Seven burning questions we still have after finishing The Missing

Anyone else spent the last eight weeks hooked on BBC One drama The Missing? Dark, fascinating and totally addictive – it’s been a monster of a show, with more curveballs than a major-league baseball season.

And the final episode did not disappoint, with the capture of Adam Gettrick, the release of Sophie and Alice, and the truth behind the body in the fire revealed.

And yet… I still have questions. So many questions.

1. Does Julien Baptise make it?

The episode closes as Mr Baptiste, after ignoring a potentially fatal brain tumour in his quest for the truth, finally succumbs to the operating table.

As his eyes flicker shut under the anaesthetic, the credits roll. So could that really be it for TV’s most charismatic French detective?

Let’s look at the evidence.

As he fails to drift off to the usual dose of anaesthetic, the surgeons comment, “Perhaps you’re made of stronger things Mr Baptiste.”

If that isn’t a sign of hope from the TV gods, I don’t know what is.

That subtle hint, alongside the less subtle rumours about a third series of The Missing in the pipeline make me fairly confident Baptise is going to wake up just fine.

Because what is The Missing without you Mr Baptise, n’est-ce pas?

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2. Why was no one more upset about Lenhart?

As the first to uncover Adam Gettrick, German detective Jorn Lenhart is really the unsung hero of the series. Sadly though, he was also the first (surely?!) to die on TV via cordless drill. All that heroism reduced to naught but a puddle on Gettrick’s carpet.

Yet he dies in episode five, and barely gets a mention until episode eight. What about the mix tape, Eve? What about your charming double-act, Baptiste? How couldn’t you miss that guitar playing, Hilde-the-parrot-quoting face?

It’s all a bit reminiscent of Barb from Stranger Things, the friend of Nancy who met an untimely death and sparked the wrath of the internet, as #JusticeforBarb or #WhatAboutBarb started trending.

Some online theorists were hoping he might make a miraculous reappearance to live a happy, power-tool-free life with Eve and her mini David Morrissey baby, but alas, it was not to be.

Call it opening old wounds, but I’m calling for #JusticeforJorn.

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3. Does Sophie really love Adam Gettrick?

Was Sophie really in the clutches of Stockholm syndrome, or was she sitting on a masterplan to get herself, Lucy and Alice out?

Her willingness to conform to Gettrick’s creepy interpretation of a ‘good girl’, and those jarringly cosy domestic scenes all suggest a genuine tie to Gettrick. Left alone in the cabin she stayed put – and even when finally free, she refuses to see her own father.

Her convincing role as Alice Webster in Gettrick’s masterplan of deception could be future proof of that tie - yet as we learn, Gettrick threatened her daughter's life should she not comply.

So was Sophie simply acting out of love for Lucy, rather than Gettrick?

She certainly seems to feel guilt – passing on an apology to Kristian Hertz via Matthew, and putting flowers on Henry Reed’s grave. And her rebellious bursts of French, much to Gettrick’s anger, all hint at a far more independent Sophie.

One particularly gratifying ending would have seen Sophie put an end to Gettrick herself – if only to close this niggling question.

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4. Where did Eve take Stone?

As Eve finally confronts her father about what happened all those years ago, he appears to hide behind a veil of confusion – at odds with his usual dementia-induced moments.

Instead of taking him back to the care home, she tells the doctor she’s taking him “home”.  For what? Is there some justice she wants to see done for his years of deception – will she turn him in, or take that justice into her own hands?

Either way, his absence at Sam’s funeral is certainly notable.

5. Will there be any redemption for Nadia Hertz?

She is just as much a victim as the abducted girls, as Gettrick’s plan to frame her innocent husband, followed by her brutal attack, rips her life from under her feet.

Gettrick never forgave her for not sending help for him in Iraq, and expertly concocted a long game of revenge, after deeming simply ‘slitting her throat’ too kind for her.

Perhaps it was Nadia’s lingering guilt over covering up the actions of Gettrick, Stone, and Reed in 1991 that explains why she was so quick to fall into Gettrick’s trap and turn her own husband in.

Yet while there is finally a resolution for the shattered Webster family, as a newly freed Christian Hertz walks away from the wife who lost faith in him, a question mark hangs over the future of poor Nadia Hertz.

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6. Were there other girls?

Exposing Gettrick as the abductor in episode five was a brave move, shifting the series away from the question of ‘who’ to the question of ‘why’, as we followed him in a thrilling game of cat and mouse.

Yet there’s plenty we still don’t know about him.

As Baptise asks him in police custody, “How many other girls were there?”, telling him he has a horrible feeling there were more.

And if we’ve learnt anything from this series, it’s that when Baptiste has a feeling, you go with it.

Gettrick’s twisted tastes were clearly defined by the time he slept with the 13 year-old in Iraq – but who knows what he was doing between then and the abduction of Alice, Sophie and Lena in 1995?

Yet it’s a question that hangs in the balance, as Gettrick responds with nothing more than a faint smirk.

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7.  Who was the man following Baptise?

He’s clearly not real – as Baptiste realised in episode seven, when he pushed an unsuspecting officer against a wall. But who is he – a manifestation of Baptiste’s brain tumour?

One Twitter theory thought he might be the doctor who’s operating on Baptiste’s brain – meaning the entire series was nothing more than a hazy anaesthetised dream as the French detective blurred flashbacks with reality.

Because if my primary school English teacher taught me anything, it’s that nothing’s more satisfying than the ending, “and then they woke up…"

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Have you got any other burning questions? Let us know @bbcthree. Just don't expect us to necessarily be able to answer them...