Diksha Sundriyal
The third season of Fox’s ‘Alert: Missing Persons Unit’ ends with its tenth and final episode, which throws the unit into a high-stakes case while setting the stage for the conflict that will define the next season. The episode begins with Jason on his way to Wayne, who has returned from her job, which she went for after Jason purposely kept her from being hired at the MPU despite her talent for being an indispensable asset for the team. While he contemplates how to make up to her, a girl walks in front of his car. She is covered in blood and tells him that someone took her friends. She is in too bad a state to reveal more, but with the missing people in question, Jason immediately calls upon his team. SPOILERS AHEAD.
A High-Profile Kidnapping Makes the MPU’s Task More Difficult
While the injured girl is sent to the hospital, Jason and Mike look for the car that she clearly was in. They find one crashed in an alley. It is a limo whose driver has been shot dead, and it clearly belongs to the kids who were on their way to the prom. Investigation into the vehicle reveals that the car was paid for with the credit card of a senator, which means that one of the missing kids, called Chase, is an extremely high-profile case. With his mother being a politician, there could be any number of people who want to hurt him, so that is where the MPU begins.
At first, they find a protester who broke into the senator’s office building a while back. He is also known to be a vocal opponent of her policies. However, his socials reveal that he was at a protest when the kidnapping took place. To figure out who else was in the car, Kemi looks into Chase’s social media feed and discovers that he made a public prom proposal to a girl named Jane. When Mike and Jason look into the girl, it turns out that she is at the prom, which means that some other girl has been kidnapped. It turns out that Jane was supposed to go with him, but they had a huge fight, which led them to cancel their prom dates.
Another thing that is found out about Chase is that he has had trouble in school. He was previously enrolled in a private school, but was expelled after selling drugs on school premises. Now he is in a public school, and while there have been complaints about him as such, it seems that the kidnapping might be because of the drugs. When his mother is confronted with this fact, she defends her son and says that he has not been involved in anything bad. This fact is backed by Jane as well, which brings the case back to square one.
Chase’s Effort to Do Some Good Led the Bad Guys to Him
Despite the claims that he is not into selling drugs now, Mike and Jason follow up on a lead where they find a man who seems to have been Chase’s drug supplier. On a closer look, the man turns out to be a lawyer. He reveals that Chase and Jane had come to him with evidence against a local chemical plant owner, revealing that the chemicals were so widespread that they were poisoning the water supply of the school and affecting the health and safety of the children. The evidence was so damning that the plant’s owner sent his men to deal with the situation. This is why the lawyer was also on edge.
This revelation makes it clear that Chase was kidnapped because of the chemical plant issue. But that still leaves the question of locating him, which becomes more difficult as his mother refuses to let them send out an alert for him. So, Gabrielle calls in Wayne to help locate Chase through his phone. She agrees to help if they start paying her for her job. While Jason is on the fence about it, Gabrielle agrees to her demands. Sure enough, Wayne finds Chase’s phone, but because his location is off, it is impossible to track him. However, she gains enough access to see what texts or calls he is making or receiving. Meanwhile, the kidnappers ask Chase to call Jane.
It seems that she was their main target, but they didn’t realise that Chase’s date was changed, and they kidnapped the wrong girl. They want the evidence that Jane has against them and ask Chase to text her for a meet-up where they’d be waiting for her. Wayne and the MPU see the text exchange and immediately go to the school because Jane doesn’t know she is walking into a trap. By the time Mike and Jason arrive at the school and send all the kids back home to prevent anyone from getting hurt, Jane is already on the run from the kidnappers who are holding Chase and his prom date at gunpoint. Eventually, however, the MPU officers succeed in bringing down the kidnappers, and everyone is saved.
Who is Texting Wayne? Who is She Working For?
With the kidnappers neutralised and the kids back home safe and sound, the MPU officers can finally call it a day and get some rest. Meanwhile, Mike tells Jason to make things up with Wayne, and eventually Jason decides to make use of the prom decorations and calls Wayne there to celebrate with her. During their dance date, she gets a text from her employer, for whom she was working when she was out of the city for a few days. Interestingly, the person on the other end asks her whether she made it into the MPU, and she replies in the affirmative, while also mentioning that no one suspects a thing.
This is a little suspicious of her, and makes us wonder why she really wanted to be in the MPU. She had been pushing for it for a while, and Jason’s refusal to let her be an official part of the team almost ended their relationship. At first, it seems that she simply needs a job, and because Jason and her friends work there and they have already called upon her help several times, it seems logical that she would want to work with them. In this episode, when Jason asks her why she is so intent on joining the MPU, despite the shitty pay and long hours, she counters that she likes what the unit does to help people and she wants to do some good. However, the contents of her texts reveal that there is an ulterior motive behind her actions.
Does this mean Wayne has secretly been a villain all along? Not necessarily. We are yet to find out who she was texting, but one must also consider the circumstances under which she would have agreed to join the MPU and fool Jason and the people who have become dear friends of hers. There are already a few people who might want an inside man in the unit and find ways to harm them. At the beginning of the season, when Wayne helps find Charlie McGannon’s daughter, he is so impressed with her that he wants to be with her. While now he is rotting in prison, could it be that someone from his gang reached out to Wayne and is blackmailing her into working for them?
Similarly, suspicion also falls on Gabrielle’s ex, Damon, who has already threatened her and the unit. His issues with his ex-wife have led him to declare war against the unit, though on legal terms. The situation is so dire that we see Gabrielle worrying about his threats even in this episode, where she shares her concerns with her boss, Bill Houston, who also happens to be Damon’s stepfather. With all this in mind, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to expect that he has something to do with Wayne and the text. He might want someone on the inside to feed him information on the team, and Wayne could do that pretty easily. It remains to be seen who she is really working for, but clearly, the answer will only set up more questions which only Season 4 can answer.
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