The Crossing Season 1 Episode 7: Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream Recap

In case anyone hasn’t heard yet, there will only be one season of The Crossing. This episode is an example of the uneven writing that probably turned viewers away and got it cancelled, along with a main character who’s a patsy and a screw up, and not even charming while he’s doing it.

The women of The Crossing continue to be fascinating and amazing, but, after only 7 episodes, the show has developed an alarming tendency to disappear them. One of the supposed leads, Emma Ren, disappeared a few episodes ago. Now Sophie Forbin is also gone, fired from her job and hospitalized with a heart attack. This week we don’t even get an update on her condition. The other important female character, Reece, is written so inconsistently that you’d never believe she’s from a superior race. Tonight, even though she was told point-blank by Beaumont that the 1st wavers are hunting her, it doesn’t occur to her that she’s able to get her daughter back so easily because it’s a trap. Reece also disappears for long stretches of time, despite being a lead.

Instead, we get a new female character tonight, a former Apex slave. That’s right. The high-ranking Homeland Security agent, the expert virologist, and the member of a species of superior humans, who is also a law enforcement agent/spy, are all either out or have had their screen time downgraded. But the powerless slave is in. We also briefly meet the mayor of Port Canaan. Maybe she’ll become a recurring character for the last few episodes, but I doubt it, since she’s not even listed in the IMDB credits. Either way, it’s not okay to fridge powerful female characters so that you can bring in lower status females. It’s important to explore the slave experience, but not at the expense of previously existing female characters who all had their own challenges.

The episode begins with Nurse Lindsay making sure that Leah has her stuffed bunny before she leaves the infirmary with Rebecca. Rebecca asks if they can say thank you to Sophie, but everyone has been told that Sophie moved right on to her next assignment.

As soon as Rebecca and Leah leave, the near drowning victim with the brand wakes up coughing. Thomas is still in the infirmary with his broken leg.

Everyone stares at Leah, so Rebecca tells her it’s because they’re so happy that she’s better. She leaves out their suspicions about her mantle’s cure.

Dr Fleischer examines Naomi, the drowning survivor, then explains that she swallowed too much seawater and has been in a coma for two weeks. Naomi asks if a man named Eli made it. We see Eli threatening her in flashback. The doctor tells her that he didn’t. Naomi is glad. Now she can get to work.

Jude gives Lindauer some coffee, then they spar over Emma’s disappearance and their psychological theories about each other. Jude knows that the refugees have upset Lindauer’s evil plans, but he can’t quite make the leap to believing that Lindauer is one of the 1st wavers. He also makes empty threats, since everyone knows that there’s no one he could send his evidence to who would believe him over Lindauer.

The mayor stops in to tell Jude to let Lindauer go, since he has no grounds to hold him. Jude tells her she doesn’t understand what’s going on. She says to fill her in. He gives her the sanitized version, then she talks to Lindauer herself. Lindauer offers to start letting the refugees out on day passes to town, starting today. The mayor agrees. Jude makes another empty threat as he uncuffs Lindauer.

Rebecca worries more about Leah as she watches the girl play. What if someone finds out her mother is an Apex? Caleb tells her she’s worrying too much, and she points out he’s hoarding food. Food hoarding is likely a survival tactic where they come from, and now they live in another uncertain situation. It seems sensible to me.

Leah rushes in to tell them that she and Rebecca were chosen to go on the bus trip to town that day. Caleb is suspicious and wants her to wait, but Rebecca thinks he’s being paranoid and wants to go. They get on the bus. Reece is in the woods, watching.

As the bus approaches town, the refugees are given a tracking bracelet, then told to follow orders and keep their mouths shut, or the entire camp will be punished. But have a great day in town!

Nurse Lindsay brings Naomi to a cabin. Naomi wants to know who her new masters are. Lindsay is confused, because she thinks of them as free, despite the electric fence, guards, and razor wire. Naomi asks for markers- you know, the writing implements- and totally confuses Lindsay, in a glorious moment.

Nestor, Jude, Marshall, and Vanessa Conway (the mayor) meet the refugee bus. Jude takes charge of Rebecca and Leah as their tour guide. Marshall and Hannah quickly find each other. Marshall told Nestor that Hannah has told him very little about herself. Just that she had a difficult childhood and comes from Metolius. The plan for the day is to find out more about the refugees.

