Cross – Season 1 Episode 1 Recap & Review

Hero Complex

Episode 1 of Cross begins with Alex and Maria together watching the football with their friends John and Onika. However, a gunshot destroys everything. Maria is shot dead by an unknown gunman and she passes away in his arms.

Fast forward a year and Cross is busy at the police station, throwing himself into his work. He antagonizes Detective Akbar and it eventually leads to him getting hot under the collar. Without a confession, they’re not going to get anywhere. However, Cross has been listening and he knows the psycho has already given up what they need.

Alex Cross heads in to see Miller and shows his smarts. The guy is incredibly racist but Alex plays it well, getting under his skin and gloating that he’s already given himself up. Specifically through the phrase “Life’s fitful fever”. This means he’s basically admitted to being guilty, and the DA is even ready to file based on this too.

All of this works to flesh out Cross’ character, as he and John are tasked with taking on a new case. The Emir Goodspeed case to be precise. He’s been found dead in his car a few days back following an apparent overdose. They need to check the boxes on this case as it may well be that the guy was targeted for being an activist “fighting on the front lines”.

Cross needs to give a press conference from Chief Anderson but he refuses, given she’s only doing this because of his skin colour. Anderson reluctantly accepts his refusal, but tells him to stay pretty at the back.

For now, Alex and John head off to visit someone called Malika. Apparently there’s more going on with Emir’s death than we’re being led to believe. She thinks the police killed her brother and that all of this is tied into the BLM and other activists too. Malika is convinced that this is a conspiracy.

The drug overdose doesn’t make sense, and it would appear Emir never had a grudge with anybody in town. Cross connects a little with Malika’s mum, Crystal, and points out he has two kids of his own so he can empathize. He also brings up the pain of losing his own wife, and in the midst of this, we see a bit more of his family life. Cross’ kids are currently being looked after by Regina “Nana Mama”.

When Cross heads out to a function, someone breaks into Regina’s house. This person sneaks upstairs and puts a scarf in the wardrobe, eventually hiding in the closet when Nana Mama returns home with the kids.

As for Cross, he heads out to the Somewhere Foundation event, where he meets up with girlfriend Elle. The pair seem close and a donor, Ed, shows up and begins fangirling about how good a detective Alex Cross is. He hands over his business card and parts on some ominous words.

The next day, Alex and John show up to check over the autopsy report for Emir. After going into detail over what he’s eaten – which curiously includes pork despite him being a Muslim convert – Cross is adamant that the man was murdered. When he brings this news to the Chief, along with the drugs and inconsistencies with the food, he thinks someone force-fed the pork and then killed him.

The Chief though refuses to listen and tells Cross that it’s either suicide or accident. Cross calls her out for trying to make this a PR spin and make it go away, before she eventually concedes and gives him 48 hours to figure this out.

Now, whoever this murderer is, they seem to be targeting individuals to change them into others before killing them… but why? Cross definitely gets the bit between his teeth, but there’s a more pressing issue at hand here.

Cross is called to the school where Damon, one of Alex’s kids, has been misbehaving. However, Alex is too distracted by the scarf he’s wearing, which is the same one that Maria was wearing the day she was killed. Alex realizes that whoever this killer is, they’re now targeting Cross. He passes it over to Sampson and brings him in, asking his friend to check over the scarf. After all, he owes him a favour

That night, Cross speaks to Kayla Craig from the FBI Forensic Unit. He wants her to speed up the process of finding the number from the burner phone and reiterates how crucial this is. In exchange for doing this, he’ll have to do a favour for her.

After, Alex and the others show up at the family dinner. Elle brings up how defunding the police is a good idea and wants them replaced with “peace officers”. It all becomes rather heated and naturally, things take an aggressive turn.

Elle blames Alex for the altercation when her mother’s crystal breaks, and after the party, Alex explains to her that his resolve is starting to break. Elle encourages him to carry on though and to do so for his kids.

Alex Cross heads home and apologizes to Damon for getting angry about the scarf earlier on. It’s church day, and after paying their respects to Maria, Cross hits the gym. Kayla Craig returns and brings up details about the burner. Turns out it’s traced back to a name – Tavio Lemmons. A shot caller from Mayfair.

The police launch a crusade to get him, and it eventually leads to a chase through the streets when he tries to run away. He even shoots at the police too. Eventually, Tavio holds a woman hostage but the pair manage to talk him down. The people outside are angry that Tavio is being taken away, until a sniper shoots him dead in the street.

In the aftermath of this, Cross finds out that Chief Anderson has a theory she wants to float to the press. Tavio was shot in retaliation for killing Emir. Given the crowd are blaming the police for two deaths, this is how she wants to play it.

However, we also see that Ed is crooked and seems to be working with higher powers here. Not only that, but Cross appears to have played right into the killer’s hands. There’s a Caucasian hair knotted to the scarf meaning they wanted it to be found. And just then, Alex receives a bouquet of flowers, a picture of Maria with her eyes scratched out, and a phone call. The woman on the end of the line promises that Alex Cross will meet them soon.

The Episode Review

So Cross gets off to a shaky start, with lots of heavy-handed political and social messaging and a cliche-ridden plot. Even beyond all the obvious issues being brought up, we’ve already seen the killer and some of the machinations of this plot so it becomes less of a whodunit and more of a whydunit, which doesn’t scratch the same itch.

There’s also the curious point of why the killer has waited a year before striking and hitting out at Cross again. Why do this? I’d imagine, given the commentary in this one, that we’re going to see the police crooked from the top down. However, it’s also clear there’s someone else at the higher end of things so alongside Ed I’m putting my money on Chief Anderson, just because we already know she’s willing to spin things to her liking and there’s a female voice on the phone.

The editing here is absolutely haphazard and there are so many self-insert scenes too, like the dinner table scene about defunding the police. However, the acting is pretty good and the cast definitely help this one stand out. Hopefully there are some twists and turns along the way to help propel this one forward!