The Crossing Season 1 Episode 3: Pax Americana Recap

This week on The Crossing, the refugees are on the move. Thomas returns to the others with stories to tell, while Hannah makes a break for it. Reece continues to wander the countryside, being misunderstood everywhere she goes. Leah is still in isolation, so she stays put and her new doctor is brought to the camp. In order to understand Leah’s illness, the doctor’s mind has to go places she never thought it would go. Jude’s son Oliver serves as the wandering child this episode, as he gets more adventure than he expected during his visit with his dad. Emma feels railroaded by her boss, Lindauer, who’s become worryingly secretive. And Nestor continues to be the rock that holds this small town together.

Reece treats her bullet wound in the bathroom of the convenience store where she bought supplies. She uses tweezers to remove what looks like a giant bullet from her left shoulder and drops the slug dramatically in the sink.

Lindauer stops in at the command center that his private army has set up. He’s impatient that they haven’t found Reece’s body, despite the “likely kill shot” she took. His goon/Apex hunter is impatient right back, reminding Lindauer that he has experience killing Apex and won’t hesitate to do it again. He’s also created something new to help with the fight. He opens a case to show it to Lindauer.

Reece creates a sling from the bathroom towels, and remembers a moment with Leah.

Leah: I’m scared.

Reece: Hey, what does being mommy mean?

Leah: That you’re always going to be there for me?

Reece: That’s right.

One of Lindauer’s strike teams enters the convenience store and finds Reece’s blood on the floor. They look for her in the bathroom, and discover that she’s left them a message, written in her own blood: Back Off or Die. Reece is hard core, and she means it.

It’s Harborfest weekend in Port Canaan, so the police are gearing up for crowds and station tours. Nestor sorts through a pile of police toys for the kids. Jude and Oliver stop by. Jude introduces Nestor to Oliver by questioning the integrity of his full and lovely beard, which would be fighting words in this house. Nestor is a good man and lets the beard insult go by.

Nestor tries to recruit Oliver into the family sheriffing business, but Oliver doesn’t like guns. Nestor is heartbroken, and questions Jude’s parenting ability. Gotta side with Jude on this one. Oliver’s too young to be shooting guns, even at the range and for a good cause. Give him a few years before you wreck his hearing, at the very least.

Jude sends Oliver out of the room, then surreptitiously checks with Nestor to see if there have been any reports connected to Reece. Nothing has come in. He also tells Nestor to kick Marshall out of his cell, now that Marshall’s slept off his intoxication.

Marshall would’ve rather slept off the hangover too, so he must really spend a lot of time there. But the guy he hit decided not to press charges, so they have no reason to hold him. Nestor gives Marshall a bonus brotherly talk, telling him that it’s been 10 years since the accident, he needs to stop living in the past and think about his future. Marshall thinks maybe he doesn’t have a future. He makes big tragic blue puppy dog eyes when he says it. Clearly we all need to band together to save Marshall, right now. He needs us.

Lindauer pays a visit to his hostage, Thomas, who’s being held chained to a chair, with a hood over his head. Lindauer asks who else knows about the earlier migration, then intimidates Thomas into being his minion. Thomas is sent back to the refugee camp to spread the gospel of Lindauer: Be patient, don’t talk about where you come from, and do what you’re told. If you follow the rules, you’ll be taken care of. If not, you’ll be locked up.

Hannah is sitting at a picnic table with her breakfast, when a man, Luke, sits down next to her and asks about her sunglasses. She asks if she knows him, and he says, “No, but I know you, and I know what you did, back in Metolius. If these settlers found out, I don’t even want to think about what they’d do to you. But…maybe we can work something out, so that doesn’t happen.”

He takes the sunglasses from her lap, near her crotch, and puts them on. The implication that she’ll be trading sex for his silence is clear. Hannah gets up and moves away, quickly.

Hannah finds Roy and asks if he knows how long they’ll be there. He doesn’t know, but offers to do anything he can for her. She tells him he can help her get out of the camp, but he has to decline, on account of he’d lose his job and maybe go to jail. He asks what else is going on? He’s totally sensitive to her needs, as long as they don’t interfere with his government pension and health insurance. Hannah’s smart enough to end the conversation.

