Based on James Patterson’s best-selling novels, the first season of Prime’s “Cross” followed homicide detective Alex Cross (Aldis Hodge), whose insurmountable grief following his wife’s murder clashed with his search for serial killer Ed Ramsey (Ryan Eggold). With Ramsey now behind bars, and Alex and his family attempting to heal from their shared trauma, it seems like their lives have finally reached a moment of peace. But, like we saw last season, Alex is a protagonist who struggles with separating his work from his home life, and the appearance of a new killer threatens to shatter the already rocky foundation he and his family stand upon.
This new threat couldn’t be more different than the show’s previous antagonist, who targeted vulnerable people for the sake of his own gain. Instead, this is revealed to be more of a vigilante situation when Alex and his team are called to the home of food production CEO Lance Durand (Matthew Lillard), who, after receiving various threats, is given a gift in the form of three severed fingers. These fingers are connected to a dedicated follower of Luz (Jeanine Mason), who we are introduced to in the season’s opening moments when she frees a group of young women from an island where they’re being trafficked.
Luz wields various weapons like a military-trained killer, but wears her heart on her sleeve when it comes to the men and women she’s attempting to free. It becomes clear that even though this season of “Cross” may not be as magnetic as the first, the series’ antagonists will always be fascinating to watch. What allowed this show to initially stand out amongst its peers was Eggold’s magnetic performance, which was impossible to look away from despite the heinous deeds he was doing. Mason is even more staggering to watch, her ruthlessness and desire to liberate clashing each time she kills, eyes wide and fascinated by the dedication of the followers she begins to amass.
With the introduction of Luz and her disciples, it’s clear that this season is attempting to explore morality and perhaps unmask how revenge often turns people into monsters. Yet, in the current political climate we live in, in which real-life billionaires are indeed enacting the same crimes, Luz’s mission never feels like one that is inherently evil. Intertwined in her mission are underage immigrant workers who are exploited and then sent to detention camps, abused women whose agency has been stripped from them, and Luz herself, who, after her mother’s death, was forced to confront the harsh realities of life too quickly.
For a side character, Luz’s life is given an extensive amount of interiority. But on the other hand, Alex nearly disappears from this story entirely. Not physically, as Hodge is on screen often, but the character lacks the same layered complexity that made him a previously engaging protagonist. While Alex’s backstory and subsequent journey were as intriguing as the killer he was hunting in season one, “Cross” now feels like it doesn’t know what to do with the titular character. The flawed man we were initially introduced to now feels like a patron saint, not because the character himself is trying to be better, but because the show’s writers seem too afraid to let Alex be as messy as the people he’s hunting down.
Television is chock-full of characters who are too clean-cut, namely Black characters who aren’t given the space to be as complicated as their white peers. Unfortunately, this series has fallen into the same trap, devoiding its main character of the complexity that once aided in the show’s success. For a cat-and-mouse game like the one in season two of “Cross” to remain entertaining, both parties need engaging inner lives. Hodge still gives a good performance, yet the magnitude he reached previously is stifled by the characters around him, all getting much more interesting narrative threads to work with. Kayla Craig (Alona Tal) in particular becomes the show’s most interesting character, and when she and Hodge share screen time, the actor’s charisma is finally allowed to bleed out onto the screen.
Abandoned by the show’s narrative as well as the series’ writers, Alex disappears from view, and the show unspools into a run-of-the-mill crime thriller. While the first season may not have been revolutionary television, it remained enthralling from episode to episode, a feat few shows in this genre can claim. The highs and lows of this second season mirror a spindling rollercoaster, one whose mechanisms slowly falter until the wheels come loose, before the whole ride comes crashing down.
Entire season was screened for review. Episodes air weekly on Prime Video.
