James Patterson has written (or at least supervised the writing) of what seems like a thousand novels. But the one character he returned to over and over is Alex Cross, a forensic psychologist and DC Metro police detective. A new Prime Video series reshapes Cross for the 2020s, putting him in a new story that isn’t based on any of Patterson’s novels.
Opening Shot: A football game plays on a TV, and two couples sit at a table at an outside bar and cheer when their team (we’re guessing it’s the Washington Commanders) scores.
The Gist: Dr. Alex Cross (Aldis Hodge), a forensic psychologist who is a detective with D.C.’s Metro Police, is with his wife Maria (Chaunteé Schuler Irving), his friend and work partner John Sampson (Isaiah Mustafa) and Sampson’s girlfriend. Despite a long marriage and two kids, the Crosses are still passionate for each other. When Maria and Sampson’s friend go to “powder their nose,” though, a gunshot rings out. Cross finds Maria on the ground with a gunshot to the chest; her Redskins scarf is nowhere to be found. Maria dies in his arms.
One year later, we see Cross filling out an application for a leave of absence, when he overhears an interrogation with a killer who also happens to be a white supremacist. When he hears the killer give a quote from Hamlet, he tells his colleagues that he actually confessed, and is allowed to interrogate the racist. He withstands all of the killer’s barbs and uses his psychological knowledge to get into the killer’s head in short order.
Cross and Sampson are called in by their lieutenant, Oracene Massey (Sharon Taylor) and her boss, Chief Anderson (Jennifer Wigmore), to investigate the case of an ex-con and Black Lives Matter activist who was found dead in his car, apparently of a meth overdose. There’s a reason for this, of course; Cross is known to the public after his work on a high-profile case, and having a Black face representing the police makes sense. Of course, Cross wants to investigate and not just be a representative.
Cross has connections in DC’s Black community, due not only to his work but because he grew up in the city. But even friends don’t fully trust him, given that he’s a police detective. Cross is pretty sure that the activist was murdered, and he sees clues that confirm that notion: The fact that the victim, a converted Muslim who banned bacon from his house, had a pork chop in his stomach, and the fact that his appearance was completely different from what he usually looked like were giveaways to Cross. However, Chief Anderson is more eager to have the case closed out as an accidental OD, something that Cross cannot agree to.
In the meantime, Cross has Sampson look into a clue that was found in his house by his son: Maria’s old Redskins scarf, which Cross thinks someone placed in his house after breaking in. But to Samson, as well as Cross’ girlfriend Elle Montiero (Samantha Walkes), the pursuit of Maria’s killer is starting to consume him; some of his actions even got him suspended from the force, as Samson reported him in order to keep his friend from ruining his police career.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? This is the first series based on James Patterson’s character Alex Cross. Of course, there have been a few films based on Patteron’s stories; Morgan Freeman starred as Cross in 1997’s Kiss The Girls and 2001’s Along Came A Spider, and Tyler Perry starred as the detective in 2012’s Alex Cross.
Our Take: Ben Watkins (Burn Notice), who created and wrote Cross, is taking a big chance by putting Alex Cross in a new story instead of adapting one of the over 30 Patterson novels that feature the detective. But in doing so, he connects Cross a bit more with his DC surroundings, especially the community in which he grew up. They think of him and Sampson as part of the community, but the Black community’s justifiable mistrust of the police means that the connection only takes them so far, as we see in a dinner party conversation at Elle’s house that sets Cross off.
Watkins has said he modeled this version of Cross after Hodge, which is why the actor seems to embody the detective so thoroughly. His rage over his wife’s still-unsolved death is right below the surface, even though most of the time he seems to corral it in order to analyze and nail suspects like we saw in the show’s cold open. Hodge also brings a bit of a youthful verve to the character; he’s younger than even Perry was when he played Cross, and it’s apparent in how he conducts himself within the case. He’s always there to find the truth, and the easier he can work within his circles to do it, the better.
Watkins isn’t trying to hide the fact that Ed Ramsey (Ryan Eggold), a philanthropist that knows Elle, is the killer for this first season, and that his MO is to pay tribute to past serial killers via what he does to his victims. He’s already identified someone who looks enough like Aileen Wuornos, for instance, to start work on his next victim. Eggold is appropriately smarmy from the first moments he’s on screen, sort of like his good-turned-evil character from The Blacklist was. He’s smart, wealthy, and has a network of people working for him, including Bobby Trey (Johnny Ray Gill), a former DC Metro detective who knows Cross well. There’s enough complexity here for this cat-and-mouse game between Cross and Ramsey to last for the entire season.
There is a fair amount of standard-grade crime thriller material in the first episode, but because of Hodge’s intensity, plus the chemistry he and Mustafa’s Samson have in their scenes together, that standard-grade stuff doesn’t distract in how engaging the first episode is.
Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.
Parting Shot: A caller with a female voice tells Cross that she knows the last thing his wife said before she died, then hangs up.
Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to Juanita Jennings as Regina Cross, Alex’s mother. “Nana Mama” isn’t just helping her son take care of her grandkids, but she’s a calming influence for him, and someone he always looks to for advice.
Most Pilot-y Line: Alex’s son Damon (Caleb Elijah) gets in trouble for wearing his mom’s Redskins scarf to school… because merch that says “Redskins” is banned. Quite the stretch to get Alex to find out that the scarf has resurfaced.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Cross is a solid crime thriller made very watchable by Hodge’s performance as the title character.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.