As they wander through the tourist areas of town, Jude tries to get Rebecca to open up to him. It might as well be an interrogation. He’s not exactly subtle. She doesn’t reveal anything, other than that she’s jealous and bitter about how much stuff is available in the 20th century, and really, really hates Apex. She explains to Jude that Leah’s affiliation with an Apex puts her in danger from the other refugees, who will attack her over it. I’m starting to wonder if Rebecca is a future human government plant tasked with rooting out spies and enemies of the state, either Apex or human. She’s way too into this idea that someone is out to get leah. maybe it’s actually her or her people. Is she a 1st wave collaborator?

While the adults are having this conversation, Leah is wandering around unsupervised. She wanders into a store, where Kurt finds her and hands her a postcard with a message from Reece written on it. Leah reads it, then hides it. Why didn’t Reece just go in the back door to the store right then and sneak Leah out the back again?

An elderly man is using a metal detector on the beach and finds Hannah’s locket with the photo of Marshall still intact.

Marshall gives an irreverent and very personal tour of the city. Roy is appalled. Later, on the beach, he and Hannah confess how much they want to be alone together and to have more time. Roy admonishes the group to stick together. Marshall leads Hannah to a secret hiding spot, then kisses her. He has a small boat hidden nearby, and they take a boat ride alone.

Jude and Rebecca teach Leah how to swing while Reece watches from a distance. Hannah watches the time, then uses a certain bathroom at certain time. It just happens to have a skylight in the room. Reece is able to reach down through and grab Leah from where she’s standing on the toilet.

When they run back to Reece’s car, Jude is waiting for them. Reece tells him not to try to stop them. Actually, he wants to help. He’s brought a lubricant to get Leah’s tracker bracelet off. Then he lets them go. Rebecca is angry, telling him that he doesn’t know what he’s done. Jude tells Rebecca that no one will work harder to keep Leah safe than Reece.

Marshall and Hannah have a little picnic on the beach, then she tells him about her life. First she tells him about Micah, a close friend that she grew up with. Then, in between kissing, she confesses that she recognized him at Harbourfest from her locket. Someone from Metolius in the year 2194 told her to find him. She and everyone else in the camp came there to escape from a war in the future.

Marshall assumes she’s joking. She says she knows how it sounds. That’s why she didn’t say anything before. But it’s the truth. Marshall decides that this is the kind of conversation that requires whiskey. He’ll be back, um, eventually. Don’t wait up. He walks away from her.

Mind, he brought her there in a boat.

Everyone in the refugee camp is milling around outside of Naomi’s cabin. She’s covered every wall in Apex writing. Caleb goes in to see her, and asks her why she knows Apex. She says she was forced to learn it, and shows him her brand, confirming to him that she was an Apex slave.

Nestor finds Marshall drinking alone. All Marshall will say is that he should have gone to LA with Claire.

On her way back to the bus, Hannah walks by the old man with the metal detector, who’s now selling his finds from a stall on the waterfront. She sees her locket and wants to take it back, but the man insists that it’s his now. She can buy it for $10. Hannah doesn’t have any money, and doesn’t want to pay for what’s hers, anyway. She walks away with it, but the man yells, and one of the guards stops her. Roy gets involved as well, and drags her back to the bus. Hannah’s a bit of a simpleton and can’t understand why Roy might be angry with her after she ran off with another man and broke the rules at the same time.

Bryce gets a call, letting him know that his supervisors know they’re short one passenger on the refugee bus, and another team has been assigned to recover her. The bus can head straight back to the camp. The guards are confused as to how HQ knew they needed to track someone, since the guards only just finished the head count.

Because this day trip was always a set up, using Leah as bait, that’s why.

Reece and Leah relax in a hotel room and plan for their future. Reece notices a high-pitched whine coming from the stuffed bunny and finds a tracking device hidden inside. She and Leah get back in the car and drive immediately, but it’s too late. The feds have already found them. They chase the car into a deserted area, shoot out a tire and drive it off a road, grab Leah, then taser and drug Reece until she’s subdued.

