Where even to begin?!
It was a jampacked two-hour finale where Alert: Missing Persons Unit Season 1 Episode 9 built up the momentum.
Then Alert: Missing Persons Unit Season 1 Episode 10 brought the twists and shockers with a closer that we’ll never forget.
And after the close of this chapter in this blended family’s life, one can’t help but wonder what could even be next.
Thankfully, the finale brought a sense of closure and completion to the season’s biggest mystery with “Keith,” albeit tragic. And it also seemed to put an official end to whatever ties Nikki and Jason had that could’ve crossed boundaries.
Things ended with Jason finally respecting Mike as the Man of the House and with boundaries for Nikki and Jason’s close symbiotic relationship.
As for the real Keith, we’re to assume that his body is still somewhere in that lake, and they can mourn him for good this time.
Other than a more official confirmation that Keith perished in that lake six years ago, and that’s the end of his story, there aren’t too many open-ended storylines.
The most lingering one would involve Kemi, her father, and the man who abducted and abused her.
She didn’t get the closure she needed or the ability to take him down, so the series could revisit if it receives a sophomore season.
In this day and age with the fickle and unpredictable television landscape, it’s always a relief when any series viewers invest in has the foresight and enough respect for those viewers to prove some sense of closure “just in case.”
And to paraphrase our fearless leader, let’s bring our baby back.
Kemi
Nothing sucks more than when something ends on a cliffhanger, and we never get to revisit it.
The finale managed to pack a lot into two hours to wrap up its storylines, and in some ways, the emotions and tension were high, and in others, we didn’t have enough time for the emotional impact of some of the plot points that transpired.
Essentially, we had one case that wasn’t connected to the team personally, and the situation revolved around Keith, or rather, Lucas.
Briana’s case was straightforward: Gloria was upset about her husband blowing thousands of dollars on a cam girl. She wanted to exact her revenge on Briana and not Henry.
Initially, it seemed like something nefarious was happening and that maybe Briana faked an abduction to get out of her wedding day. It didn’t help when we learned that she met, got engaged, and reached her wedding day in three months.
But sometimes, love works that way.
Briana was a good-hearted person, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with the sex work she was doing to make ends meet.
There were moments when people couldn’t distinguish between cam work and outright pornography.
It was filled with some twists, including a teenage Sam helping with broadening Briana’s subscriptions via the use of Bots.
But early on, it was evident that the person behind Briana’s abduction was Gloria. And the woman was off her rocker and beyond reason as the hour progressed.
It was a lot to go through when the person she was furious at was her husband. But it was a series of misfortunate events from when she attempted to let Briana go onward.
The two women fighting got ugly, and by the time she threw Briana through a window, you could understand why she thought she was dead. It looked like Briana had bled out.
Gloria: You will hlep me. Understand!
Henry: Help you how?
Gloria: We have to get rid of the body!
But enlisting Henry to help dump a body that wasn’t dead is where things got even worse, and by the time Gloria accidentally shot her husband, she was done.
Interestingly, a typically trigger-happy Jason took a much softer approach with Gloria, placed his weapon down, and even worked towards talking her down, especially when she threatened to kill herself.
Jason may have picked up a few things from Mike after all.
But Jason will always be Jason, and we saw that for most of the Beth investigation.
Lucas telling everyone about Max was a sure way to narrow in on the abductor and put an end to things. That investigation was fascinating, especially when they brought in another unhoused kid who could help them figure things out with Max.
The unhoused is always one of the most vulnerable communities, and it’s infinitely worse with kids and teens. You could understand the teen’s hesitancy even to assist the MPU. In his mind, they only cared about Max because they believed something had happened to their kid.
Jason using his source to push out dozens of drones to pick up something on Max’s tag came in clutch, but most of that portion of the investigation was frustrating.
Mike is the most reasonable character in this series, and he always has his work cut out for him when he’s in near-constant opposition to the woman he loves and her ex-husband.
At the time, they believed this case was their son’s. While there’s a strong enough case for him not to get involved in the investigation because of his relationship with Nikki, he was right about Nikki and Jason standing down.
An adequate defense attorney, hell, even the DA, would have a field day with all the ways the investigation could’ve gotten disrupted because the abducted kid’s parents were leading the charge.
Mike wanted to put as much distance between Nikki and Jason and the Beth case to protect the case, them, and “Keith.” What if things got thrown out because of their involvement, and they couldn’t get justice?
Not only did Jason and Nikki continue to insert themselves into the investigation even after Mike stated he was taking the lead, but they weren’t keeping him in the loop about what they found.
