Alert Missing Persons Unit Season 3 Episode 8 Recap: Carmen

The eighth episode of Fox’s ‘Alert: Missing Persons Unit’ Season 3 presents yet another high-stakes case for the team to crack, but this time, things are a bit different as the team itself goes through a major change. Following Nikki Batista’s passing, the leadership position of the team has remained vacant. Mike was offered the job, but he turned it down because he wanted a more hands-on approach with the cases rather than getting buried under paperwork while the rest of the team got all the action. The position is finally filled in this episode, and with that, opens the space for some major changes in the team. SPOILERS AHEAD.

MPU’s New Captain Stirs Mixed Emotions in the Team

Lt. Gabrielle Bennett was introduced to the MPU in the previous episode, where the team collaborates with Philadelphia PD to find a woman in danger of becoming the next victim of a prolific serial killer. She liked working with the team so much that when she discovered that there was a vacancy, she decided to get the job. With her exceptional track record, it is not difficult for her to get the position. However, she also knows that she will have to work hard to get the team to trust her and accept them as their leader, while they will have to figure out what kind of a leader she is and whether she will accept their ways or try to change them. While the rest of the team is more open to the idea of accepting her, Jason is yet to get over the ghosts of the past.

All these doubts and questions take a backseat when a missing person’s case comes before the MPU. A woman shows up to report that her friend, Carmen, has gone missing. She was supposed to show up for a meeting, but she never did, which is entirely unlike her. Carmen works as a customs broker. She is well-liked, highly diligent, and not the kind of person who disappears without a trace. At first, Gabrielle decides to give it twenty-four hours, as is protocol before filing a missing persons report. But Kemi offers to look into the case a little bit, just to see what is happening. This is how the MPU works, and Gabrielle decides to trust their process.

Carmen Turns Out to Have a Shocking Secret

When Kemi looks into Carmen, she discovers that the woman has a social media page where all the photos she has posted so far are photoshopped. This seems a bit odd to her, on top of the fact that her job as a customs officer put her in a position where she could be bribed into clearing stuff for customs. She had already been using it to move some fake stuff around, which creates the motive for someone to harm her. An alert is issued for her, and this brings an FBI officer to the MPU. It turns out that Carmen is an undercover FBI agent. Her handler had been worried about her because she had been out of touch for a while, which made him wonder if she had gone rogue. But with her disappearance, he worries if something happened to her, and more importantly, if, due to the MPU alert, her cover is blown.

With the FBI in the mix, it falls on Gabrielle to convince them to work with the MPU. She gets them to release Gabrielle’s files to better understand her case, and at the same time, her partner is updated about the situation. He reveals that the reason Carmen, whose real name is Maria, may have been acting off is because she is pregnant. Meanwhile, Kemi scours through the CCTV feed and discovers that Carmen was last seen in the car with a man whom Gabrielle immediately identifies as the criminal Philly PD has been looking for a while. Kemi figures out what neighbourhood the kidnapper might be staying in, and where they might have ordered food from, which leads her to find the exact location where they’d been staying.

By now, it has become clear that Carmen was abducted due to her position as a customs officer, which means that the kidnapper wants her to move a package. When Jason and Mike show up at the location, the kidnappers are gone, but there is enough evidence to suggest that the package they wanted to move is a little girl. A quick DNA scan reveals that the girl is named Maria, who went missing from her home about 72 hours ago. It turns out that her father is a criminal on the run. He is currently believed to be in Ecuador, which means that the kidnappers are planning to get her there.

Jason Comes Up With a Risky Plan to Save Carmen

When the criminal in Ecuador comes into focus, the FBI gives preference to him. They ask the MPU to stop their investigation, while also revealing that they want Carmen to go through with getting the girl to her father so that they can figure out where he has been hiding. This means that they won’t be helping their own undercover agent, and she doesn’t even know about it because they have stopped communicating with her. When Carmen’s partner shows the team her secret email, Kemi figures out how Carmen and her handler had been communicating. They find the last message from her, which gives Jason an idea. From her files, which were promptly taken by the FBI but were already printed by Jason, it turns out that her message refers to a time and place.

It is clear that she is trying to get a pilot to fly the girl out to Ecuador. Because the kidnappers don’t know the pilot, Jason decides to impersonate him after he is taken in by Jason and Mike on trivial charges. When Jason shows up at the meeting, Carmen realises that help has been sent her way. She updates him about the flight plans, and the next day, the MPU waits for the kidnappers to show up with Carmen and the girl. After a showdown where bullets fly around, the MPU succeeds in containing the situation. Carmen is given the opportunity to close the case by arresting her own kidnapper, and she and the girl are brought back home. The girl is ecstatic to be reunited with her mother, who is immensely grateful to Carmen, who has decided to drop her undercover work and stick with a desk job to focus on building her family and have a safe pregnancy.

Later, Gabrielle approaches Jason, where she gives him a recording in which she is heard authorising a mission that she was explicitly told to abandon by the FBI. She believes that this is the dirt on her that Jason can have, considering that he still does not trust her. She confesses that she took the job because she thought it would look good on paper and bolster her career opportunities. She also admits that it feels much better to save lives than to solve murders and she intends to keep working with the team to learn their ways while also exploring her own space in the MPU. The recording is her gesture to convince Jason that she means well, and he decides to believe her. Her attempt at gaining his trust surprises him, but it has the intended effect as he deletes the recording and shakes hands with her, showing that he is ready to move forward with their new dynamic.