How did Alain know Olly was chasing after a fox, surely only Olly knew why he ran off?
Sylvie couldn't be protected about Alain's guilt for long either, surely Tony must have realised that.
How did Olly, who looked seriously injured, get himself out of the boot of the car and to a window with no medical help?
It is frustrating to realise that all the pondering and trying to work things out were for naught, as it was a fox and a random drunk who caused the disappearance of Olly.
In regards to point one, Alain doesn't know, he wouldn't have been able to tell the parents that but we as viewers get to see that as it fades back to the night in question.
Point 2 indeed he would know that but I suppose he honoured the wish of a dying man.
Point 3 knocked out, looked worse than he actually was
1 - People quite clearly don't watch things properly, some of the questions asked are quite unbelievable. it's like people are either doing the washing up or something or just on a wind up.
2 - The fall out as to whether or not Ollie is dead reminds me of the same thing happening after the end of The Sopranos, when David Chase, who after he was asked whether or not Tony was dead, said something like - ' Can't people work things out for themselves? What did you want us to do, have his brains splattered all over the screen!'
Ollie's quite clearly dead, the amount of blood and the ruthless Romanian told you that. So why show a dead child's blood soaked body just for the sake of it?
As for the ending, thought it was brilliant, and as a few others have pointed out I don't think there was one single person who called it right. I think I actually applauded when I saw him following the fox, very clever indeed!
I got two things right at least, Ollie being dead and Georges being involved in the cover up, which is probably not gonna be enough for me to become the new George Smiley!
There was a fox sticker on a toy box in one episode, if I remember correctly.
Minutes before the finale started I watched a bit of ep 1 again and noticed the fox link: the fox in the credits scene and the fox held by ollie in the car. Also noticed for the first time that Tony picked up ollies bag etc from the side of the bar in front of people who should have seen if a boy was being led/taken away and dropped his stuff. At that point I assumed he had wandered off, but that he was then abducted or ravaged by foxes! I don't think we knew how close the compound was to a road so the whole being hit by a car would not have occurred to most viewers.
Still loved series for previous stated reasons. A realistic study of the polar ways parents might deal with the disappearance/death of a young child.
Reading through the end of this thread it's no suprise that British TV is oftne so dumbed down.
If things aren't wrapped up in a nice 2 hour midsommer murders package then people just aren't happy.
The ending was very good.
Maybe some sort of mega paedo conspiracy would have been good for that instant 'wow' factor but no one is really going to be talking about it for long.
People also seemed to be confused by the notion of sub plots. Everything that happens on screen does not have to relate back to the central story at all times. Just because Bourg isn't integral to the ending doesn't mean he should just be discarded, he was a very very good character who deserved to have a conclusion to his story. The guy who played him was superb.
Some things people are bringing up weren't even red herrings, it's just stuff they're making up in their own minds.
all in all, very good show and well worth the 8 hours and more I've put into it. If you're disappointed to have watched that, stick to the rugrats in future.
One thing I find satisfying is that the whole story indulged us in our own state of paedo-hysteria, whilst delivering an ending that is grounded in the simple reality that a child is hundreds of times more likely to be run over than be abducted by a nonce.
Very good point I never thought of it like that but that is very true.
How did Alain know Olly was chasing after a fox, surely only Olly knew why he ran off?
Sylvie couldn't be protected about Alain's guilt for long either, surely Tony must have realised that.
How did Olly, who looked seriously injured, get himself out of the boot of the car and to a window with no medical help?
It is frustrating to realise that all the pondering and trying to work things out were for naught, as it was a fox and a random drunk who caused the disappearance of Olly.
I think that's mixing up the way the writers were telling the story. The writers told us (the viewers) what happened, Alain couldn't tell the parents, they wouldn't know about the fox.
1 - People quite clearly don't watch things properly, some of the questions asked are quite unbelievable. it's like people are either doing the washing up or something or just on a wind up.
2 - The fall out as to whether or not Ollie is dead reminds me of the same thing happening after the end of The Sopranos, when David Chase, who after he was asked whether or not Tony was dead, said something like - ' Can't people work things out for themselves? What did you want us to do, have his brains splattered all over the screen!'
Ollie's quite clearly dead, the amount of blood and the ruthless Romanian told you that. So why show a dead child's blood soaked body just for the sake of it?