Nikki: I know what you’re thinking, but a child is being harvested for parts. J is doing the best to keep that from happening. Mike: Doing the wrong thing for the right reasons is still doing the wrong thing. But what I’m thinking is I don’t really have a better idea.
They brought Lucas to the cabin before telling Mike about its existence. It was such a sucky thing to do.
Jason had no qualms about it, so he and Mike didn’t even have so much as a conversation. And Nikki broke her word to Mike, but she wasn’t apologetic about it, instead asking him to view things from her perspective.
It was frustrating when Kemi spent more time telling Mike that he was jealous of Nikki and Jason and that his behavior resulted from that and feeling like an outsider than validating him in any way.
And instead of acknowledging that Mike’s concerns from a professional standpoint were correct or that he had every right to be upset about the whole ordeal, Nikki made it about parenthood, inadvertently displacing his position in the family again.
Mike: You gave me your word, Nik.
Nikki: I know.
Mike: Your word.
Nikki: And part of me wishes that I would have kept it.
Mike: And the other part?
Nikki: Wishes that you underestood why I didn’t’.
And somehow, Mike ended up letting her off the hook and saying he wouldn’t stand in the way, as if he was doing that in the first place.
Mike then took the backseat mostly and let Jason do much of the heavy lifting when finding Nikki once she was abducted.
Their way of figuring out who Beth was and tracking her down was impressive. And Beth’s case was incredibly twisted.
She targeted homeless kids who got dental work done at the mobile spot. And then she knew she could get away with taking them since no one ever pays attention to the unhoused kids.
Beth slowly losing her son was tragic, but her method of dealing with it was something ripped out of a Criminal Minds episode.
Beth: I’m not burying my child.
Nikki: But because of that, six mothers had to bury theirs.
She used Oliver as a human blood bag for two years and performed extraction surgeries on all the kids she stole, harvesting their organs every time Noah needed a new one.
And she did all of this for a son that had already died. It was sick and demented. All that loss of life to supposedly keep alive one boy who had been dead for goodness knows how long.
It was surprising that Beth managed to jump Nikki, but Nikki had some strong moments while in captivity. Her ability to talk Max through freeing himself, picking handcuffs, and escaping was good.
But it made zero sense for her to stay behind. She couldn’t help Noah as she claimed if she was still trapped in that house at a disadvantage with no weapon or backup.
I don’t care if the Vice President is in town. I don’t care if it’s the President. I don’t care if it’s the Pope. I dodn’t care if it’s the ghost of Queen Elizabeth. She needs a babysitter; she can pay $20 like everye else. One of ours is missing. Forget the motorcade and help us find her, please!
Jason
She knew Beth wouldn’t have hurt her son, even if he was alive; everything she had done was to keep him living. And there was no way Beth could pack up Noah in enough time to escape before the cops got there. Going into Noah’s room instead of leaving with Max was just reckless.
And she nearly had her heart cut out because of it.
Jason came quick for the save because he loves Nikki, and it also meant something for him to have the woman he believed to be his son’s abductor in his grasp.
Knowing what we know now, it would’ve been especially troubling, outside of the usual reasons, if he had shot Beth. But if anyone could get through to him and talk him down, it would be Nikki.
Their bond is so deep and meaningful, and they always love each other.
The twist about the boy in the cellar being Oliver and not Keith or Lucas was a pretty good one. While they were investigating the case, it was suspicious that Beth had deliberately targeted unhoused youth and supposedly had Keith.
In no way did he match the profile, and it shouldn’t have taken any of them that long to figure it out. If Mike had stayed point on the case and got to investigate it as thoroughly as he would’ve liked, he likely would’ve reached that conclusion fairly quickly.
“Keith” getting abducted again at the party was surprising. It was easy to forget the threatening messages and how they related to his experience.
It’s a relief that there was more to the Keith storyline and that it didn’t end with us finding out he was Keith because that would’ve been too anticlimactic.
We were right about Keith being an imposter. But it was different than one would’ve envisioned. Lucas’ mother put him up to impersonate Keith, hoping she’d get ransom from Nikki and Jason.
She figured Lucas looked like Keith, and they could get away with it. But she failed to consider that after growing up in an abusive household like hers, Lucas would’ve rather stayed with this family in a fantasy life he was faking than go back to her.
In hindsight, she should’ve left well enough alone. She didn’t care enough about Lucas that she wanted him back out of attachment or love. She never got her money, either.
Evelyn: Get away from my son.
Nikki: Your son?
Evelyn: Tell them, Lucas. Tell these nice people you’ve been lying to them the whole time.
She was scaring him into not telling the truth, and it had worked. Whether or not Lucas could’ve kept up the facade for the rest of his life is a whole other story, but his mom probably shouldn’t have bothered going after him.