The feds really, really weren’t worried about the safety of the child involved.

Nearby, Lindauer sits in his car and watches. Over the phone, he tells someone, probably Eve, “Target acquired.”

Sitting in his office, Jude the super cop finally figures out that he was played by Lindauer. Once again, he figured it out too late to help the females on the show.

Roy goes back to the old man’s stall and apologizes for the other guard’s rudeness. Then he buys the locket. The man charges him $25 and tells him he doesn’t want to open it. Of course that’s the first thing Roy does, and he finds Marshall’s photo. Hannah’s going to have some explaining to do.

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So, there was absolutely no point in Jude and Nestor bringing in Lindauer, but it worked out great for Lindauer, because it gave him the chance to set up a trap to catch Leah and Reece, is that right? Do you think that was what Lindauer hoped for when he called Jude and offered to meet with him?

Who is Rebecca, really? Did she know that Reece was specifically being hunted already? The way she told Jude that he had no idea what he’d done when he let Reece take Leah is very suspicious, considering that Leah was being used as bait the entire time so they could catch Reece too. Now both Reece and Leah will likely be studied and murdered by Eve. Was Rebecca in contact with Beaumont before he died? Is she in contact with another Alpha-Zulu 1st Waver now?

I just don’t know what to do with Jude’s character any more. I thought he’d finally done something right, and instead he handed Reece and Leah over to people who want to torture and murder them. And he’s so sure of his rightness as he screws everyone over. He’s becoming the main villain of the show.

Everyone else who could be termed a villain is also fighting to protect something. The 1st wavers know what the future could become and are trying to make the difficult choices that will stop that future from happening. They may be going about it wrong, but they’re desperately trying to do the right thing. Everyone in the refugee camp is also just trying to survive in a brave new world, one where restrictions, lies and secrets are still the norm, even though now they get regular meals. Reece just wants to protect her daughter. Emma and Sophie were trying to get at the truth. The federal agents are doing their jobs. So is Nestor. Marshall is messed up, but he does have feelings for Hannah.

Jude is riding high on the image of himself as a crusader for truth and justice, but we haven’t seen him be successful yet. It’s all a fantasy, even in his previous job. He wasn’t the hotshot cop he likes to portray himself as. He was a guy on the team. He didn’t pay close attention during the drug bust until it was too late. He didn’t pay attention to the warning signs during the Doucette investigation, with either his marriage or his job. Now, he keeps missing clues and warning signs again.

I’d love to be writing long paragraphs about the female characters, but none of them are given the screentime and story lines that Jude gets. Hannah might be the closest one left. She’s also written in a way that doesn’t make sense. How do you grow up in a war zone, watch your father have his arm severed, be forced into becoming a collaborator, and who knows what else, and remain completely innocent? She purposefully bats her eyelashes at men to convince them to do what she wants, then is surprised when it doesn’t work, after she’s betrayed them or they’re angry at her.

Was she kept in a room with one other family, like Anne Frank, in hiding from the Apex, so she’s relatively innocent? But, what about the story of her father and the Apex? Shouldn’t she and the other hidden ones have been killed when they were found?

Marshall’s alcoholism and his inability to stick with things when they get tough led him to walk away from Hannah. They’ve got a tough road ahead of them if they’re going to work out as a couple. Maybe she ends up with Roy, who’s the stronger, more dedicated personality, but she and Marshall help each other grow up. The message just said she should trust Marshall and that he’d help her, not that she’d fall in love with him.

Naomi is an intriguing character, since I don’t think we’ve heard any reference to Apex slaves before. Up until now, we’ve been led to believe that the Apex were trying to exterminate humans. A slave trade would suggest that the Apex find some humans useful and/or amusing and would want to keep them alive. This makes me wonder, again, if the war was started by humans, not Apex.

What was Naomi writing on her walls? Future events to try to change? Sports results so that she can get rich? A manifesto or religious treatise? The plans that the Apex sent her to fulfill? Erotic poetry? What do you all think?

With the cancellation, most of these storylines won’t be resolved in a satisfactory way, so we’ll have to do some speculation at the end of the season about what we think would’ve happened next.

 

Image courtesy of ABC.