Missed Call on Channel 5 ending explained: What really happened to Sarah's daughter Katie, and who killed Serge and Odile?
Did you guess what was going to happen in this twisty thriller?
Missed Call on Channel 5 has come to a heartbreaking ending with Katie’s fate finally revealed, but what really happened to her and why?
When Sarah Gleason’s teenage daughter Katie vanished during a French exchange, Sarah travelled to France to investigate. The latest C5 thriller threw dozens of possible suspects at us, and the real culprit was revealed in a tense and emotional finale.
But not before two characters – Sarah’s boyfriend Jason, and former cop Serge – were murdered. As the body count piled up, Katie’s disappearance was linked to another missing teenager from five years before. Were Odile and Katie’s disappearances linked?
Here’s the ending of Missed Call on Channel 5 explained, after the climatic series finale.
***Warning: spoilers from the ending of Missed Call on Channel 5 ahead***
What happened in the Missed Call ending on Channel 5?
The penultimate episode ended with a dead body being found in the woods. Luckily for Sarah Gleason, it wasn’t her daughter Katie. But tragically, it was teenager Odile, who had vanished five years before.
As the final episode began, the grim discovery in the woods pushed the investigation into a new phase. Local detective Lieutenant Lieutenant Virginie Taylor interviewed Xavier who, after recovering from his injuries, finally agreed to talk. His testimony revealed previously hidden connections between several figures involved in the case and raised further suspicions about the Morvan family. But, ultimately neither the Morvan family, nor Xavier, has anything to do with Katie’s disappearance.
As Virginie continued to investigate the disappearance of Odile Lambert, the case became increasingly entangled with Katie’s. As she revisited evidence from years earlier, alarming inconsistencies in the official account began to emerge…
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With the investigation reaching a critical turning point, Virginie followed a final lead that finally revealed what really happened in Saint-Michel – and who had been hiding the truth all along…
Who took Katie and did she survive?
Turned out, Katie hadn’t been taken by a sex ring, or traffickers. All the dodgy-looking people – including Andrew Taylor, Mark Jones, and Xavier – were distractions.
Odile Lambert’s mum Audrey Lambert had taken Katie, and they were hiding in a big house. The owners lived in Paris, and rarely visited. Audrey took drastic action to ensure the disappearance of her own daughter Odile was investigated properly (more on that below).
Audrey meant Katie no harm. She just wanted justice for her daughter. She knew if a British exchange student went missing, then the police would have to do something. Of course, the chain of events brought Odile’s disappearance back into the light, and eventually led to her killer being exposed.
The school cleaner said: “I do not sleep since Odile went missing. Sometimes I walk or drive to break up long nights. I saw Katie in the road. It was very late and she was struggling. I recognised her from school, and she was not in a good state. I was worried about her so I offered her a lift into town. Up close, I saw how much she was like my Odile. It felt as if God or fate made our paths cross that night. And that’s when I had the idea.”
Audrey ‘dropped the breadcrumbs’ to find Katie
She knew if she ‘kidnapped’ Katie, the police would reopen the investigation into Odile’s disappearance. Audrey was “sorry” but “needed justice for Odile”. No one would give it to her, so she had “to take it for herself”.
Audrey left the missed call to “plant the seed of doubt”, and subsequently sent the “help me” text. She dropped a “trail of breadcrumbs” so Katie’s mum Sarah and Virginie could “follow the clues”.
The whole ‘kidnapping’ had been staged to get justice for Odile. All along, they’d been misdirection – the backpack left in the square in the same place as Odile’s, the necklace in the woods, the posters outside Andrew Taylor’s house, the “psycho” graffiti on Emma Morvan’s locker.
She said: “I did all these things and more. Pointing towards the people I suspected of killing Odile. I was wrong about them all. But not about Katie. Your daughter is kind and brave. Once I explained what I was doing and why, she didn’t try to escape or fight me when she could have. I’m grateful for this Katie. Thank you for trusting me. And thank you [Sarah and Virginie] for catching my Odile’s killer.
Police arrested Audrey, but she “didn’t seem to care what happened to her” after that. Odile’s killer had been found, and justice had been done. Her fate was left in the prosecutor’s hands.
Who killed Odile Lambert?