As much as we were wary of Lucas, and it proved that Sidney was right the whole time, there was still enough evidence to sympathize with him and understand his perspective a bit.
He could fake the hair sample, memory loss, and rely on facts about Keith to convince others. But he couldn’t fake the severe trauma to his body.
Lucas was a victim, and he certainly didn’t deserve to die the way that he did. It was such a heartbreaking scene, and you could see that Nikki felt like she had lost her son again.
It broke her heart. But the realization about Lucas meant that Keith was really dead, as Sidney shared.
Their ceremony should’ve been them grieving the loss of Keith and Lucas, but so much of it centered on Keith more than anything.
Although, Nikki did put a picture of Lucas on her desk. I wish we could’ve tapped more into the emotional reactions of everyone as it all sank into what happened and the grief.
And it would’ve been cool if we got some more closure about Lucas’s justice because his story and the impact he had ended the moment he died on that floor apologizing to Nikki profusely.
My heart aches for that poor boy.
Another surprise of the finale was that this didn’t push Jason and Nikki together. When they had that casual conversation about their history of grief sex on the couch and seemed to remember it so fondly they acted as if they wanted a second round of it, it felt like they were setting up a reunion.
Jason and Nikki’s relationship has been so close all season long that it was enough to give anyone pause. It felt as if the two of them rekindling things was a certainty, even with Mike’s presence.
When they were sitting on the couch again after everything happened, it had you holding your breath, waiting for someone to make a move.
And it felt like both of them were waiting for the same. You can’t convince me Jason wasn’t at least considering it as the comfortable silence between them and longing looks grew more pronounced with each passing second.
If sex is how they cope and connect, it almost felt inevitable that under the cloak of night, while sitting on a whole other couch, they’d do the same.
Nikki breaks the tension by telling him she loves him, and his returning it reminds you their bond will always be like this. They’ll always be each other’s person, and there’ll always be something between them, even if they don’t act on it.
The forehead kiss had a finality to it, or at least it came with some resolve. And that moment was enough for Jason to realize he had to shut the door firmly on a particular part of their relationship lest he got tempted.
Nikki: You were suppposed to stay over to help me grieve.
Jason: Well, I did. Sex is a way to cope with grief.
Nikki: Then we did a copious amount of coping then.
Jason: Whatever hapepned to that couch?
Nikki: I don’t know. It was a nice couch, though.
The symbolism of him folding the blanket and pillow into a neat pile and being gone by morning spoke volumes. He was finally distancing himself in the healthy way necessary for all involved.
And returning the hideaway key and knocking on the door was a grand gesture, especially to Mike.
Jason does like and respect Mike and acknowledges him as part of the family, so I don’t believe he wants to put himself or Nikki in a position to hurt him or ruin a good thing because they can’t quite let go of one another.
But you cannot convince me that man isn’t in love with Nikki, and he doesn’t want her back. The entire experience has only reaffirmed that. Nikki has to know and feel it too. Her parting glance over Mike’s shoulder was also heavy with unspoken words.
What does Jason’s future look like now that Nikki has a new life with Mike and Sidney, all hope with Keith is gone, and he’s all alone, possibly still harboring feelings for his ex-wife he can’t act on at all?
Other Thoughts:
- Oliver was a decent kid, and Lucas was a good friend for getting his abductor captured.
- I’m thrilled that C found the courage to tell Rachel the truth about being trans, which didn’t matter to her. I hope they go on great dates, and he is less anxious when they do. Their kiss was hot!
- There was limited Sidney, which was disappointing. And her reaction to everything from Nikki getting kidnapped to everything with Lucas felt muted.
- The ceremony at their house for Keith was lovely, and everyone seemed comfortable watching old videos.
- It’s still weird how well they took the news that Sidney lied for six years about her brother’s death.
- Whatever happened to June? It felt like they would revisit that storyline by the finale, but so many other things took precedence.
- I wish we had gotten more time with Mike and the kids, especially Sidney.
C: I’m a trans man. I didn’t know if you knew. Um, and yeah, I hate drive thrus, and fabric softener, and contrary to popular opinion, I thought that Game of Thrones was overrated.
Rachel: OK, I- yeah, that is a problem.
C: Yeah.
Rachel: But how do you feel about House of Dragons?
- Sometimes, they don’t get their babies back. Sometimes they lose them all over again.
- What would the show look like next season if the show gets renewed?
Over to you, Alert Fanatics.
What was your favorite part of the finale?
Did you see the Keith/Lucas twist coming?
How do you feel about where things ended for the Nikki, Jason, and Mike love triangle?
Hit the blue Show Comments bar and discuss your thoughts below.
Jasmine Blu is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.