Diksha Sundriyal
Apple TV’s ‘Last Seen’ begins with a man walking his dogs in the woods. As he prepares to take them back, he notices that one of the dogs has a human jaw in its mouth. He and his hounds have stumbled upon something nefarious, so he decides to leave the human remains behind and return to his house. Clearly, he doesn’t want anything to do with what was buried in the woods a long time ago, but the secret comes out soon enough. Three girls also stumbled upon the jaw and other parts of the body, but unlike the man, they report it, not realizing that this discovery has opened an eleven-year-old case of a girl who went missing from her own home. SPOILERS AHEAD.
A New Discovery Reopens a Decade-Long Mystery
Ian Ridley is six months sober. He lives a quiet life by himself in his house, and seems to be on good terms with his ex-wife, who is now pregnant with her new partner, Bill. She calls Ian to ask him for the cot in his house, and while he agrees to give it to her, he doesn’t actually do it. Even when Bill comes to his door to pick it up, Ian makes an excuse, revealing that his emotional attachment to the cot is much stronger than he lets on. It is also revealed that he was a police detective before, but now he works as a dispatcher, picking up calls from distressed strangers. And to make matters a bit complicated, he is having an affair with his employee, Polly, who has a habit of coming into work late and taking long breaks.
Whatever may be going on in his personal life, Ian is pretty good at his job. Polly picks up the call from a woman who is scared of her abusive partner at her door. When she becomes nervous, Ian takes over and helps the woman calmly and in a contained manner. At the end, Polly remarks that this isn’t the first time the woman has called, and she wonders when the call will come from her house, but it won’t be from her. Picking up on her concern, Ian pulls out the woman’s address and decides to keep an eye on her lest the abusive partner come back and harm her. At the same time, he has to address Polly’s lax behavior, and while he is in the middle of this conversation, he is informed of the discovery of human remains.
The reason Ian would be interested in this is that the remains appear to be those of a young child, who seems to have been in the same age bracket as Ian’s daughter, who went missing eleven years ago. He immediately goes to the site, where he meets Bill and Detective Isabella Pena, who is in charge of the case. She is not happy about having him involved in the case, but she understands what he must be going through, so she lets him take a quick look. Ian notices the paw marks in the mud, and as soon as he returns to work, he looks for dog owners in the area. His instinct turns out to be right when he ends up at the place of the same man we saw at the beginning of the episode. To make matters more interesting, Ian finds the pajamas that his daughter had been wearing the night she went missing at the man’s place.
Ian Spirals as the Mystery Unravels All Over Again
Ian thinks he has finally found the man who can tell him what happened to his daughter, but the cops reveal that the man has an airtight alibi for the day of the crime. Moreover, the cloth, which had been preserved for all these years because it was wrapped in plastic, was found by his dogs in the woods and brought to his home. He also admits to having found the human remains, but did not report it because he was illegally trading dogs and did not want to come into the cops’ radar. Ian is advised to go home and let the cops do their job rather than going off on his own investigation. When he returns home, he goes back to drinking and goes back to the house of the woman with the abusive partner. This time, the man shows up, but it is to take the woman and their son to the town fair.
Ian follows the family to the fair and keeps an eye on them. Polly finds him and shares her condolences, having recently found out what happened to his daughter. He reveals that that night, he and his wife had gone out on a date, leaving three-year-old Mags in the care of their 16-year-old son, Dean, who got high on weed. Ian blames himself for not staying home that night, and his anger comes out on the man he’d been following when the latter tries to force his scared kid to go on a scary ride. Ian is arrested for assault and spends the night in prison, and the next day, his friend, Donnie, who is also his AA sponsor, comes to receive him and take him home. Donnie also crosses paths with his brother, Henry, who is not very friendly and immediately leaves when he sees Ian.