In Missed Call, another teenager had disappeared five years before. This time, French student Odile Lambert. She was a similar age, and disappeared around the same time as Katie. At first we believed the crimes were linked, but it was a red herring.
Police officer Jerome Ricard, played by French actor François-Xavier Demaison in the cast of Missed Call, killed Odile. Although it was an “accident”. He’d been drinking, and drove into her, killing her instantly.
However, instead of coming clean, he then covered up the crime and “made the evidence disappear”. Bring a copper, he was able to destroye all evidence linking him and his car (a blue Renault) to the location of the Odile’s last sighting. He insisted he’d covered up the
He told Claire Keim’s character Virginie Taylor, whom he’d been dating: “It was an accident. I had to be there for my wife as she fought that [bleeping] cancer.”
Jerome knew he’d be charged with manslaughter so covered it up to “be there for his sick wife”.
Jerome murdered Serge in cold blood
Having found out years later, Jerome’s former police partner and friend Serge Henin felt compelled to report him. But desperate to avoid punishment, Jerome murdered Serge.
He subsequently made it look like a suicide by hanging, and planted the map on him so it looked like he’d killed Odile and was wracked with guilt.
Jerome made sure that Sarah Gleason and Virginie Taylor were together when the three of them found the body. When Jerome tried to ‘save’ Serge by supporting his hanging body, he tampered with the crime scene.
Because he wasn’t wearing gloves, he put his own DNA all over Serge’s body. Of course, this masked the fact that his DNA was already there.
Did Jerome get away with it?
When finally confronted with the truth, Jerome tried to blackmail Virginie. If she kept quiet about Jerome’s crimes, he wouldn’t expose her dad Andrew for his past.
Viewers knew that Virginie’s dad Andrew Taylor had left the UK after an incident in Oxford in 1989. Police questioned him after a woman accused him of a “serious sexual assault”, causing other women to come forward. All charges were dropped, and Andrew insisted the claims were made by “disgruntled employees”.
Jerome threatened Virginie with the old case files on Andrew. He said: “Forgot what you know about me. And all this on your father disappears. When she refused, he pulled a gun on her. At that moment, Sarah Gleason jumped out of Virginie’s car where she’d bee hiding. She had been “live-streaming” the encounter on my mobile phone and had it all on film. The police were on their way.
Faces with defeat, Jerome told Virginie that her father’s past would “destroy her”. But she was way past caring. She simply responded: “That’s life.” Cementing her as the coolest French cop on our screens.
In a last selfless act, perhaps his first since caring for his dying wife, Jerome threw Andrew Taylor’s case file in the air. He wouldn’t expose Andrew after all, in a bid to protect Virginie. As she handcuffed him, she tenderly squeezed his hands. Although his crimes would never be forgotten, they could be understood and perhaps forgiven in time. It was goodbye to the man she had loved, and respected.
What else happened in the Missed Call ending on Channel 5?
- Of course, Sarah and Virginie were now bonded for life. Both had fallen for the wrong man. In Sarah’s case, Jason Bradley – a “narcissist” who was married with three children but still had multiple affairs. Of course, Xavier had shot Jason dead during an altercation. The gun had gone off during a struggle. At the end, Virginie had hold of Jason’s phone records. But Sarah didn’t want to see them.
- Fabien Morvan was a criminal, but not a kidnapper. He sold drugs, and Xavier was his lapdog. Both were apprehended by the end of the series.
- Virginie’s future as a copper was in jeopardy. She had allowed a desperate Sarah to attack Xavier in hospital. Of course, this led to Xavier finally confessing to his ‘working partnership’ with Fabien.
- Sarah and Katie returned to the UK closer than ever, and vowing to be more open with each other.
Will there be a series 2 of Missed Call?
Channel 5 has not confirmed whether there’ll be a series 2 of Missed Call. But it’s unlikely. Most of Channel 5’s thrillers – including The Feud, The Au-Pair, and The Rumour – were meant as single series.
However, it’s always possible. After all, C5 recently announced Robson Green thriller The Game will be back for a series 2. And there’s the chance Missed Call could become an anthology series like The Teacher.
We’d love to see a spin-off series featuring local detective Lieutenant Virginie Taylor and British mum Sarah. A cosy crime set in France, it could follow the pair as they relentlessly solve crimes in the area.
Channel 5, are you listening?
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