Alert Missing Persons Unit Season 3 Episode 3 Recap: Lay

The third season of Fox’s ‘Alert: Missing Persons Unit’ gives a shock to the audience in the form of Nikki Batista’s sudden death. With such a massive loss, it is impossible not to feel the reverberations of her absence in the following episodes, and the third episode of the season reflects on that. The team is still reeling from the events of the previous episode, trying to process the gaping hole left behind in Nikki’s absence. The loss falls particularly heavily on Mike, who has not allowed himself the time off to process his grief and has jumped back into work. When a new case arrives, he makes it his personal mission to save the victim at any cost. SPOILERS AHEAD.

The MPU Looks Into the Disappearance of a Mural Artist

The third episode of the season focuses on the disappearance of a young man named Lei, who enjoys a reputation as one of the best emerging artists in the city. One morning, his mother comes to the MPU to report him missing. On any other day, she wouldn’t have fretted so much, but on this day, her son had to be there. Lei was supposed to show up at the hospital to donate bone marrow for his brother, who urgently requires a transplant to save his life. He wouldn’t have missed this day for anything, which is why when he doesn’t show up at the hospital, his mother becomes convinced that something has happened to him. As the team starts looking into the case, they are also made aware of the fact that Lei’s disappearance doesn’t just impact his chances of survival but also his brother, who will die if he does not receive surgery as soon as possible.

Soon enough, several suspects come to light. After talking with Lei’s brother, Kemi discovers that they had resorted to an alternative form of medicine in the hopes that he would be cured. They went to a doctor called Dennis McComb, who runs a clinic called Happy Healthy Homeopathy. Lei’s family gave him eight thousand dollars in return for the assurance that his medicine could cure the patient for good and save his life. However, his methods did not work, and Lei’s brother had to go back to conventional medicine. Because he is too weak to receive chemo or radiotherapy, the surgery is the only option to save him. He would have received it earlier, but with eight thousand dollars already spent, the family didn’t have enough money left to pay for his surgery.

On the day that he disappeared, Lei was on a quest to get the money for his brother’s surgery to save him. Jason and Mike discover that Lei showed up at McComb’s clinic that day, and they had a fight. But he stormed out of the place, and it is caught on CCTV, which proves that he was still alive when McComb saw him last. Still, this is not enough to clear the suspicion of the doctor. Meanwhile, a new suspect emerges in the form of another artist who calls himself Spider. It turns out that Lei had been arrested on the day he was last seen by anyone, and Spider is the one who posted his bail. He also pays Lei the money he needs, but in return, he wants the young man to paint a mural.

A Mural Job Costs Lei More Than He Anticipated

Despite being a rival, Spider liked Lei’s work, which is why he offered to pay him a decent amount. In return, he turned the guy towards a location with specific instructions about the mural. When Jason and Mike reach the place, they discover that the mural is actually the defacing of a poster featuring McComb. This gives the doctor a strong motive to want to harm Lei. Jason’s quick thinking also presents the opportunity. It turns out that the mural is visible from McComb’s place, which means he could have easily come to the rooftop where the poster is and attacked Lei. When confronted with these details, he confesses that he did, in fact, find Lei defacing his poster and threatening him. But before he could do anything, Lei ran away, and that was the last he saw of him.

The doctor’s confession puts a lot of things in perspective. From here, the MPU turns its focus on finding the place where Lei may have gotten trapped. According to McComb’s account, he jumped from one rooftop to another. This leads the investigators to believe that he may have fallen somewhere. In the beginning, they focus on the open areas, but then Kemi discovers an abandoned building right in Lei’s path. She theorizes that the unsound nature of the building may have led the roof to collapse when Lei jumped on it. She is proven right when Jason and Mike reach the location and find Lei trapped under the rubble of the collapsed roof. They try to get him out of the debris but have to halt their effort when Jason reveals that removing the whole thing in one go might trigger crush syndrome, leading Lei to die as soon as he is taken out of the rubble.

Meanwhile, the condition of Lei’s brother worsens, and the doctors become desperate to take him into surgery, but they cannot do it until Lei is there to donate the bone marrow. The problem is that the donor himself is on his deathbed. Eventually, Mike makes the call to start removing the rubble, slowly to keep him alive but also enough to keep him from dying. Their efforts work, and a few precious minutes later, the paramedics show up. They patch up Lei and take him to the hospital, where his family is waiting. With his return, his brother’s survival is also almost guaranteed. He recuperates from his wounds while the doctors prepare to take his brother into surgery that will save his life. This way, the MPU manages to save both brothers and can rest easy.

Mike Struggles With the Loss of Nikki

Nikki Batista’s death hits everyone pretty hard, but it is particularly earth-shattering for her husband, with whom she got married only a few months ago. Their marital bliss was still in its early days when she fell victim to Charles McGannon’s evil plans. Jason takes some time off from work to spend it with his and Nikki’s daughter, Sidney. He later reveals that she has decided to take a semester break to process her feelings while also figuring out what she truly wants. Jason encourages her to take all the time she needs, and he extends the same advice to Mike, especially after he sees how much the man is struggling.

While Mike refuses to accept it, everyone can see that he is coming apart at the seams. It is clear that he is not sleeping properly, and his headaches make it clear that his unprocessed grief is starting to take a physical toll on him. The fact that he returned to work a mere three days after his wife’s death shows that he is trying to bury his feelings rather than facing his head first, which is the only way forward. By suppressing his grief, he is priming himself for further physical and mental issues. His friends and colleagues can see that he is suffering, but they don’t know how to help him. The only way he can seem to keep himself together is by focusing on the cases and saving lives, and for now, that will have to do.