Hold Your Horses!

I like watching television. If you’ve been reading this blog for a long time, you’ll know that I’m at my most blissful when I’m horizontal, glass of wine in hand, bingeing on a mystery. And this week was no different—Netflix told me that a show called “Missing You” was right up my alley, based on what I’d previously watched, and I was like, “Aw, Netflix, you know me so well!” It was a limited series with five episodes, so I climbed into bed, ready with wine and anticipation. The show began—the opening scene takes place at night. It is dark and stormy, and a handsome man dressed in a business suit is riding a horse that is galloping at breakneck speed across the moors of England. He looks terrified, and there are flashbacks of a beautiful woman that he is apparently madly in love with and desperately wants to see. Suddenly, the horse stumbles and the man is thrown off the horse, landing badly. Cut to daylight—the man is now hobbling down a country lane as fast as he can. A tractor appears behind him and starts to run him down. He falls—another man leaps out of the tractor and tasers him. You soon find out that the first man is the victim of a kidnapping. Intense, right? And it gets better—the main character is a female detective with a tragic past. She works in the Missing Persons Unit and she’s tasked with finding the man, as well as other people who’ve also gone missing. This show has it all—abduction, catfishing, a man called Leslie, a crazy-ass dog breeder and his puppies—you name it. It was really good.

Then I got to the end and something occurred to me, something that I just can’t get off my mind. And it’s this…where the f*ck did the guy get THE HORSE from?! They NEVER explain it! The detective traces him to a Bed And Breakfast in a town with nary a horse in sight, and he ends up at a farm—but NOT a horse farm—a DOG BREEDING FARM, again, with nary a horse in sight. And I have SO MANY QUESTIONS! Where did the horse come from? Whose horse was it? How come it already had a saddle? How did the businessman know how to ride a horse? Did he steal it? Was the horse reported stolen? Where did it go after it kicked him to the curb? All I could think was that there had been some very questionable decisions made in the screenwriting room:

Head Screenwriter: I have the best idea to open the show! Let’s put the East Indian guy ON A GALLOPING HORSE!!
Screenwriter 2: Where does he get the horse from?
Head Screenwriter: What? Who cares?
Screenwriter 2: People might wonder…
Head Screenwriter: NOBODY will wonder, STEVE. Besides, we can deal with that in the last episode or whatnot.

5 months later, at the premiere…

Screenwriter 2: I feel like there’s something we forgot to do…
Head Screenwriter: Are you going on about the horse AGAIN? I keep telling you, STEVE, no one will care!

Well, I care. And my OCD brain has been spinning, because Ken mentioned that I have a habit of falling asleep during TV shows and maybe I’d missed the very tiny reference to the horse. But I don’t think so, KEN. So if you happen to be watching “Missing You”, can you watch out for any horse references? Steve and I need to know.

29 thoughts on “Hold Your Horses!”

  1. Yes, this. Unexplained plot devices that make no sense with just a few seconds of thought. Usually, it turns out that they were perfectly explained in the original script & may even have been filmed. But editing for length means certain things are deemed unnecessary & are hacked out, leaving us with a big furrowed brow & saying “hang on…”

    May I also recommend The Tourist. Dark & funny.

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  2. Amelia and I hate television, and don’t use streaming services much, though we do enjoy a good movie. To be completely honest, I lost all interest in this show you were watching about a guy riding a horse, and said interest continued to wane until you mentioned that there was a woman detective. It was at that decisive moment that you had my full attention. I love a woman in uniform. 😉

    As for the premise of the show, I also share your aversion to fictional events that lack clarity, such as a businessman who not only acquires a horse out of nowhere, but said horse has a saddle, and he knows exactly how to ride it? None of this makes sense, and instead of the detective trying to solve the missing persons case, perhaps she should instead investigate the horse situation as perhaps the businessman is an alien from outer space who has covert ties to underground horse breeding.

    Thanks for the laughs. I had a very stressful week. Everything is happening right now. It’s all things all at once, ironically just like that song by the band Tired Pony. lol Summary: I finally sold my place in NYC, and it will be official this coming week. Now that I’m no longer controlled by my late fathers estate, and living in Vermont (not NY), I can legally change my name back to Emily. I’ve started a new blog accordingly.

    -Emily 🙂

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  3. barbaramullenix's avatar barbaramullenix says:

    You ‘forced’ me to google it, even though I’ve never watched the program. While I didn’t find any answers, I did note that there are farms involved (maybe just one – I don’t know). But in any case, most books/movies I’ve read/seen seem to always have a horse around. Since I saw that he killed her father, my next question is where was her father living? But the ‘explanations’ about the show only left me confused. But not enough to get involved in trying to watch it. And now, at this early hour on a Sunday morning, you’ve got me pondering stuff that I’m not involved in.

    I did see a picture of a wonderfully detailed miniature, multi-leveled library. I could NOT figure out how to send it to you. It was magnificent.

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    • The farm is for dogbreeding, and I thought of that, but I didn’t see any horses there. And the guy at the beginning isn’t the one who kills the father–things get even more confusing later! If you want to send me a picture of the library, you can email at suzannecraig65@gmail.com I’d love to see it!

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  4. I guess it wouldn’t have been as dramatic an opening scene had he been trying to escape while riding a (fill in the blank with whatever dog the farm was breeding). Perhaps there will be a spinoff featuring the pet detective who tracks down the horse that was reported missing…

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  6. I hate when random things/people/issues show up in a plot with no explanation. I mean it really burns my biscuits because sometimes they play a huge part in the scene. Now I’m going to put this on my Netflix watchlist. Thanks for the suggestion, if I find a connection to the horse I’ll let you know. 😉

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  7. There’s a whole YouTube channel called Cinema Sins that takes movies and gives “sins” for all the errors. A lot of them are tongue-in-cheek, especially when they take on a a classic movie, but “Where did the horse come from and where did it go?” is exactly the sort of thing they’d point out. There’s also a YouTube channel that’s doing a show-by-show history of Nickelodeon and I’ve listened to the episode on Black Beauty at least twice because I loved that series and the history behind it and Anna Sewell’s original novel is so fascinating.
    From this we can conclude I spend too much time listening to YouTube videos but a lot of my workdays are filled with boring, repetitive tasks.

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  10. I’m among the.001% of people who get absolutely no subscription tv so can’t help you there. Colombo and murder she wrote anyone? Seriously they’re seriously good. Also they’re last bastion of women with normal faces and bodies. Emergency of 1970s is amazing too because amid normal teeth and hair mend fend off fires without green screen. Plus I’m fascinated by older Los Angeles

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