Jude takes Oliver to Harbourfest, where they can eat junk food and watch someone juggle salmon. Oliver is disappointed, since he thought they were going fishing. Jude explains that he thought this would be a fun way to see the town, before they go fishing.

Reece runs through the forest, probably on her way to Port Canaan. She removes her sling once she’s healed up a bit. Then she hears static and scrambled messages from the strike teams’ radios. Lindauer’s goon has gotten a sense of where she is, and is trying to herd her to a certain spot. The others think she must be getting weak by now, but goon admonishes them not to underestimate the Apex.

Hannah has secretly stowed away in the back of Roy’s truck so that she can escape the threats. While Roy is stuck in traffic, Hannah slips away, but has to leave her sweater behind since it gets caught in the truck hatch.

Lindauer calls Emma to check on Leah and let her know that he’s sending a specialist to examine her. The doctor is going to develop a screening test to see if there are any more carriers. He doesn’t mention anything about the doctor actually trying to help Leah. Leah’s current symptoms include high grade fever, fatigue and respiratory distress. As we know from episode 2, it’s a bad sign when the fever settles in.

Emma mentions what happened with Jude at the boathouse. They argue over whether she should have been allowed the leeway to handle it herself or have unquestioningly deferred to his authority. It ends with Lindauer threatening to remove Emma from the case.

Thomas tells every refugee who will listen about his Lindauer provided talking points. He’s suspiciously overenthusiastic for someone who was so cynical a day or two ago. Emma notices.

Dr Sophie Forbin is played by Georgina Haig, former ice wielding Disney princess Queen Elsa. Also formerly known as Etta, child of alternate reality jumpers Peter Bishop and Olivia Dunham, and grandchild of Walter Bishop, LSD fan and inventor of everything ever in the Fringe universe. She definitely has the cred to handle this crisis.

Currently, Dr Forbin, a virologist, is nervously preparing for her interview with Undersecretary Lindauer. She specializes in quarantine measurements, screening methodology, and vaccine production. As she’s getting dressed, we’re shown that she has a long vertical scar on her upper chest. She’s had health problems of her own in the past. Maybe a virus that weakened her heart so much that she needed a transplant?

Sophie’s meeting with Lindauer is a non-interview- He hires her on the spot and ushers her straight into a helicopter to take her to the camp. He complements her on her paper in the Journal of Microbiotic Virology (she was one of 6 authors, but did the bulk of the research), tells her she’s already been vetted, and explains his version of the refugees’ story to her during a walk and talk to the helicopter. He’s settled on brainwashing or mass delusion as the likely explanation for their story.

Lindauer needs Sophie to discretely prepare a diagnostic to see if anyone else is infected. She’s to report to him alone. He hands her a folder, and tells her she starts now. She thought that he would want her to prevent an outbreak, but he ignored her query.

Reece’s injury is rapidly healing, but she’s a bit weak from the blood loss. Nevertheless, when one of the contractors finds her discarded, bloody sling, she jumps down on him from higher ground and puts him in a chokehold. She wants him to tell her where Leah is. He’d already radioed his team leader, so his silence immediately raises suspicions.

Emma introduces herself to Sophie at the camp. Sophie is surprised that the camp isn’t under quarantine, but Emma explains that Leah was put into isolation before she became contagious. Sophie is confused, since Lindauer told her this was an unidentified pathogen, but Emma believes what the refugees are telling her about their experiences with the virus.

Emma explains that the situation is complicated, but Sophie will have her full cooperation in order to save Leah. Sophie stops her. She’s not there to save Leah. Leah is desperately ill, with acute distress, prostration, exanthema (a rash with fever), and early signs of brain inflammation. The onset was more rapid than anything Sophie’s seen before, and she doesn’t know how it’s transmitted. She’s not there to save Leah. She’s there to prevent a pandemic.

