I Watch TV: Cross Season 2

 

Cross Season 2

Donnie and Rebecca attack the private island of Richard Helveig*. They kill his rich male guests, release the women who have been kept there at their pleasure, and torture Helveig into transferring $11 million. Then they kill him, cut off three fingers, and burn the place down.

Billionaire owner of Crestbrook Industries, Lance Durand, the man who feeds America, finds the fingers on stage at a presentation, in a box that’s supposed to have his Prosperity Seed, a new way of feeding people. With it is a threat that he’s next. FBI Agent Kayla Craig is given the case. At her boss’s suggestion they team up with Washington DC Metro Police detective Alex Cross. Craig is ambivalent – she keeps doing well, and other people (including Cross) getting the credit. Still, that’s what they want; Cross is good, dedicated (not overawed by the rich and powerful), if this goes wrong then it won’t be just the FBI to blame, and he’s prominent so it seems to be taken seriously.

Cross is given a medal for his work in Season One, and in his speech, before a class of police cadets, he admits his own faults and how he needs to do better, how they all need to do better. His dishonesty has wrecked his relationship with Elle; awkwardly she’s stepping up to help with the kids while Nana Mama is out of town. He’s got doubts about all this! Meanwhile Two John, his detective partner and foster brother, is brought into another case when a suspect in a killing claims to be his mother. As is turns out he thought she was dead as Nana Mama claimed she was after she extorted money to get permission to adopt, and then failed to give permission.

Craig is immediately distracted by an old case. A ghost gun, one with no identifying details, has turned up, and it’s from an armoury involved in a secret operation she was involved in. Her boss tells her to shut it down – without using agency assets. She takes the high risk choice of bringing Bobby Trey, former military, former Metro Police, former private security for the villain of Season One, out of prison to help her.

Back to the case; Durand is taking this seriously and it’s not the only threat he’s had. At first he claims he didn’t know Helveig; later he admits that during covid lockdowns he contacted Helveig to use his connections to allow Crestbrook Industries to keep working so food would be produced. (Later still it becomes clear that Durand and Helveig knew each other for many years and had worked together – at a distance – throughout).

Tracking down a protestor from a talk of Durand (with great difficulty) Cross and Craig discover a weird underground lair with iconography of Mexican legends, and also a list of times and places. Heading down to Texas to track these down they discover the protestor has been documenting human trafficking – in this case children to work in Crestbrook Industries food processing plants. An agent from Border Patrol keeps escalating the situation, then after they capture the man, takes him out unauthorised – only for the agent to end up dead.

There is, of course, a conspiracy, or more than one. There is a dark secret in the past of Crestbrook Industries – actually a fairly straightforward one compared to the dark secrets of the present. Donnie and Rebecca were both caught up in Durand’s ruthless rise to dominance and wealth. They use the mystical vengeance of a legend as their guide, mapping the various people who Durand collaborated with onto the figures, seeking to create fear and disgrace as much as death. As more comes to light Cross is unable to ignore the fact that the man he’s protecting has committed grotesque crimes; he comes to appreciate wtat Rebecca – known as Luz, the Light – has reasons for her actions, even as he must bring her in.

Cross (the show) is about weird crimes that go much deeper than they appear; this is something that was in the Cross novels I read back in the day, though I don’t recall quite so many convolutions. Cross the man claims he’s been doing the work, he’s dealing with his issues. But Elle doesn’t think he has, which then has him and Craig act on their attraction – though wisely she keeps it as just one of those things that happen between people. In part because between her own big secrets and her ambition she’s not going to settle down. And because Cross has been working on his own issues he sees that not all of his anger and destructive tendencies come from him. Some of it’s justified. Giving us an ending that is predictable, yet unexpected.

Watch This: Cool detective, even cooler vigilantes, compelling villains
Don’t Watch This: A lot of cruelty, people forced, kicking and screaming, to do better, and the answers terribly inadequate

* Helveig’s position, as a financial and political facilitator combined with his role as human trafficker and private island owner, is a clear reference to Jeffrey Epstein.