Alert Missing Persons Unit Season 3 Episode 4 Recap: Sophie

The third season of Fox’s ‘Alert: Missing Persons Unit’ presents yet another tricky case for the team in its fourth episode. Titled ‘Sophie,’ it focuses on the kidnapping of an army personnel, which throws the whole team into crisis mode. There is also a personal stake for Chief Inspector Bill Houston, who knows the victim, as well as her husband, who seems to be keeping secrets even though his wife is in danger. Meanwhile, time is running out for the victim, and if help doesn’t arrive in time, her chances of getting out of this mess alive will become drastically dismal. SPOILERS AHEAD.

The Execution of a Well-Planned Kidnapping Points To Dangerous Foes

The episode opens with an army officer, Sophie Kirby, driving her friend and fellow officer, Nina Lane. In the middle of their joinery, they are rear-ended by a truck, and as soon as Nina comes to, she calls 911, and the paramedics swift in appearance, almost too swift. Two paramedics jump out of the ambulance, carry the still unconscious Sophie to the vehicle, and drive away, leaving an injured Nina to her own devices. She is shocked to be left behind like this, but moments later, another ambulance arrives, which is when Nina realizes that the first one was a fake and her friend has been kidnapped.

When the case is brought to the MPU, Chief Inspector Houston himself takes the lead. It turns out that Houston’s concerns about the case are personal, as he personally knows Sophie Kirby and her husband, Adam. He puts Mike as the lead on the case. With Sophie being an army personnel, the military is also involved, but Houston makes it clear that the MPU is in charge as they have a much bigger chance of getting the job done swiftly and efficiently. Adam is brought to the office, where Houston tells him about the kidnapping face-to-face. The man, who is also an army officer, reveals that he left active duty when he lost his leg during a mission.

Since then, he has been desk-bound and works in the arms and munitions department. When he discovers what happened to his wife, he decides to find her himself but is restrained by Houston, who assures him that the case is in good hands. He also tells the Inspector that the kidnapping could be the work of a Major West, against whom Sophie had filed sexual harassment charges. When Mike and Jason find Major West and talk to him, he confirms himself to be the insufferable man Adam described him to be. While the Major refuses to be amicable, he does tell the MPU officers that Adam and Sophie have been having marriage troubles and that the neighbors had heard the couple fighting for several days before her kidnapping. He suggests they start looking closer to home.

Adam Comes Under Suspicion for Sophie’s Kidnapping

Meanwhile, the fake ambulance carrying Sophie is abandoned. The two perpetrators burn it and carry her away in a black van. They talk about the Major, who needs to be notified of the situation, especially the fact that the cops are already onto them. Later, we see Adam sending texts to a person called the Major, in which he tells them that he has gotten rid of the cops. Around the time that Mike and Jason find out about Adam and Sophie’s marriage troubles, Helen tests the burned ambulance in which Sophie was kidnapped. She discovers a shell case, which turns out to be from the armory of the munitions center where Adam works.

This casts a stronger suspicion on him, and the team immediately starts questioning him. Adam reveals that since his injury, he has been struggling mentally and physically. This extended to become a financial burden when he found out how expensive his prosthetic leg was going to be. To get the money, he made a deal with a biker gang. They would take care of his financial problems, and he would get them guns from the munitions center. This would be an illegal trade, and Adam knew the consequences it could bring him, but he had no other choice. So, he decided to go through with it. After some time, he got tired of working for the gang, which is when they threatened Sophie, and now they have kidnapped him.

He also reveals that he pointed toward Major West so that the MPU would be occupied with him, and in the meantime, he could find a way to settle things on his own. What he doesn’t know is that behind his back, the gang has decided to kill him and Sophie, who tries to make a run for it but fails. Meanwhile, Houston offers Mike a promotion. This means that he would be leading his team and getting a bigger office, among other perks. A while back, Mike would have jumped at this opportunity, but now, he politely declines the offer because getting a bigger office means getting drowned in paperwork, leaving it on the team to handle the dangers on the ground.

The MPU Comes Up With a Fake Sale to Save Sophie

Now that it’s clear who the kidnappers are and what they want, the MPU comes up with an elaborate plan to save Sophie. The question of raiding the gang’s compound guns blazing is out of the question because they have enough munitions to sustain an army. Moreover, a quick look into its leader, Thomas Skinner, and other members reveals that almost all of them are ex-military, which means that they will be prepared. To avoid this gunfight, Jason offers a plan to make a fake sale. With his experience in the private military, he can assist Adam under the guise of giving the guns to the gang. Once Sophie is safely in their custody, they will go forward with the operation and attack the gang to arrest their leader and neutralize them for good. But certain things need to be taken care of.

To begin with, they cannot take fake guns. The ammunitions have to be real; otherwise, they will be caught too early and put Sophie and their own lives in danger. To get real guns, they have to have a senior officer approve it, so they ask Major West to do the job for them. He is unempathetic to their cause in the beginning, but then Inspector Houston offers to talk to West’s superior on his behalf and get the sexual harassment charges done away with. Meanwhile, Adam and Jason try to get the guns out but are stopped at the checkpoint because the officer is suspicious of them. She refuses to let them go but has to agree when West makes the call just in time. Once his part in the plan is done, West expects Houston to hold up his end. Instead, the Inspector sends him to a prison cell and promises to talk to his superior and give his honest thoughts about how despicable West is.

Jason and Adam arrive at the gang’s compound with guns, where Skinner becomes suspicious of Jason and questions him to make sure that he is actually a private military contractor and not an undercover cop. Once he has the guns and has made sure they are real, he points them at Jason and Adam, threatening to kill them, including Sophie. However, Jason anticipated this and disabled the lock in the gun, due to which Skinner is not able to fire it. This ensues a fight as the rest of the team storms in and kills the gang members. Skinner is arrested, Sophie is brought back home, and all is well. Due to Adam’s illegal sale of guns, an internal inquiry is going to take place in his department, but the MPU has done its job.