The idea of the spy next door, trying to trade in stolen documents and silenced Walther PPKs for P.T.A. meetings and home repair, has been explored in films like “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” and the “Spy Kids” movies and in the recent NBC series “Undercovers.”

Usually it’s presented as romantic or family comedy, but the new ABC show “Missing” — in which Ashley Judd portrays a single mom and flower-shop owner dragged back into the spy game after a 10-year hiatus — plays it straight, grim and righteous, in the mode of the Liam Neeson film “Taken”: nothing will stop this avenging parent from finding her son, who disappears early in the first episode on Thursday night.