The Uncommon Bond at the Heart of ‘Cross’ Season 2

Alex Cross is back on the beat. And once again, D.C. Metro’s star detective and forensic psychologist at the heart of Prime Video’s hit crime series is taking us down an unexplored — and unexpected — path that may prove to be a literal dead end for some folks, and should end up being a thrill ride for the rest of us.

Season 1 saw Aldis Hodge badge up as novelist James Patterson‘s crime procedural genius, previously played on the big screen by Morgan Freeman (Kiss the Girls, Along Came a Spider) and Tyler Perry (Alex Cross). Within its first 20 days, Cross collared 40 million viewers to become Prime’s third-biggest launch of 2024, earning critical praise for tempering the creepy-as-hell hunt of a serial killer (Ryan Eggold) with Hodge’s nuanced turn as a broken man trying to show up for his two kids, aging mother, and community following the murder of his wife. Added bonus: Cross‘ plots are wholly created for the show, so Patterson’s legion of loyal readers don’t have spoilers.

“We decided before Season 1 not to do direct adaptations,” explains showrunner Ben Watkins, who shot both Season 1 and 2 back-to-back. “We wanted to have original stories that evolve [with] some variety.” (One difference: Season 2’s eight episodes won’t drop all at once; three premiere February 11, then weekly until the March 18 finale.)

Consequently, Watkins was free to build and cast a more modern, emotionally layered Cross than we’d get in a carbon copy of Patterson’s bestsellers. “You have to find somebody who could bring physicality, be a genius, but also have some heart.” In Hodge, he found “someone who was ambitious. I had someone that could be obsessed at times, but also someone that had an insatiable curiosity that I think really fits with what we see in Alex Cross. He’s willing to go into the dark places and the light places and constantly looking to evolve.”

“So we had those conversations, and I remember saying, ‘Hey, I’m really going to try to push what people know of you. I want to just blow that up and push you to go to these other places.’ And his response to me was, ‘I’m looking for that, not only as an actor, but as a person’.”

That duality, the dark and light, drives much of this season’s storylines, as Cross the show continues to lean into how Cross the character is able (or not, at times) to straddle his two worlds. 

“He has the job and family, which a lot of us have to deal with…and how do we keep that in balance?” posits Patterson. “In the case of Aldis, of course, it’s this very extreme work that he does, and then there’s his family life. And one of the things that’s great about Aldis Hodge is that he’s so intense as a detective, just the way he goes out there, and then he’s so good with the family [scenes].”

“We didn’t have that with Morgan [Freeman]. Morgan’s a great actor but one, in the movies, they didn’t have time for it in terms of the family. And secondly, it would’ve been a little trickier with Morgan at the age that he is, was, whatever. The other thing that I really like about what Aldis and Ben Watkins, the showrunner and Isaiah and the rest of them have done is it’s a more realistic D.C. The [book] series started, whatever it was, 30 years or so ago, and this really brings it right up-to-date. It’s more contemporary, it’s more realistic, it’s a little tougher. And I think that’s great. I love it.”

“And with Aldis, it’s perfect,” raves the author, an executive producer and clear enthusiast of the show’s take on his creation. “We really have the Alex Cross that I’ve always [imagined], and I think a lot of people are attached to.” (No doubt Hodge agrees—he’s also an exec producer this season.) 

Some of those attachments will be tested, at least onscreen, especially after Cross confesses a decades-old secret to partner and childhood best friend John Sampson (Isaiah Mustafa, soaked in charisma). The reveal not only gives Mustafa well-deserved and meaty material that fleshes out fan-fave Sampson’s backstory, but it also upends Cross‘ beloved central bromance. “We saw that immensely in the first season with Sampson really being there for Cross,” says Hodge of his widower’s battle with self-destructive grief. “Alex was drowning, but [John] was like, ‘I’m not going to let you sink, man. I’m going to pull you up.’ This season, we have a bit of a reversal where we show Cross needing to be there for Sampson in a different way.”

“But there’s a lot of comedy,” adds Mustafa, referencing how the at-odds guys can’t help but engage in some impish precinct banter. “That is, to me, their relationship. Even though you’re pissed off at somebody, you still play the game.”

As with last season’s rift over charges brought against Cross, Watkins has once again developed a snag that tests the guys in a way that gives both characters a chance to say the sort of hard stuff that only the truly bonded can. “I knew we were going through so many emotional rungs and I know what speaks to me as an audience member,” Hodge says. “But I also know how we can relay that and have that conversation…a real conversation about brotherhood, accountability. That ‘Hey man, that wasn’t cool, but we still fam.’ What does it look like to repair “What does it look like to deal with loving somebody and standing in your fealty and loyalty to that love and that family when you’re also dealing with your own personal bias?”

Cross’ relationship with Sampson — easily TV’s best representation of loving friendship between Black men — isn’t the only one facing a seismic shift. At work, Cross is now taking orders from longtime FBI ally Kayla Craig (Alona Tal), whose boss (Watkins in a fun recurring bit) taps her to lead a hush-hush investigation into a grisly package sent to an agro-tech billionaire named Lance Durand (Scream icon Matthew Lillard, equal parts charming and chilling). And at home, his former lover Elle (Samantha Walkes) continues to fill a motherly role for his kids, yet refuses to reunite. “A big part of why she fights that so hard is because health in the relationship is primary,” assesses Walkes. “So yes, okay, we love each other. But are we health,y and are we whole? Because [if so], then we can be what we need to be for these babies…and that’s why the family, she’ll never let that go. She loves them.”

As the case escalates, so too does the tension among the team trying to protect the difficult Durand. “Cross is about two seconds from putting his hands on him,” laughs Hodge. “He can’t let his bias affect his business, but when that business is done, he might have some different thoughts on that.” Until then, Cross, Sampson and Craig are left to sort through an increasingly gory pile of clues, leading them in search of two suspects (Wes Chatham, Jeanine Mason) with a grim history hinted at in the premiere’s fiery opening minutes. “There’s a mystery of what connects us and what happened to us in the past,” teases Chatham of the couple’s cause. “They’re out for blood, and that’s the thing that unites them.”

That’s bad news for their targets, but great fodder for Cross to dig into. “For Alex Cross, the more challenging it gets in terms of who the villain is, the more complex it gets, the better we can showcase the character and the show,” says Watkins.

At the same time, an unearthed secret adds unexpected shades to Kayla’s until-now reliably honorable agent. “I think every good character has a good side and a bad side. No one is one thing, and she’s not one thing either,” Tal says, coyly adding that “you don’t get to be a woman in her line of business without having a few skeletons in the closet.”

Whether her skeletons are linked to Durand or his tormentors is as classified as the case; however, rest assured, things get messy, sexy, and, at times, terrifyingly timely. “We push the envelope,” Watkins ominously warns, “but we have not really gotten to the edge yet.” That remains in the crosshairs.

Cross, Season 2 Premiere, Wednesday, February 11, Prime Video