As for the ending, thought it was brilliant, and as a few others have pointed out I don't think there was one single person who called it right. I think I actually applauded when I saw him following the fox, very clever indeed!
I got two things right at least, Ollie being dead and Georges being involved in the cover up, which is probably not gonna be enough for me to become the new George Smiley!
I just assumed that a man who had the balls to slash someone's throat in public would have no compunction in killing a child in private.
Indeed. Plus, when he went into the house and saw Ollie (alive) there was little blood, but there was a lot afterwards... they didn't need to show how he killed him, the blood implied that it wasn't a bloodless death. Did we need to see the body of a dead child (we didn't see the Garrett tapes either, we still felt we had when Tony looked at them on the camcorder) ... sometimes less is more.
How the hell was Alain getting all the medals if he was on the booze from 2006?????
I felt he'd been convincing people of his sobriety until he ran Ollie over - getting medals but really not being sober (a secret drinker) - but, after running Ollie over, never drank again.
But that's what happens in a police investigation. You take statements and follow up on any information gleaned from them. You give press conferences asking for information and then take more statements and on and on. It's not unknown for the investigation of one crime to uncover other crimes. We're so used to one hour/one episode crime dramas we've got out of the habit of investing time in quality character driven pieces. Personally, I'm glad we're going back to the sort of series that inspired the writers of The Killing and Spiral and The Bridge etc.
True, but the police weren't uncovering some of these crimes, Tony was .. and meting out his own form of justice. That doesn't happen in real life, but then this wasn't real life
One thing I find satisfying is that the whole story indulged us in our own state of paedo-hysteria, whilst delivering an ending that is grounded in the simple reality that a child is hundreds of times more likely to be run over than be abducted by a nonce.
Indeed! It's interesting that, during this series run, The Paedophile Next Door was shown on Channel 4, featuring a man, a self-professed paedophile, who refuses to act on his desires. It seemed to be more than a coincidence. It was The Missing that made me seek out the documentary a few days after it was shown.
I've enjoyed it immensely for seven weeks, so I'm not going to slate it now. But I hate anything where justice is not seen to be done, however true to real life that may be.
The evil Romanian killer escaped, the perfect ending for me would have been to let Tony watch him die, slowly and painfully.
Well there was a lot of injustice, including the fact that Tony took the law into his own hands on more than one occasion!
I don't think we saw a blood soaked body. It was a puddle of blood, then the viewers didn't actually see what was in the back of the van, but we are led to believe that it was Ollys body.
We didn't. That's the point being made. We saw blood on the floor, the ruthless Romanian said he'd killed Ollie, and Georges reacted in a way that suggested he had seen the body. We don't need to see everything on screen.
(I'd agree with all of that previous poster's comments, if not for the last scene.)
How did Alain know Olly was chasing after a fox, surely only Olly knew why he ran off?
Sylvie couldn't be protected about Alain's guilt for long either, surely Tony must have realised that.
How did Olly, who looked seriously injured, get himself out of the boot of the car and to a window with no medical help?
It is frustrating to realise that all the pondering and trying to work things out were for naught, as it was a fox and a random drunk who caused the disappearance of Olly.
The fox was on the road with Oliie when he hit him(possibly)
Maybe he wanted her to have one more day of peace before the shit storm
Alain left the boot open after he had driven into the garage
Well, I think that was the best bit of television I have seen for a long time.
Any one who thinks Ollie is alive only needs to look at Georges' face when he is walking away from the house to know that he has seen Ollie's dead body.
Perhaps it is Tony's punishment for killing Garratt that he is doomed to wander the earth looking for Ollie and never finding him, just like the ancient mariner.
The clues about the fox were there, we just chose to get hung up on the bees.
The writers need to take a bow, they gave us just enough information to send us in the wrong direction but after that we made it all up in our own heads, very clever.
I will miss you all but will see some of you aboard at the captain's cocktail party.🚢🎉
I have been really touched by this series in the same way a sad song or a beautiful painting or a touching poem moves me.
Throughout the previous 7 episodes the writers showed us different scenarios of what COULD have happened to Ollie,there was light and shade and hidden depths in the characterisation,they showed how a placid-ish family man was driven to murder and eventually to the brink of madness.We forgave Tony for murdering Garrett ,the murderer was still our hero and we rooted for him all along,right there behind him in his quest for the truth.