Don’t the two sort of go hand in hand? If you figure out how the virus works, you can give Leah the best care possible, to help her have a chance of surviving. Or are they going to unethically use her like a lab rat, and withhold treatment as they watch her go through the stages of the disease? Lindauer is definitely capable of that.

Marshall has a girlfriend over who’s confused about the whole Thorn Beach thing, since the news is selling one story, that everyone died, but everyone who was there knows the truth is different- they definitely pulled survivors out of the water. Marshall tells her, “In the words of my Great Grandpa Lonny, if you can’t do anything about it, don’t worry about it.” Then his girlfriend finds evidence he’s got another girlfriend, and takes off.

Jude and Oliver have fun at Harborfest. Oliver wins a stuffed shark.

Hannah wanders through Harborfest, trying to make sense of what she’s seeing. This is her first experience with unfiltered present day culture. Marshall walks by her and she remembers the locket she lost in the water. The picture inside was of him. She chases after him and asks him to show her around. He’s confused, but agrees.

They start with lunch by the water. She tells him she’s from Metolius. He says he’s been there, and it’s tiny, only about twelve people. She replies that it’s growing. He tells her that he’s from Port Canaan, but is planning to move to LA soon. She doesn’t think he should go. He’s meant to be where he is.

They look into each other’s eyes for a long moment, then a band starts playing. Hannah jumps up to go listen.

Emma calls Thomas into her office to ask about his change in story. He tells her that he was lying before. He was scared. No, he wanted to feel important, so he made things up. Which is it? Both. Emma remains suspicious of him.

Jude does a presentation for kids at the police station. When he’s done, he looks up and sees Emma across the room. He tries to blow her off, but she insists that they talk. She explains that she thinks there was an earlier migration of refugees. She doesn’t know when, but she knows there are people at high levels in the government who know more about it.

Jude is still mad about the boathouse fiasco, and asks if those are the people at high levels she’s referring to. She says yes. He wants to know why she’s involving him in this. Because she trusts him. He could investigate prior migrations in town, to see if there are records or witnesses that point to other refugees arriving in a similar way.

Jude reacts negatively. Emma tries to impress on him that it’s important, but he’s been down this road before. He’s been in the situation she’s in, with corruption at the top and a boss that’s keeping secrets. He’s not interested in facing it again.

This must be similar to what happened in Oakland. It’s understandable that he doesn’t want to go down that road a second time, even if it’s the right thing to do. He could at least understand that it was part of Emma’s job to inform her boss about the meeting, and Lindauer’s reaction was out of her control.

Sophie puts on her hazmat suit and visits Leah. She can tell from Leah’s blood work that Leah’s body has fought the virus before. She asks if Leah’s been treated for this illness before. Leah says yes, her mom treated her. She didn’t give her medicine. Her mom was the medicine.

Reece finds the rest of the strike team and easily takes them out. It doesn’t look to me like she kills anyone, just knocks them out. The one person who’s shot is shot by his own teammate, when Reece uses him as a shield.

Sophie approaches Rebecca to find out what she knows about Leah’s illness, since Leah was staying with Rebecca, and Rebecca’s been the most articulate about Mantle’s Disease. Sophie explains what Leah told her, about having been treated with medicine made from her mother’s blood, and Leah’s mother being immune to the illness. After a moment, Rebecca seems to understand the implications of what Leah said, but then rejects them. She refuses to speak to Sophie. Old prejudices die hard.

Thomas has moved on to using his worldly new knowledge to pick up women. Caleb sidles up to him and asks how long they’ll be in the camp. Thomas says they’ll be out soon, but it’s clear that he doesn’t actually have any concrete inside information. When Caleb figures that out, Thomas becomes threatening toward him.

Roy discovers Hannah’s sweater in the back of his truck and goes looking for her. Hannah and Marshall have been enjoying the concert. She says she wants to see more of him, and he tells her she shouldn’t be so open and trusting with a guy like him, a random guy she met in a crowd.

Hannah: You’re more than that. I was meant to find you. They said you were a good man, someone I could trust. They said if I found you, I’d be okay.

