Having become a fan favourite in the first two seasons of The Missing, French investigator Julien Baptiste (TchΓ©ky Karyo) now has his own spin-off series.

And as the first episode premiered tonight (February 17), the main take-away for viewers was the importance of owning a smart meter.

The episode opened with a brutal murder as a menacing Romanian individual by the name of Constantin (God's Own Country's Alec Secareanu) posed as a company gas man to get into an old man's house.

Baptiste - Constantin
BBC

Once inside, Constantin horrifically suffocated the elderly gentleman with a plastic bag before cutting up his body with a chainsaw. (He didn't use half enough protective plastic sheets to cater for the spray.)

At that point, viewers couldn't help but be thankful for having a smart meter, so they never have to let a strange man into their house again.

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One particularly terrified but entertained viewer wrote: "Omg can't take me eyes off the telly! I'm so glad I've got smart meter so I won't let anyone enter my house to check my meter eeeek! @tchekykaryo is brilliant as always glad he's back! How I wish I don't need to wait another week to watch this."

Of perhaps more consequence in the episode was the appearance of Tom Hollander (Bird Box, The Night Manager) who, in the role of Edward Stratton, a man who is desperately looking for his missing 'niece', provides the main source of mystery.

But no one was quite expecting the twist at the end of the episode, where the severed head of the elderly man was revealed to be in Edward's cellar.

Oooo!

Baptiste continues next Sunday (February 24) at 9pm on BBC One.


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Chris Edwards
Chris Edwards is a freelance news writer at Digital Spy.