After all the horror of Garrett and Vincent,it was Tony who was eventually arrested for hanging round and following young boys even though his motive was innocent,the difference between them was not obvious to an onlooker who didn't know Tony's story,in Russia he was just another weirdo hanging round kids' playgrounds.
I thoroughly enjoyed it
That's a very good summing up as to how I viewed it too.
Compelling viewing and just like in real life there is often not a neat and tidy ending.
If it's not who drew the big ears pic in the snow...Tony?
I suppose we will never know & have to speculate as the next missing looks like a new story.
I think they've left it so you can believe whichever you want to.
It might be that the Romanians sold him on and Alan was lying or hadn't been told the full truth himself and he drew the toy.
Or
Olly was murdered by the romanians and the Mayor saw his body with his throat slit in the back of the van.
Tony has gone insane, following up anywhere he believes Romanians have a link to crime (like Russia) and targeting any children of the right age that resemble Olly. And he drew the toy in the snow.
Personally i think it is the second scenario. Olly is dead buut Tony can't let go.
He was the one who found the sobriety medal that Alain dropped
The fox was on the road with Oliie when he hit him(possibly)
Maybe he wanted her to have one more day of peace before the shit storm
Alain left the boot open after he had driven into the garage
Well, I think that was the best bit of television I have seen for a long time.
Any one who thinks Ollie is alive only needs to look at Georges' face when he is walking away from the house to know that he has seen Ollie's dead body.
Perhaps it is Tony's punishment for killing Garratt that he is doomed to wander the earth looking for Ollie and never finding him, just like the ancient mariner.
The clues about the fox were there, we just chose to get hung up on the bees.
The writers need to take a bow, they gave us just enough information to send us in the wrong direction but after that we made it all up in our own heads, very clever.
I will miss you all but will see some of you aboard at the captain's cocktail party.🚢🎉
Or a terrified boy bound and gagged who'd possibly just been abused.
We didn't. That's the point being made. We saw blood on the floor, the ruthless Romanian said he'd killed Ollie, and Georges reacted in a way that suggested he had seen the body. We don't need to see everything on screen.
(I'd agree with all of that previous poster's comments, if not for the last scene.)
Why should I be expected to believe in an ending when it's not presented to me in a satisfactory way?
Dodgy people claim they've killed someone and I'm just supposed to take that as the gospel. No, show me the damn body. We've seen blood before during Garrett's death. Why not quash any doubts and show us Olly's battered and bruised body?
I think they've left it open the fact that the body was never seen , the killer was
a people trafficker and the Olly at 13 photo fit is definitely the boy in Russia .
Loved the series but pretty gash ending I thought , I understand the replies on here ,
not everything is black and white .
Why did the detective Charlamaine (?) withhold the evidence? Was it on Georges instruction? Not really sure how the journalist fitted into all of this.
Tonight when Alain entered the bar and looked at the TV France were playing Brazil? Which was that year's World Cup quarter final. I understood Ollie as having been taken/run over the night of the final against Italy? Probably nothing but something I just noticed!
Comments
In regards to point one, Alain doesn't know, he wouldn't have been able to tell the parents that but we as viewers get to see that as it fades back to the night in question.
Point 2 indeed he would know that but I suppose he honoured the wish of a dying man.
Point 3 knocked out, looked worse than he actually was
1 - People quite clearly don't watch things properly, some of the questions asked are quite unbelievable. it's like people are either doing the washing up or something or just on a wind up.
2 - The fall out as to whether or not Ollie is dead reminds me of the same thing happening after the end of The Sopranos, when David Chase, who after he was asked whether or not Tony was dead, said something like - ' Can't people work things out for themselves? What did you want us to do, have his brains splattered all over the screen!'
Ollie's quite clearly dead, the amount of blood and the ruthless Romanian told you that. So why show a dead child's blood soaked body just for the sake of it?
As for the ending, thought it was brilliant, and as a few others have pointed out I don't think there was one single person who called it right. I think I actually applauded when I saw him following the fox, very clever indeed!
I got two things right at least, Ollie being dead and Georges being involved in the cover up, which is probably not gonna be enough for me to become the new George Smiley!
Minutes before the finale started I watched a bit of ep 1 again and noticed the fox link: the fox in the credits scene and the fox held by ollie in the car. Also noticed for the first time that Tony picked up ollies bag etc from the side of the bar in front of people who should have seen if a boy was being led/taken away and dropped his stuff. At that point I assumed he had wandered off, but that he was then abducted or ravaged by foxes! I don't think we knew how close the compound was to a road so the whole being hit by a car would not have occurred to most viewers.
