Did we see that correctly? Is Nikki Batista mobbed up?
Outside of the fact that Dania Ramirez would be amazing and gorgeous executing (pardon the pun) a Mob Wives parody, Alert: Missing Persons Unit Season 2 Episode 2, giving us this new insight into Nikki’s past has certainly piqued interest.
There’s no way that’s the last we’ve seen of the dangerously dashing Charlie McGannon, right?
The throughlines for the season are difficult to assess just yet beyond a throwaway moment, suggesting that Jay is still looking into that bombing.
But the hour did bring out more of Kemi’s original quirk and unique quality while having it tested with someone who is just as quirky as her and twice as awkward.
In some ways, the hour settled into itself and had more of the vibes from Alert: MPU Season 1.
We had an unusual case that escalated rather quickly, evolving into something one couldn’t have predicted when a Benjamin Franklin tour guide vanished, only for us to find out later he was on the run from the Irish mob.
The revelation came with some amusing moments, such as Jay musing that an “elderly man” couldn’t possibly be in that much trouble as the scene cut to Owen peeling back prosthetics and setting his place ablaze like Irish action star Liam Neeson.
Ironically, at one point, he was the one who was “taken.”
And, of course, despite Owen spouting off about pretending to be this founding father because of Ben Franklin’s redemption, we all know it was merely to tie back to Kemi Adebayo‘s claims of being Ben Franklin’s lover in a past life.
Owen was a fascinating case for them because he had such a seedy past and disappeared on his own accord, and they had to race against the actual mob to ensure that he was safe in the end.
Kemi: You’re not going to find anything. OK, one of my previous existences involved a very physically gratifying relationship with one of the founding fathers. Fix your face; it happened.
Helen: Sounds cool. What does she mean?
Jay: She played Hide the Pickle with Ben Franklin in a past life.
And boy, did the MPU flub things up a few times along the way. It was peak Alert: MPU, though, a perfect blend of suspension of belief and cringe.
Because it was confounding why they sounded the alarms, sending out this city-wide notification about Owen with his real identity after they knew he was a Confidential Informant, likely connected to the mob.
Even if the man Owen ran into didn’t tip things off and put Charlie on Owen’s radar, the authorities took that risk by broadcasting who he was and confirming to Charlie that he was alive.
And then the MPU had to spend the remainder of the hour trying to get ahead of this potentially fatal error on their part.
Nikki: There’s just some things you don’t know.
Mike: What are you talking about?
Nikki: I’m a woman of color in a male-dominated profession. No one was looking after me, so I looked out for myself.
In the end, most of the investigation into Owen didn’t rely heavily on input from the public.
It seems this quirky procedural is becoming more formulaic by the second. And sure, in some ways, they needed that to clean up the edges a bit.
But Alert’s quirkiness separates itself from the run-of-the-mill procedural because, without it, it doesn’t hold up well to some of the best of them.
It’s becoming standard fare that Jay and Mike Sherman are the new dynamic duo out of the bunch. We have so much of this bromance that there isn’t much of anything else.
Helen: A gift for our team in the court, from the case files I’ve read, like the yin and yang represent the inseparable contradictory.
Jason: That’s good. That’s appropriate, too; One’s white and one is black.
Helen: Oh, I didn’t mean…
While Caan and Broussard are fun together and have great chemistry, they’re wearing us down with this one dynamic without mixing and matching a bit more.
The bromance is something that you want to see sprinkled throughout. But the series can saturate with this one dynamic. It can feel like a bait-and-switch when one of the best-received bonds of the first season was that of Jay and Nikki.
Putting the two characters with the best chemistry on the bench by separating them more often than keeping them together isn’t to the series’ benefit.
Jay and Mike are fun, though. It goes without saying.
Mike: Charlie McGannon, you know anything about their arrangement?
Jay: Let me ask you a question, are you mad that she has a mob connection or that you didn’t know about it?
Mike: Can I say both?
Jay: Yeah, let me give you some advice; Nikki can handle herself; don’t try to white knight her.
Mike: White?
Jay: Everything’s not about race.
Mike: I’m just saying, white knight is good, black knight is bad, can a brotha save the day?
And their antics are meant to have the two leveled out, with Jay as the impulsive one with a short fuse and Mike as someone more cautious.
Sometimes, it works incredibly well. Their back-and-forth bantering was funny, whether it was them playing in the yin-yang with a joke that I thought mere seconds before they uttered it or their Black Knight/White Knight type of banter.
I also appreciated Jason Grant cracking jokes about Mike’s terrible, unprofessional bullpen proposal.