Marshall is still trying to figure out what she means when Roy finds her and grabs her by the arm. He forcibly drags her away. When Marshall tries to stop him, Roy pulls out his Homeland Security badge, which I guess gives him the right to publicly kidnap women, and Jude steps in to support Roy. There’s nothing Marshall can do.

Lindauer’s nameless goon/Apex hunter has just realized that his strike teams aren’t answering, when Reece finds him. She points one of the contractors’ weapons at him, and tells him to drop his own. He pulls out a device that emits a high frequency sonic discharge. The frequency is too high for Commons to hear, but is agonizingly ear piercing for Apex. Reece writhes on the ground in severe pain, while the Apex hunter taunts her that he hasn’t seen an Apex in 10 years, but he’s looking forward to making up for lost time.

I think we can assume that Lindauer and goon’s group came back to the present day about 10 years ago.

Apex Hunter questions Reece. He asks how many other Apex she’s with. She says she’s the only one, but he doesn’t believe her.

Apex Hunter: I don’t buy that. You splash into the ocean, survive undetected. You should be long gone, but you stuck around. Why? Why would you stick around unless there was something that you wanted? Or someone? And when I find out who it is that you stuck around for, I’ll put a bullet in their head.

He turns on the sonic device again, but the threat to Leah is enough to push Reece to fight through the pain. She throws a log at him and knocks the device out of his hand, then jumps up and snaps his neck.

I wish I felt worse about his death, but he’s been presented as nothing but a remorseless torture and murder machine, the type of person that the refugees described Apex as. He and Lindauer have been the true villains so far.

Jude takes Oliver out for ice cream, but Oliver is back to feeling sad. He asks Jude what he did wrong that made Jude move away from him? Jude realizes that it’s time to be more candid about what went wrong with his job in Oakland.

Jude: When I was a police officer in Oakland, some people were upset that I arrested them, and I had to leave so that they would stop making threats. I moved away to keep you safe, because you are the most important thing in my life.

Oliver: Are you safe now?

Jude: I am. And so are you. And so is your mom. Hey. You know, you guys are going to be moving to Portland soon. That’s always been part of the plan.

He goes on to talk about how they’ll be able to go back on a schedule and things will go back to normal.

Jude: I love you, and I will do anything for you. Anything.

They hug it out.

Emma decides to investigate the status of the refugees and Leah’s illness a little further. She discovers that any mentions of the Thorn beach operation, the refugees, the refugee camp, or Leah and her illness have been wiped from the system. When she calls to verify, the operator says there’s no listings, and asks for her badge number, like Emma’s just asked for restricted files or broken the rules somehow. Emma quickly hangs up, having finally figured out that this situation is not on the up and up.

Roy pulls over at a deserted spot on the road up to the camp. Hannah has to get in the back of the truck to sneak back into camp. He’s still short tempered with Hannah, and insists that she’s safe and protected at the camp. Hannah says that everyone at the camp either hates her, or will soon, but won’t explain why. She has to get in the back of the truck to sneak back into camp.

Luke is waiting for Hannah in her cabin, ready to start their new forced sexual relationship. If she protests, he’ll tell everyone that she used to be an Apex collaborator, starting with Caleb, who has the same insignia as Linauer’s Apex hunter on his wrist, which designates him as an Alpha-Zulu. They’re known for doing horrible things to collaborators. Luke tells her he owns her while they’re at the camp, then walks out.

Yikes. Is Caleb the only decent future guy? Is he decent? Where’s Paul this week?

Rebecca comes back to Sophie and tells her what she knows about Mantle’s Disease. No one has ever survived. No one is immune. Except Apex. Sophie asks, “What is Apex?”

Jude, Oliver, the rest of the town, and everyone at the refugee camp, watch the Harborfest fireworks. Somehow they hear a noise in the street that Jude needs to check out, so he leaves Oliver standing alone in the crowd. Reece has thrown Apex Hunter Goon’s body onto the hood of a car, with a note for Jude stuffed into his mouth: Now You Suffer Sheriff. It’s a bit of a dramatic statement.