Still loved series for previous stated reasons. A realistic study of the polar ways parents might deal with the disappearance/death of a young child.
If things aren't wrapped up in a nice 2 hour midsommer murders package then people just aren't happy.
The ending was very good.
Maybe some sort of mega paedo conspiracy would have been good for that instant 'wow' factor but no one is really going to be talking about it for long.
People also seemed to be confused by the notion of sub plots. Everything that happens on screen does not have to relate back to the central story at all times. Just because Bourg isn't integral to the ending doesn't mean he should just be discarded, he was a very very good character who deserved to have a conclusion to his story. The guy who played him was superb.
Some things people are bringing up weren't even red herrings, it's just stuff they're making up in their own minds.
all in all, very good show and well worth the 8 hours and more I've put into it. If you're disappointed to have watched that, stick to the rugrats in future.
Very good point I never thought of it like that but that is very true.
I think that's mixing up the way the writers were telling the story. The writers told us (the viewers) what happened, Alain couldn't tell the parents, they wouldn't know about the fox.
When did we see a blood soaked body?
I was completely wrong about everything, of course.
He was weak, deceitful and used to hiding things from his wife.
https://twitter.com/Helena_Lee10/status/544992391606710272/photo/1
I felt he'd been convincing people of his sobriety until he ran Ollie over - getting medals but really not being sober (a secret drinker) - but, after running Ollie over, never drank again.
Entirely possible, yes.
True, but the police weren't uncovering some of these crimes, Tony was .. and meting out his own form of justice. That doesn't happen in real life, but then this wasn't real life
Indeed! It's interesting that, during this series run, The Paedophile Next Door was shown on Channel 4, featuring a man, a self-professed paedophile, who refuses to act on his desires. It seemed to be more than a coincidence. It was The Missing that made me seek out the documentary a few days after it was shown.
I don't think we saw a blood soaked body. It was a puddle of blood, then the viewers didn't actually see what was in the back of the van, but we are led to believe that it was Ollys body.
We didn't. That's the point being made. We saw blood on the floor, the ruthless Romanian said he'd killed Ollie, and Georges reacted in a way that suggested he had seen the body. We don't need to see everything on screen.
(I'd agree with all of that previous poster's comments, if not for the last scene.)
He was the one who found the sobriety medal that Alain dropped The fox was on the road with Oliie when he hit him(possibly)
Maybe he wanted her to have one more day of peace before the shit storm
Alain left the boot open after he had driven into the garage
Well, I think that was the best bit of television I have seen for a long time.
Any one who thinks Ollie is alive only needs to look at Georges' face when he is walking away from the house to know that he has seen Ollie's dead body.
Perhaps it is Tony's punishment for killing Garratt that he is doomed to wander the earth looking for Ollie and never finding him, just like the ancient mariner.
The clues about the fox were there, we just chose to get hung up on the bees.
The writers need to take a bow, they gave us just enough information to send us in the wrong direction but after that we made it all up in our own heads, very clever.
I will miss you all but will see some of you aboard at the captain's cocktail party.🚢🎉
That's a very good summing up as to how I viewed it too.
Compelling viewing and just like in real life there is often not a neat and tidy ending.
I think they've left it so you can believe whichever you want to.
It might be that the Romanians sold him on and Alan was lying or hadn't been told the full truth himself and he drew the toy.
Or
Olly was murdered by the romanians and the Mayor saw his body with his throat slit in the back of the van.
Tony has gone insane, following up anywhere he believes Romanians have a link to crime (like Russia) and targeting any children of the right age that resemble Olly. And he drew the toy in the snow.
Personally i think it is the second scenario. Olly is dead buut Tony can't let go.
Or a terrified boy bound and gagged who'd possibly just been abused.
Why should I be expected to believe in an ending when it's not presented to me in a satisfactory way?
Dodgy people claim they've killed someone and I'm just supposed to take that as the gospel. No, show me the damn body. We've seen blood before during Garrett's death. Why not quash any doubts and show us Olly's battered and bruised body?
WOW..I missed that, well spotted !
AA and your sponsor take your word that you haven't been drinking if you choose not to admit to it
a people trafficker and the Olly at 13 photo fit is definitely the boy in Russia .
Loved the series but pretty gash ending I thought , I understand the replies on here ,
not everything is black and white .