What happened to part 2 of Missing?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Film and Television Discussion
TennChic — 12 years ago(December 28, 2013 12:22 AM)
Season 2 ends with the episode where the Chief is missing and Tom Dugan gets shot by men in pig masks. But season 3 just jumps to Althea's rape, and the Chief is back. There is no mention of what happened, who kidnapped him, who killed Tom, or anything about any of it. Why is there no part 2?
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NathanielS — 12 years ago(December 30, 2013 11:45 AM)
Because carol o'connor got the bright idea that season 3 should begin with the Rape episode instead of concluding the season cliffhanger of season 2's finale. They revolve the Missing episode in Anniversary, which is a very poor episode.
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Patrick9648-919-794375 — 12 years ago(March 30, 2014 04:22 PM)
I remember when the pig mask episode aired and was completly confused by it. The last time I saw a rerun of the episode it had a graphic at the end explaining it. Apparently lots of viewers were confused and they must have gotten some mail on the topic which may explain the text at the end. I too kept waiting for the conclusion and though I'd missed it somehow.
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gvpalazz — 9 years ago(May 19, 2016 05:08 PM)
This has confused me to no end. The episodes are airing on GetTV now, and I thought that they just carelessly skipped over part 2. But now after reading these replies I see that there is no part 2??? And in the airing that just took place this evening on GetTV, there is no graphic explaining everything. I was just really looking forward to the next episode (GetTV airs two per night) but instead got the "Rape" episode.
It's really kind of sad the problems that this series had. I have to say, however, that choosing NOT to conclude a two-part episode is just foolish and inconsiderate toward the viewers, and I am really surprised that show remained on the air at all after that. The fans must have been outraged at the time! -
billsmusic1977 — 9 years ago(July 26, 2016 07:00 PM)
OK, I assume you've only seen "Missing" in reruns when the final screen froze and said TO BE CONTINUED.
When Missing originally aired on NBC, the final screen never froze. It zoomed in on the 2 men who were shooting Dugan, while the following caption appeared on the screen:
"TOM DUGAN, a spy working for the government was killed. Chief GILLESPIE was later released unharmed".
So you already knew Gillespie was safe at the end of the episode. Season 3 was originally supposed to begin with the episode "Anniversary", which contained 2 intertwined storylines, one of which was the aftermath of Gillespie's release. Carroll O'Connor felt that season 3 should begin with the episode "Rape", due to the strong message of that episode. Anniversary was shown a few episodes into the season, so alot of people were left mixed up. -
jarrodmcdonald-1 — 2 hours ago(April 03, 2026 02:49 PM)
Good reply. Carroll O'Connor temporarily lost control of the show when he took a few episodes off near the end of season 2 to undergo heart surgery.
He later said that he felt the chief should have had heart surgery to mirror what was going on in Carroll's life and better explain the chief's absence. But the producers in charge of the show's overall stories at that time (Jeri Taylor & David Moessinger) decided to send the chief away on a convention, then have him kidnapped which Carroll didn't like. They also killed off the Tom Dugan character in the season 2 finale, which Carroll again didn't like (probably because that character could have been used in other plots or been given his own spinoff).
Due to these behind the scenes disagreements, when Carroll came back to the show full-time, he fired Taylor & Moessinger and took firm control of all the storylines himself, beginning with season 3.
So my guess is that he was hoping to pull the follow-up to 'Missing,' called 'Anniversary,' because he just wanted to take the show forward and not have to deal with what happened at the end of season 2. But for continuity, the audience did need some of those loose ends tied up…so 'Anniversary' eventually aired later, after season 3 was underway.