Jude realizes several important things in rapid succession. The note is from Reece. He broke his promise to her after promising she could trust him to help her find Leah. Then he didn’t even go looking for Reece when he set her up and got her hurt. And, oh yeah, he left his 8 year old alone in a crowd like an idiot.

Jude runs back to Oliver, but he’s too late. All that remains is Oliver’s stuffed shark, reminding him that the refugees think that Apex have the morality and drive of sharks.

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10 years since the accident that broke Marshall, and 10 years since Alpha-Zulu Apex Hunter has seen an Apex. Guessing there’s a connection there, and that it has something to do with the time Marshall went river rafting in Metolius.

According to Wiki, Metolius, OR has a population of ~700.

We’ve been led to believe that the humans are downtrodden slaves in the future, but their knowledge of torture, intimidation, and manipulation techniques seems to have survived just fine. The Apex seem to be straightforward, rather than subtle, and have no need to intimidate or manipulate humans. They just bulldoze right over Commons without sentimentality or hesitation.

Reece seems to be an aberration among Apex. She cares deeply about a Common, and is an extremely devoted mother. We’ve only seen a small number of Apex interpersonal interactions, but they seem to see emotional detachment as the norm. That’s how the refugees described them as well. Why is Reece so different? Is she a genetic throwback? Or would normal Apex consider her mentally ill?

There was an interesting juxtaposition of Jude telling Oliver he’d do ANYTHING for him, and Reece killing the man who threatened Leah, then presenting his body to Jude and taking Oliver. Reece knows that Leah’s situation is life and death, but she hasn’t found anyone she can trust with the dangerous information she knows about Leah’s condition. She’s legitimately at the point of doing ANYTHING for Leah. Jude can’t even imagine being where Reece is, but she’s about to give him a taste.

Why doesn’t someone with as many lines and as important a role as Lindauer’s goon/Apex hunter (played by Steve Harris) have a name? IMDB doesn’t even have him listed as “goon”, just a blank space. Is that going to be a plot point later in the season? Will there be some reveal about the secret group of Alpha-Zulu Apex hunters he belongs to, since they showed us a flash of his tattoo? Maybe he’ll have been related to someone in the present day, or related to one of the other refugees? (Caleb?) Maybe the war against the Apex isn’t as one sided as the humans have made it sound. Caleb is a peaceful person, so far as we’ve seen, but we know nothing about his past, other than that he had a daughter and has a wife.

The high frequency sonic device that disables Apex is the new tech Alpha-Zulu Apex Hunter was telling Lindauer about. I have mixed feelings about it, and him. He’d obviously suffered at the hands of Apex, but after ten years away, all he wanted was to get revenge on an innocent woman who he blamed for all of the crimes committed by her people. He was using that device as a means of torture, not just to subdue a violent suspect.

In this time period, Reece has only been violent in response to the violence handed out to her. True, she’s a morally ambiguous character herself, since, for most of her life, she believed what she was taught, so she killed Commons. But they are all in a different time now, with a chance to start over, and change the future they came from. Bringing those hatreds and prejudices with them will only ensure that future comes to pass.

Jude was as useless as a police officer and parent this episode as he was last episode, but at least he didn’t betray anyone. Nestor was a more effective police officer in his two minutes of screen time than Jude was in his time as third lead. He sent Hannah back to the camp with a Homeland Security agent based on the flash of a badge and no explanations, allowing her to be manhandled as if she were a child.

Speaking of which, I’m off Team Roy, too, after he dragged Hannah away like an animal, and didn’t try to find out what she’s afraid of. Totally Team Marshall now, since he was a complete hero who bought Hannah lunch and benignly tried to hang out but teach her how to operate in this time period. Plus, it’s fate (Is Hannah her own grandma? 😉).

And did anyone else notice the chemistry between Sophie and Emma?

The disappearance of everything to do with the camp or the refugees from the official records is ominous. Last week Lindauer convinced the Secretary to let him handle the operation off the books, but this is way off book. This seems more like he’s getting ready to follow the instructions of the shadowy woman from the future, and dispose of everyone at the camp, as soon as he’s sure that the Mantle’s hasn’t spread any further.

 

Images courtesy of ABC.