The Undoing Season 1 Episode 2 Review: The Missing
Carissa Pavlica
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The world is crumbling around Grace Fraser.
She went from being a woman who believed she had a perfect life with a perfect husband to discovering that everything she thought she knew about the man she was married to was untrue.
The Undoing Season 1 Episode 2 found Grace standing tall but stumbling in her convictions with so much uncertainty suddenly at her doorstep.
The red flags about Jonathan keep on waving, whether he's nearby or not. There isn't much about the man that spells warm and caring, the characteristics that Grace described to Detective Mendoza.
Franklin: Still no word from Jonathan?
Grace: No.
Franklin: I guess it's safe to assume he's not in Cleveland.
Flag after flag was raised, but one of the first and one with which I have personal experience was that Jonathan has never been a good communicator.
A man who has trouble checking in has something to hide. Whether it's the fact he doesn't love his wife or girlfriend as much as he should or something more nefarious, there is a big problem with someone who goes radio silent.
Being on the receiving end of radio silence for any reason, whether callousness to the effect it can have on the person who doesn't know where you are or cruelty by way of an affair or other secret you're trying to keep.
You should never have to make excuses to or for your significant other, but it seems like Jonathan was a pro, and we saw Grace pulling at all of the strings that were keeping her marriage together in her attempt to paint Jonathan as something other than the murderer he's believed to be.
Sometimes, imagining what you don't know is far worse than the truth, but it doesn't seem like that's the case with Grace. She's not doing a bad job imagining everything from Miguel finding his mother to Jonathan's trysts with Elena.
To have that colorful of an imagination so easily leads me to believe that the idea that he's not everything he's cracked up to be might have been percolating in Grace's head well before reality struck.
Once again, Grace's patients seemed to speak directly to her situation with Jonathan as the one man described that his seemingly normal, dull existence screamed out for secrets to make himself more mysterious and courageous.
And what does it say about us as people to think that being normal is something to be changed?
The pressure on Grace as Jonathan's wife was extraordinary.
She was under suspicion from the detectives, the school wanted her to steer clear, the press was all over the school and her home, and even her so-called friends at Reardon used her as gossip fodder instead of standing beside her when she could really use the support.
The detectives went in hot, pretty secure in the notion that she was somehow involved, even if only harboring her husband, the fugitive. They cannot read a room very well, that's for sure.
Detective: Mrs. Fraser, your husband has not worked at Price Norberry Memorial Hospital for a long time.
Grace: [breathing heavily]
Detective: You didn't know this?
Grace: What?
Detective: According to Dr. Robertson Sharp, Dr. Jonathan Fraser's employment was terminated nearly three months ago.
If there was one thing you could tell by Grace's reactions, she was learning a lot from them as they cruelly shared information she didn't want to hear, at least not from them.
Jonathan has been in hot water for a long time. If he'd been unemployed for nearly three months and had three disciplinary actions prior to that time, then he was leading a double existence for a while, happily pulling the wool over his wife's eyes.
He even dared take home some of Elena's perfume and a scarf. They weren't well hidden, either, so maybe he did want her to know what was happening. Even Sylvia was in the know, at least to some extent.
I'm sorry, Grace. I'm really sorry. My advice, not that you're asking, is if you do learn where Jonathan is, tell the police. The sooner you make it clear that you're not involved, the better you'll be treated by everybody, police and media included. Grace, you need to get out of here, you and Henry. Once they find Jonathan, this story will explode. You need to be somewhere else when that happens.
Sylvia
Jonathan tapped her as his counsel for the hearings, but he lied to her, too, by saying that the charges had been dropped and he was out of the woods at the hospital. But it was hardly clear sailing. Instead, he'd been fired.
For a hospital to fire an established physician, there is a lot more going on than Jonathan shared with Sylvia, and a helluva lot more than he whispered in Grace's ear at the beach house. Every word he uttered made my skin crawl.
It's such a creepy thing to do to admit to the affair but try to get sympathy for Elena being obsessive. Well, you gave her a child. Why wouldn't she be affected just a tad. And I think that Elena got close to Grace to try to determine if she should warn her about her husband.
Yes, she had an affair that led to a child, but that doesn't mean that Elena was a terrible person. Jonathan saved her child.
There is an attachment with that scenario, and with as skeevy as Jonathan has seemed without knowing he really was skeevy, it wouldn't be surprising to learn he lied to Elena and fed her desires. He's just gross.
It was hard to see Grace going through so much, and even harder watching her listen to him after he had just grabbed her from behind and covered her mouth. Nothing about that was OK. He has control issues, and they're ugly, whether he killed anyone or not.
Grace, your husband is the lead suspect in a murder investigation.
Franklin
I don't think for a second that Grace was overstating the situation when she told the police she was terrified. Her life has descended into chaos in a matter of hours because of the facade Jonathan had created.
But Jonathan managed to keep the wool pulled over Grace's eyes for a while, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if he managed to get her under his wing again. He's a smooth talker, the envy of all. He's a snake charmer kind of guy who could sell the clothes off of your back.
And Grace will want to believe him, at least for a while. He's the father of her child. She thinks she was happy with him. She thinks she knows him, at least to a degree.
Grace: I'm calling the police.
Jonathan: Give me two minutes. You're going to give me two minutes before you do that.
Grace: I gave you my whole life!
If there are stages of grief, there are also stages of acceptance of a new reality, and that can often be harder to shake if there is still a presence in your life trying to keep you invested.
Jonathan will want to keep Grace invested in them. Her investment could make or break a murder trial. So even if he doesn't love her, he needs her.
Kudos to the director, Susanne Bier, for making these first two episodes incredibly disorienting and to Nicole Kidman for bringing Grace to life. The interrogation scenes were almost bizarre, and I imagine that's how it feels to find yourself in a situation so utterly foreign through not fault of your own.
Detective Mendoza: And that makes sense to you?
Grace: No, nothing about this entire day makes any sense to me.
With every new piece of advice that Grace receives, her mind reels a little more, and you can tell that she's not processing what's happening, that she cannot process it.
It's edge-of-your seat stuff, and with Jonathan's return, I expect we're in for a rollercoaster ride through the remainder of this series.
What did you think of "The Missing"? Hit the comments, and share your thoughts!
Carissa Pavlica is the managing editor and a staff writer and critic for TV Fanatic. She's a member of the Critic's Choice Association, enjoys mentoring writers, conversing with cats, and passionately discussing the nuances of television and film with anyone who will listen. Follow her on X and email her here at TV Fanatic.
