lives with them (he’s the guy who was picking up the payments from the PO box.) He was, as expected, totally oblivious to the Melody Cupid thing. He doesn’t do social media – that Facebook account was set up by Sadie in a misguided but well-intentioned effort to solve his loneliness.
So, why did Josh ghost Kat? For now, he’s a little unclear about that, but it’s something to do with protecting her father’s secrets. The truth, he claims, would have broken her. It seems like a soft excuse initially, but as we’ll see, he’s got a point.
As for Dana, she’s running around Titus’s farm trying to avoid Clem and some of the lower-level goons. When Clem tells Titus, who is staking out Kat’s place with Reynaldo, that Dana has escaped, he calls Brendan and lures him to the van in an attempt to threaten Dana. Despite Dana killing Clem with an axe and briefly getting through to Brendan on the phone, the attempt works, and Brendan is snatched outside Kat’s place just as she returns home to see it.
Melody Cupid Is Shut Down For Good
Kat returns to the office, despite being suspended, and starts working the case. She also confronts Stagger about paying off Monte, as Calligan implied. This turns out to be true, but Calligan claims he was doing it to protect Kat, and there’s something about the way he says it that I believed – and that Kat seems to, also. More on this shortly.
In the meantime, the police track Titus’s van through some dashcam footage of when Brendan was snatched. It has another cloned plate, but they’re able to track the vehicle far enough to see it turn off into a cluster of remote farms. There are too many to be checked manually, but luckily that couple Titus broke up when they tried to adopt a dog come back to haunt him. Since they had reported him, Kat and Nia are able to track him down to Redwaithe Farm.
When they get there, the place is on fire. Titus is trying to burn all the evidence of Melody Cupid ever existing. But all of his misdeeds come back to spite him at once. Dana frees all of the other “assets”, and they all jump and kill Reynaldo. Desperate for leverage, Titus shoots Brendan in the leg to try and get Dana back, but Kat arrives and shoots him dead, as well she might.
Dana Fell in Missing You | Image via Netflix
Back to Normality?
Despite the day being saved, the case is far from over, at least not for Kat, since Calligan calls with Parker’s address and a warning that this is a bell she isn’t going to be able to un-ring. Nevertheless, she proceeds.
And, as suspected, Parker turns out to be a man. He was in a relationship with Clint for 14 years, and this was used as leverage to force Clint into working for Calligan. Kat is annoyed, obviously. But there’s something about the earnestness of Parker, and his love for Clint, that softens her. They were two men who were in love, but their circumstances could never allow them to be together. So, they lived a secretive life of make-believe, each pretending to deny the existence of reality when they were together. Not out of spite, but out of necessity. Kat can live with that.
When she gets home, Josh is waiting for her. And it seems like she can live with him, too. She believes that he was only keeping Clint’s affair a secret from her, and she can sort of rationalize why he would. They kiss and make up. They get back together almost instantly, and it seems like everyone, from Aqua and Stacey to Sadie’s grandfather, are happy for them. It seems like Missing You is on its way to a happy ending.
But it isn’t. Far from it.
Who Killed Clint?
The big revelation of Missing You Episode 5 is, of course, who killed Clint. Charlie calls Kat with a match from the partial print. Stagger had canceled the first request, so he had to re-send it, hence the delay. It matches with a print taken after an arrest following a bar fight in Scotland.
The penny drops for Kat, and indeed for Josh, who overhears the call. Josh killed Clint. But it’s a little more complicated than that.
Aqua had seen Clint with Parker. He had panicked, gotten her address from Stagger, and pursued her. Those flashbacks to the red door being banged on? That was Clint trying to get into Aqua’s place. He was terrified of his affair being exposed, and what might also come out as a result. There’s a clear implication here that it isn’t just his infidelity or his homosexuality being exposed that is frightening Clint. Whatever he did at Calligan’s behest must have been truly unforgivable.
Clint and Aqua share a nice moment where Aqua tries to convince him to live as his true self, to free himself from the burden of pretending, but they’re interrupted by a call from Kat. Clint panics, thinking Aqua has told Kat about Parker, and he goes nuts, violently attacking Aqua. Josh arrives in the nick of time and tries to pull Clint back before he stabs Aqua to death, but in the struggle, Clint is stabbed. Then Stagger arrives.
Clint’s final words are a request for Kat and the police to never find out what happened. So, Stagger honors his request. He covers up the crime. He paid Monte Leburne to confess to it. Aqua maintained her secrecy, and Josh disappeared. It was all, as Stagger claimed earlier, to protect Kat, and to honor Clint’s wishes.
But now Kat has to live with the truth. Missing You ends with Kat and Josh sitting next to each other on the bed, both in shock, while the titular song plays.
