‘Cross’ Stars Jeanine Mason & Ben Watkins Break Down That Killer Twist

In Season 2 Episode 6 of Cross, Detective Alex Cross (Aldis Hodge) is a bit banged up after being double-crossed by Rebecca, also known as Luz (Jeanine Mason), who throws him under the bus — er, into the path of a speeding SUV. Warning: Spoilers for Cross Episode 6, “Gather,” are ahead.

After arranging a rendezvous so she could “turn herself in,” she does anything but, instead setting Alex up to be run down by Donnie (Wes Chatham). He is unexpectedly saved by Bobby Trey (Johnny Ray Gill), who arrives as a favor to Kayla Craig (Alona Tal).

Bruised, furious, and still grappling with unanswered questions, Alex must determine where Luz will strike next. He understands her motive. She is determined to dismantle the human trafficking organization responsible for the murder of her mother, Dr. Gabriela Porras, a crime that may be connected to billionaire philanthropist Lance Durand (Matthew Lillard).

In the episode, audiences finally learn the method behind Luz’s madness, including how she chooses her victims.

Prime Video

After digging into the late Judge Olivia Ashford, who once presided over several cases against Lance Durand and his company, Crestbrooke, and was the mother of Senator Pete Ashford (Josh Peck), Alex visits the young senator. There, he learns that Luz recently confronted Pete and revealed a secret his mother had kept hidden: a concealed photograph of Lance and his associates, evidence linking them to the broader human trafficking operation.

In Alex’s hands, the photo becomes the key to understanding how Luz is selecting her targets. It is her kill list. Many of those pictured were defendants in Dr. Gabriela Porras’s lawsuit against Crestbrooke, while others used their influence within law enforcement and government agencies to protect the corporation and bury its wrongdoing.

However, there are still a few questions. Now that the “who” and “why” are answered, that leaves the “when,” and for that, Alex has to dig deep into Luz’s cultural makeup for the answer.

The solution is revealed in graffiti art found across from the Crestbrooke offices. With the help of a Chicano studies professor, Alex learns the mural references a forgotten resistance story depicted on old Lotería cards: the legend of La Niña de las Flores. It tells of a girl named Xóchitl, a rebellious woman who her enemies buried in an effort to silence her. The dirt from her grave became the volcano Tacaná, the same image tattooed on Luz’s back.

To save her people, Xóchitl had to fight her way to the top of the volcano, each level guarded by a demon. Luz assigned a demon to each person on her list, each embodying that demon’s sin. With that, Alex discovers the pattern: Luz is killing her victims in the order of the demons in the legend. And if he moves fast enough, he can stop her.

Prime Video

In this reveal, it becomes clear that Luz sees herself as an instrument of justice, but her moral compass is far from steady. She may believe she is delivering righteous retribution, yet the line between justice and vengeance has long since blurred, leaving her guided more by fury than fairness. Though she believes she is only killing the guilty, many innocents have become collateral damage as she takes on the role of Xóchitl. And it is a complexity of character that showrunner Ben Watkins basks in.

“I revel in it. I think that’s part of what we want to do. We want to get you rooting for her, and then we want to get you to a point where you’re like, ‘Oh, great,’ and then all of a sudden you’re like, ‘Whoa, there’s collateral damage here! Whoa, she went too far! Whoa, she’s actually turning her focus to somebody we love,'” said Watkins when he chatted with TV Insider. “And then you have to ask yourself, ‘How far is too far?’ You have to ask yourself, ‘Am I rooting for the wrong person?'”

“In Season 2, I wanted a vigilante, and that was because I was feeling, at the time, that so many people feel like they’re getting a raw deal, or the short end of the stick, and don’t really know what to do about it, or even if they can, and maybe they can’t, but we could live vicariously through a character who decides to take justice into their own hands,” explained Watkins. “But I didn’t want it to be that simple, because I feel like there’s a slippery slope that comes with that.

“There’s a sort of romanticized version of a vigilante, where they’re just going after the bad guys and doing stuff that the system won’t do. But there’s collateral damage, and then there’s going too far, and then there’s who gets to decide who are the bad guys,” said the showrunner. “So we decided to do a character that would seduce the audience in, and they would start to root for this character, and then hopefully at some point they’d have to ask themselves, did that character go too far?”

Actress Jeanine Mason, who plays Luz, couldn’t agree more.

“It’s set up so beautifully with the writing. They did such a great job of creating this rich dichotomy,” said the actress. “Her violence, her anger to stillness, because she’s been plotting all this for 10 years. There’s something just so unsettling about being so certain about what you want to do, and so behind it.”

“She’s so into the mission and the end goal, and that’s the thing about bads, is that they can justify anything in the way of them arriving at what they perceive to be, what she perceives to be, a better world, a more equitable world, a more fair world,” explained Mason.

Cross, Wednesdays, Prime Video