Missing You aims high, weaving a thriller with deeply personal drama and a tangled web of crime and corruption. At its best, it delivers some truly gripping moments—emotionally charged character arcs, strong performances, and an unsettling look at power dynamics that distort truth and justice. But where it falters is in its structure. The show struggles to balance its multiple plot threads, rushing through major revelations while dragging out less compelling subplots. Instead of slowly unraveling its mysteries with mounting tension, it often dumps key information too quickly, undercutting the sense of suspense and discovery.

The central mysteries—Kat’s father’s murder, her ex-fiancé Josh’s reappearance, and the larger conspiracy involving missing people—are conceptually strong. In theory, they’re tightly connected, each piece of the puzzle adding to the bigger picture. In practice, the pacing is all over the place. The show has a habit of over-explaining things just when it should be leaning into the intrigue. Take the farm conspiracy: the idea of a criminal operation using fake dating profiles to lure victims is genuinely unsettling, but the execution deflates the tension. Instead of building an escalating sense of dread, the show quickly lays all its cards on the table, making it less about discovering the truth and more about waiting for Kat to catch up to what the audience already knows.

The same issue applies to the murder of Kat’s father. Rather than letting the mystery unravel through investigation and psychological tension, the show often resorts to heavy-handed exposition dumps. A prime example is the revelation that Monte wasn’t Clint’s killer—rather than leading Kat to piece things together naturally, the truth is simply handed to her in a way that feels anticlimactic. This pattern weakens the investigative aspect of the story, making Kat feel more like a character reacting to information rather than someone actively uncovering secrets.

Despite these structural flaws, Missing You does have something meaningful to say. The show explores the idea that truth is rarely objective—what people believe is often shaped by emotion, manipulation, or systemic distortion. This plays out on multiple levels: Kat’s idealized memories of her father begin to crack, Josh exists in a moral gray zone between victim and accomplice, and even the supposed “official” versions of events are revealed to be carefully constructed lies. There’s a powerful undercurrent of disillusionment here, a reminder that justice isn’t just about finding the facts, but about who controls the narrative.

The show also leans into the idea of powerlessness against corrupt systems. Again and again, characters realize that the forces working against them are bigger than any one person. Josh couldn’t fight back against the system he got caught in, Monte was made a scapegoat, and Kat, despite her relentless pursuit of the truth, often finds herself up against institutions designed to protect the guilty. This bleak outlook makes for a compelling thematic backbone—one that could have been even stronger if the storytelling had been more precise.

Kat is, without a doubt, the show’s strongest element. She’s an intelligent, determined, yet deeply flawed protagonist whose journey isn’t just about solving a case—it’s about coming to terms with her own past. Her emotional conflict is handled well: she’s brilliant at her job, yet struggles with personal connections; she seeks the truth but fears what she’ll find. The best moments of the show come when it focuses on her internal struggle—her need for closure clashing with the reality that closure might not bring her peace.

But even here, Missing You stumbles in the execution. One of the biggest issues is how the show handles Kat’s moral dilemmas. It teases the idea that she might be falling into the same patterns as the people she’s investigating—crossing ethical lines in her pursuit of justice—but it never fully commits to exploring that conflict. Instead of allowing her to wrestle with the consequences of her actions, the show often moves on too quickly, missing opportunities for deeper character development.

The supporting characters are a mixed bag. Some of them add compelling layers to the story, others feel like missed opportunities.

Josh is one of the most interesting, precisely because the show never fully rehabilitates him. He’s not just a tragic figure or a manipulative villain—he exists in the murky space in between, a man who made terrible choices but still genuinely loved Kat. His struggle with guilt and self-preservation makes him compelling, but the show falters in its resolution. By the end, there’s no real reckoning with his past—no clear answer as to whether he’s learned anything or if Kat can (or should) ever truly forgive him.

Stagger, Kat’s boss, is another strong but underutilized character. Initially presented as a strict but fair authority figure, he’s later revealed to be complicit in the corruption that shaped Kat’s life. His justifications for his actions—protecting the institution, maintaining order—make sense in a twisted way, but the show doesn’t go far enough in interrogating his choices. He remains a morally ambiguous figure, which is great, but the lack of consequences for him weakens the impact of his arc.

Then there’s Titus, the supposed “big bad” of the show, who ends up being its weakest link. He’s not so much a character as he is a concept—a looming figure of criminal exploitation without much depth beyond that. His motivations remain vague, and his final confrontation with Kat and Dana lacks the weight it should have. A better-developed antagonist could have elevated the entire series, but as it stands, Titus never feels like the true heart of the conflict.

At its best, Missing You delivers a gripping character study wrapped in a socially relevant thriller. Its exploration of truth, trauma, and institutional corruption is compelling, and Kat Donovan is a protagonist worth following. But its structural weaknesses hold it back from greatness. The pacing issues, the reliance on exposition over investigation, and the underdeveloped antagonists all keep it from reaching its full potential.

Still, despite its flaws, the show leaves a lasting impression. It’s a story about how we wrestle with the past, how the search for truth can consume us, and how justice isn’t always as simple as finding the right answer. And even when the execution falters, those ideas linger. It’s not a perfect series, but it’s one that sticks with you.