The series is humble enough to make fun of itself and take our critiques to the chin.
But there are other times when you can’t help but roll your eyes, like Jay’s antics in the mob bar by jumping up on the bar and putting on a show.
In what universe is that even acceptable or realistic? Cops or not, wouldn’t they end up beaten down or dead?
We don’t have the two playing tug-of-war for Nikki’s attention, which is great, and they have their own bond now.
Now, that opens things up for Jay to advise Mike on handling this woman they both love.
It’s reasonable that Mike was annoyed with whatever relationship Nikki had with Charlie and that she hadn’t shared anything about it.
It makes you wonder how many secrets Nikki has in her past and if she spends as much time placating Mike rather than being honest with him about things.
She did that often throughout the first season as well.
But regardless of how much Mike trusts and loves Nikki Batista, as someone who also works with her, he should know more about what is going on with Charlie and how it could affect them down the road.
Niki: Our past business doesn’t color our present, Charlie.
Charlie: Coming down here is me being courteous … respectful. Don’t give me a reason not to be.
Nikki: Due respect. I am sorry you wasted your time. We are MPU and we are finding this missing person.
After all, this can’t be the end of Charlie, right?
We learn that during her marriage falling apart, Charlie and Nikki became close as he fed her information on his rivals and helped her climb the ranks.
It’s surprising to learn that Nikki took such a pragmatic and morally gray approach to combat the male-dominated field she was in.
Nikki and Charlie have an interesting history and a bond that’s difficult to navigate. It’s a tightrope act where any wrong move can disrupt everything.
Nikki has already pushed her limits with Charlie after all her efforts to rescue Owen.
She also knows that he’s the one who killed his father, not Owen. And with her having this type of information over him, it doesn’t feel likely that Charlie will fall back and let things ride.
They had a drink together, but things still feel a bit charged, and I don’t know how we’re supposed to take that. They’re on the line between acquaintances and enemies, and an air of uncertainty surrounds them.
It’s great that Nikki can handle herself, but it’s no less worrisome that she got in bed with the Irish mob and ruffled feathers. Even if Charlie plays a long game here, wouldn’t comeuppance be around the corner for her?
Related: Alert: MPU Series Premiere Review: Bus 447
It seems their relationship stopped the moment she got to where she needed to as a Sergeant in the MPU, but it doesn’t sound like Charlie is ready to let her go, nor is he the type to not call in debt whenever and however many times he deems fit.
Helen was a quirky addition to the mix, and the things that happened between her and Kemi were interesting.
Helen should fit in well with the MPU because she’s not a traditional forensic scientist, and their team, bless them, is a ragtag bunch of oddities.
But that didn’t stop Helen from stepping in it for not accepting or responding well to Kemi’s particular brand of weirdness, and the others were audacious enough to side-eye Helen on multiple occasions as if they were the pinnacle of traditionalism and professionalism.
Kemi: Are you calling my past lives a mental condition?
Helen: That sounded bad.
Kemi: A little bit. Here’s a tip: most people wait at least a week before they call me crazy.
However, Helen did come across as too forceful when she kept giving Kemi information regarding scientific studies on past lives.
Kemi concluded that this new, strange woman was constantly calling her crazy, which was fair given Helen’s actions.
But Helen explained herself by discussing her mother’s experience with mental illness and neurodivergence and how reading about it helped her put things into context.
Somehow, she tried to do that with Kemi when she overstepped.
Related: 9-1-1’s Aisha Hinds on Season 7, Hen’s Evolution, and the Epic Adventures of the Premiere
Whatever the case, Helen is unusual, but she’s good at her job, and whatever beef she and Kemi have is over now.
It’s hard, though. We keep getting introduced to these other characters, but C was a wonderful addition to this group, and it doesn’t sit well that he’s had such minimal presence when it felt like he was an integral part of the team.
Over to you, Alert Fanatics. Were you shocked by Nikki’s mob connection?
Do you like Jay and Mike as a partnership? What are your thoughts on the new girl? Sound off below!
Alert: Missing Persons Unit airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on FOX. You can stream the following day on Hulu.
Jasmine Blu is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. She is an insomniac who spends late nights and early mornings binge-watching way too many shows and binge-drinking way too much tea. Her eclectic taste makes her an unpredictable viewer with an appreciation for complex characters, diverse representation, dynamic duos, compelling stories, and guilty pleasures. You’ll definitely find her obsessively live-tweeting, waxing poetic, and chatting up fellow Fanatics and readers. Follow her on X.