Note: This article contains spoilers for “Cross” Season 2, Episodes 1-3.
“Cross” stars Isaiah Mustafa and Samantha Walkes say Alex Cross deserves all the backlash he’s receiving from his two close friends, asserting the complicated detective needs to hold himself accountable for how his actions impact the people he loves.
If it’s one thing Alex Cross (Aldis Hodge) knows how to do, it’s tick somebody off, especially, and ironically, the people he holds dearest to his heart. The season even kicks off with Cross encouraging a graduating class of police officers to take responsibility for their actions, spotlighting his own negligence in his brutalization of a young man he wrongly believed was involved in the murder of his wife. But by the end of the episode, Cross has got a lot more explaining to do.
As you may have noticed, he and Elle Monteiro (Walkes) aren’t together anymore, and as Episode 3 ends, John Sampson (Mustafa) is upset with Cross for withholding information about Sampson’s long lost mother LaDonna (Deidrie Henry), who, until now, he believed was dead.
How much responsibility should Cross take? Well, Mustafa and Walkes say every last bit of it.
“He needs to take full responsibility, that was all his fault,” Mustafa said, referring to Cross keeping the whereabouts of Sampson’s mother a secret. He added that Sampson has entered a new romantic relationship and has felt like everything in life has been on the “upswing” before getting completely blind-sided by his mother’s sudden appearance.
“He gets hit with this information that he doesn’t necessarily want to believe, but deep inside, he knows it’s true … Now, he has to deal with this, the other element that he wasn’t prepared to deal with,” Mustafa continues.
Nevertheless, as an actor, he said it was fun peeling back more of Sampson’s backstory.
“We get to dig into something that was not so surface for Sampson. You get to see who he is and who this character is going to become,” Mustafa said.
But, he maintained that Cross’ hands are dirty in the matter.
“You can’t come into a conversation and go like, ‘Oh man, you know what Nana Mama’ told [me], like, no, no, no, no … Put yourself in the situation, Alex — what would you want me to do?” Mustafa asserts.
As for Elle, whew, Cross crossed a boundary with his dedicated girlfriend when he kept her in the dark about the identity of and investigation into serial killer Ed Ramsey (Ryan Eggold), who Elle had befriended in Season 1.
“It was a choice for him that is what shattered her, that it was he chose that intentionally,” Walkes explained. “I think it’s hard when you love somebody so much and it’s working out right, and you don’t … it was a blindside.”
Walkes added that Elle saw the potential of them one day getting married, but his betrayal set her feelings back with the detective.
“It was a complete knock her-off-her-ass, like, she really put all her eggs [in this basket]. Like, this is, duh, duh, duh, duh — this is done. She’s like, ‘This is what I’ve been dreaming of. I have you.’”
In Season 2, the pair have called it quits, but Elle still looks after Cross’ children when needed and still attends family and friend gatherings — despite having a new man in her life. In Episode 1, Cross begs Elle to forgive him after the two share an intimate moment. Sadly, the hurt is too deep to bare for Elle.
“To feel that safety and that picture-perfect — what she has been dreaming for come to fruition, to taste that goodness and then have that be compromised by that same person,” Walkes said.
TheWrap interviewed the two actors side by side at the press junket for “Cross” Season 2, and both of them let out an exhausted sigh over how much their characters have to endure emotionally being friends with Cross.
“This is what Alex Cross does to people, whether [you] love him,” Mustafa said. “He’s a hard man to love, I’m telling you. But, at the end of the day…”
“We love him,” Walkes said.
“We love him, and that’s and that’s why you’re getting this frustration,” Mustafa said.
