Alert: Missing Persons Unit – Season 1 Episode 2 “Hugo” Recap & Review

Hugo

Episode 2 of Alert: Missing Persons Unit season 1 starts with a woman waking up and getting ready for the day. She heads to a fast food joint, Burgerpotamus and waits for someone in her car. A young man comes out of the store and sits at the bus stop. The woman gets out of her car carrying a bat and proceeds to attack the young man.

Elsewhere, Jason and June visit Renwick who has a tip for them. He caught something while working, he found a backdoor in smart TVs. He hacked a smart TV and found a live feed of a young man tied to a chair and being tortured by a woman. Sadly, Renwick doesn’t know who the man is or the woman holding him captive.

Jason calls Nikki and sends her the video of the man being tortured. Nikki doesn’t want to leave Keith alone but Jason insists it is a life and death matter. Nikki heads to the office and Kemi updates her that no one has reported the guy in the video missing.

The team watches the live feed and learns the woman is avenging her dead son. She believes the man she currently has captive sold fentanyl to her son who overdosed and died. She put five Adderall pills laced with fentanyl in a burger and forcefully feeds the young man. Jason calculates the dosage and gives the man 68 minutes before he suffocates from a fentanyl overdose.

C points out that the man in the feed has so much blood on his face, it is hard to identify him. Luckily, he developed an app during Covid-19 to identify people while wearing masks and believes he can use it to identify the guy.

As usual, Kemi lights a sandalwood incense as part of her prayer ritual for the people missing. C and Jason are not fans of the prayer session but Kemi is undeterred.

Mike walks in with news about Keith’s alleged kidnapper. Nikki and Jason follow him to his office.  He shows them the video from the convenience store that Keith ran to after escaping his kidnappers.  Jason asks why they are not canvassing the area and we were wondering the same thing!

According to Keith, he was being chased by someone down the street. Mike asks for authorization and permission to speak to Keith. Nikki thinks asking him about his kidnappers is dragging him back from normal life. Is she serious right now?

Jason agrees that Keith needs a normal life but they need to find his kidnappers. Nikki agrees to let Mike talk to Keith. They bring Keith in and Mike tries talking to him about his kidnappers. Keith distracts from the questions asked and brings up his parent’s divorce and his sister’s hostility towards him. He refuses to answer Mike’s question and Nikki barges in to comfort him.

She calls Sidney to pick up Keith and Sidney notices Keith is using his right hand to write. Keith was left-handed before he was kidnapped. She takes a photo and later shows it to her mom. Nikki worries that Sidney is not reacting well to Keith’s return and wonders if they are missing something. Jason argues that Sidney is a teenage girl and she is self-obsessed, it will pass.

They get back to the case of the young man and Kemi found a lead from the woman’s glasses. The woman is named Molly and they immediately head over to her registered address but she is not there and neither is the young man. They are back to square one and time is running out.

Meanwhile, Molly insists that the man is a drug peddler and demands the name of the drug supplier but the man knows nothing. She refuses to give him an antidote until he confesses and gives her a name.

On the other hand, C has a dilemma after his dad’s caretaker drops his sick dad at the office and claims she has an emergency.  He is not the only one having family issues, June confronts Jason about cancelling his fertility clinic appointment. Jason confesses that he fakes his orgasm and is not ready to have a kid. He apologizes but June is angry and hurt. I don’t blame her, that was a whole level of wrong!

The team visits C in his office and he tells them that he identified the man being held captive by Molly. His name is Hugo Mendez. C is having a hard time with his dad’s sickness and is frustrated when Kemi lights sandalwood in his office. Fortunately, the smell makes his dad conscious and C is happy his dad was alert even for a brief moment. He later thanks Kemi and apologizes for being curt with her earlier.

The team issues an alert for Hugo and brings in his brother to interview him about the connection between Molly and Hugo. The brother insists that Hugo doesn’t do or sell drugs.  He does honest work and, he is an upright citizen.

Nikki and Jason visit Hugo’s works place, the burger joint and ask to take a look around. One of the workers acts suspiciously and tries to leave the premises. Nikki arrests him and takes him downtown.  They realize Hugo is innocent and further investigation leads them to the house Hugo is being held captive.

With time running out, they rush to save Hugo and Jason tells Nikki that he understands why the woman wants vengeance. He wants to kill Keith’s kidnappers too, Nikki cautions him that it will only make matters worse. Jason feels even angrier after seeing Keith’s test results from the hospital. It seems Keith suffered a lot of injuries while in captivity.

They get to Molly and she has a gun pointed at Hugo and refuses to believe he is innocent. Jason reasons with her and insists that Hugo is innocent and gets through to her. Jason gives Hugo the antidote and they rush him to the hospital.

Mike calls them after they rescued Hugo and tells them he has a lead on Keith’s kidnappers. He shows them a video taken at the convenience store. A vehicle pulled up one minute after Keith entered the store. Mike realizes that the car idled in the parking lot and took off as soon as the police showed up. Jason calls June to ask for a favour to be able to quickly trace the owner of the car.

Even though June is angry, she agrees to help but she packs her things from their house and leaves him. Jason and Nikki track the car’s movement and find its last known location. They drive to the location and Nikki asks Jason to stay in the car. She doesn’t want him to lose control and take justice into his hands.

Of course, Jason doesn’t remain in the car. He goes around breaking into the rooms at the inn but the kidnapper is long gone. Nikki asks Jason to be patient and assures him justice for Keith will come. She also asks Mike to be patient with her situation with Jason, especially now that Keith is back.

We later see a woman reading an article in the newspaper about Keith’s miraculous return.

At home, Sidney insists that Keith is not who he says he is. Nikki tells her that Keith went through a lot of abuse that forced him to change. Keith apologizes for not being able to talk about what he went through and Nikki says it is okay.

The episode ends with Sidney texting someone about her frustrations that Keith back. In the text, she says, “It can’t be him because we know what happened to him!”

The Episode Review

Okay, so we know Keith was examined after being rescued and Mike is actually working the case.

I am frustrated with Nikki, I know she wants to protect Keith but she has to let the police find his kidnappers. I am not sure that this young man is Keith, all clues lead us to believe he is an impersonator and I don’t know if I should feel sad or angry with him.

Lastly, what is Sidney hiding? Did she kill her brother? I can’t imagine how Nikki and Jason would feel if they learn she had something to do with Keith’s disappearance. They spent six years agonizing, trying to find their son. It would break them to know their daughter knew what happened and kept silent as Keith’s disappearance tore them apart.