Donnie takes Ian on a ride and has a chat about how his drinking is not only messing him up but also ruining the lives of other people around. His words strike a chord with Ian, who drives down to Deb’s place and finally gives her Mags’ cot. He also discovers that Deb is preparing to have a funeral for their daughter, and he agrees it’s about time. He also discovers that Dean is back in town, though their relationship remains strained. When he returns home, Ian decides to go sober again, and we get a look at the developed images of Mags, predicting what she would look like now. It turns out she would look exactly like Henry’s daughter, Sarah, who is being raised on the farm with no contact from the outside world.
Sarah Starts Having Questions About Her Identity
Henry lives on the outskirts of the town at a secluded farm with his wife, Jenna, and their daughter, Sarah. He refuses to mingle with anyone, and when a friendly neighbor tries to talk to him, he shooes the man away. Still, Sarah has secretly befriended the neighbor’s son, Tommy, who shows her iPods and tells her about the current music trends. Meanwhile, it is revealed that the child, whose remains were found in the woods, died of strangulation. It will take a couple of weeks to confirm it is Mags, for which they also need Deb’s DNA. Det. Pena also reveals that she would like to talk to Dean regarding the mysterious man who knocked on the door shortly before Mags was abducted that night. At home, Ian asks Dean if he remembers what that man looked like.
Dean admits that while he was high on weed at the time, he could pick the man’s face out of a crowd. Since they can’t yet hold a funeral for Mags, Deb and Ian decide to hold a memorial, and Ian tells Dean to go through the crowd and try to find the man. The reason he thinks the abducter would be in the crowd is that he has realized that whoever buried the remains in the woods had to be a local, or he wouldn’t know how to get to that hidden spot all those years ago, when there wasn’t even a road there. Later, when Jenna comes to town to trade some stuff, she notices the flier about the memorial. She immediately returns home and tells Henry about it. She believes they should go to the memorial, but her husband doesn’t think it’s such a good idea. He burns the flier, but Sarah finds it in time to keep a piece of it for herself.
When Sarah reads the name “Mags,” her memory from when she was little is triggered. She remembers having carved that name into a tree. She shows that piece of paper to Tommy, who notices the coordinates written on it and offers to take Sarah there. While she is curious, she can’t go, not while her father is still around. Later, Donnie shows up with gifts, hoping to spend some time with Sarah and the family, but Henry tells him to leave. While Jenna decides to rest on account of her migraine, Henry decides to go to the memorial after all. This leaves Sarah free to go on her own quest. After her father leaves, she goes to Tommy’s place. He agrees to help her, but before that, he needs to go to a party in town, so she decides to accompany her there.
Ian Gets a Life-Changing Phone Call
As they prepare for the vigil, Ian is told by the detective that the DNA test has come back and the body is confirmed not to be Mags. She thinks they should cancel the memorial, but Ian doesn’t want the opportunity to slip away. He doesn’t share this information with Deb, and the memorial goes as planned. On his father’s instructions, Dean goes around taking a good look at everyone’s faces. He almost comes close to Henry, but the latter turns around before Dean can see him. Thus, the young man is unable to do what his father asked of him. This makes Ian angry, but he doesn’t have time to express it because a confused Pena shows up again. She tells Deb what she’d earlier told Ian, making Deb infuriated with Ian. Things wrap up at the memorial, but he knows he cannot go home. If he is left alone, he will return to drinking, so he goes to work.
Meanwhile, Sarah goes to the party with Tommy, where they are separated. Everything is very new and foreign to her, but she seems to be enjoying the night out. When a boy notices her, he asks her to have a drink with him. They go to a secluded room, where Sarah notices the flier. As she looks at the picture, she realizes that she might be “Mags.” It is shocking and confusing for her, and she gets even more flustered when the boy tries to kiss her. She runs out of the house and finds a phone booth with the emergency number written on it. She calls the number, and Ian picks it up on dispatch. At first, he thinks it’s some random teenager who has gotten drunk and cannot find their way home. But then Sarah says she might be Mags, which prompts Ian to act. He immediately drives to the phone booth, but by the time he arrives, the girl who called is gone.
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