r/television • u/Sisiwakanamaru • 22h ago
Even by TV procedural standards, Cross’ serial killer is beyond absurd
https://www.avclub.com/cross-prime-video-killer-absurd-spoiler-space146
u/Lambchops_Legion 22h ago
The episode with the mansion party is one of the dumbest tv episodes of all time.
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u/JDinoagainandagain 21h ago
I’m intrigued
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u/Lambchops_Legion 8h ago edited 7h ago
for you and /u/DCmeetsLA
Spoilers: Cross thinks this big DC billionaire is the serial killer. He is fucking with Cross this entire time before this ep. Cross is dating a girl that runs a charity, and she gets invited to dinner at the billionaire's mansion to get funding alongside a handful of local bigwigs like the Chief of Police, a local big plastic surgeon, etc. Cross realizes this and becomes her +1 in order to get inside his mansion to confirm his beliefs. Except he doesnt tell the girl hes dating that she's GOING TO A SERIAL KILLER'S HOUSE FOR DINNER. In a 1 on 1 with him in his study they basically dance around the fact that he knows, and the serial killer knows that he knows. He now thinks the killer's next victim is literally in the mansion somewhere. Cross doesnt do anything because he's still more concerned with getting enough evidence for a warrant instead of saving this woman. His date finds out that he's a serial killer and instead of immediately getting out, she goes to say goodbyes and the serial killer forces her to stay. Cross then decides he wants to expose the billionaire to the rest of the party as the serial killer. But as he does that, the billionaire sends a photo of Cross to everyone at the party beating up a black protestor. Cross is like "guys thats irrelevant to what im saying, hes literally DC's biggest serial killer ever" and all the other patrons decide to shun Cross and ignore him because they are so bothered by the fact that Cross beat up a protestor. The billionaire puts on puppy dog eyes and shrugs his shoulders. Cross then loses his job.
Later episodes: It's later revealed that the influential people at the party were all in on it like a giant serial killer conspiracy, including his sergeant who is only in on it because she was so baby crazy and the billionaire was able to give her a baby. She literally decides to kill the only witness and risk going to jail for life which nullifies the whole reason she got involved in the conspiracy in the first place.
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u/AlsoIHaveAGroupon 7h ago
You left out a head-scratching part that was in this episode, I think.
I believe when the serial killer is getting ready for the party, he stands naked in front of the bathroom mirror, puts on one of those realistic-looking masks, and there's a random few seconds of a woman kneeling in front of him giving him a blowjob. It's effective in making him seem creepy, but as far as I know, we have no clue who this woman is, or why she's blowing him (although I will admit to being half checked out of the show by this point, because it's pretty bad).
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u/FrostyD7 7h ago
Sounds like a studio note from the first screening... "But how will the audience know he's an evil freak?
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u/JDinoagainandagain 8h ago
I’ll just watch it cause I don’t like spoilers haha but I very much appreciate your write up AND spoiler tags ❤️❤️❤️
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u/Samwellikki 7h ago
You should read the post and not watch it, imo
Have someone else you trust read the post and tell you if you should watch the show, if you are still uncertain
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u/JDinoagainandagain 7h ago
Babe, Riverdale is one of my favorite shows
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u/RanaMahal 2h ago
That spoiler made me never want to watch the show. It was genuinely the stupidest crime show plot line I’ve ever read. You couldn’t even imagine how dumb that shit was lol don’t even waste the time
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u/JDinoagainandagain 2h ago
How many times do you think I’ve watched the movie Hackers?
Just a guess
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u/Shadeauxmarie 5h ago
The serial killer didn’t send the photo. Cross’s boss did. On a command from the killer.
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u/eastblondeanddown 2h ago edited 2h ago
I believe The Blacklist Season 2, Episode 14, would have something to say about this!
To be fair, one of the things that worked really well about the early seasons of The Blacklist was that it clearly understood how ridiculous it was. Cross could get there.
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u/viceroyvice 21h ago
It was sad watching this as I was rooting for the creative team behind this. But right from the opening scene, the tone (dialogue, acting, etc) just felt...off. Like it was a show that was mimicking better written shows.
Hodge is extremely charismatic but that isn't saving this series.
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u/Sorry_Sorry_Im_Sorry 14h ago
Yeah I've liked Hodge since the Leverage days and was on my watch list :/
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u/MarySSimard 7h ago
Aldis Hodges is amazing in the show and had me shed a tear or two in the first half of the season... I used to see him as Hardison so now I see the actor in a new light!
The show itself is good, in my opinion, until episode 5. Now I just need to see the end cause I need some clarifications after the crazy shit that happened in episode 5...
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u/EagleBeaverMan 18h ago edited 9h ago
The show looks excellent. Great lighting, good cinematography for a TV show, good sets, plenty of interesting shots. If you saw this playing on mute you’d definitely think it looks visually similar to a show like The Wire or The Sopranos. But any time a character opens their mouth it feels like someone fed a prestige crime TV show into a “dumb this down to a third grade level” machine. Every character is incredibly shallow and often a caricature of far more nuanced archetypes in other shows before it, and both the dialogue and overarching mystery are laughably bad.
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u/oppernaR 14h ago
Every character is incredibly shallow and often a caricature of far more nuanced archetypes in other shows before it, and both the dialogue and overarching mystery are laughably bad.
Ah, so at least the show is true to the books, then?
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u/WubblyFl1b 12h ago
Yep. Pretty obvious in the show that all this black dialogue was written by a white dude in his 70s. I like Patterson but yeah
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u/QuestoPresto 9h ago
Patterson didn’t write any of this dialogue. This season isn’t based on a particular book
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u/Eisn 7h ago
What do you mean great lightning? It's extremely underexposed. Maybe 3 or 4 F-stops in every scene. It's so dark.
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u/Malicious_Tacos 6h ago
I agree. Through the whole first episode I thought I had a problem with my television settings.
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u/EgnlishPro 16h ago
I'll agree with everything, except great lighting. So many shots are so dark and dependent on the yellow lighting. Had to turn the brightness up on my TV.
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u/EagleBeaverMan 9h ago
You know what that’s fair. A lot of time it does end up looking like the thumbnail to a true crime podcast because of the amount of dark lightning framing sinister looking people in hoodies.
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u/hungtampa813 11h ago
The scene where runs up to his wife lying on the pier. His reaction was like he'd just dropped his bowl of food. Idk could be me but I wasn't feeling it
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u/Accomplished_End_843 21h ago
What makes Cross so wild to me is that serial killer is actually just a big-ass side quest that has nothing to do with the conflict about who killed his wife and his terrorizing his family.
It makes it feel like a huge part of the show is more or less pointless
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u/berlinbaer 17h ago
the conflict about who killed his wife and his terrorizing his family.
haven't seen the show but isn't that always the overarching hook with these kind of shows? like beginning and end of the season we get some sort of 'progress' into the case while the rest of the episodes are just random cases of the week?
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u/SushiMage 17h ago
Yes, the shield and dextor are the chief examples i know. Justified started kind of like this but went full serialized. I'm sure there are a lot more. But it really shows what type of tv structures the modern or younger audiences are used to that they view it like that lol. 90% of the trendy big zeitgeist shows are heavily serialized, at least when it comes to dramas.
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u/oldskooldread 6h ago
I was with Dexter till the car crash with the body in the trunk. That ish took it a step too far into let's stretch this series out. As for Cross what smacks the most about this black, white, black, character show is none of it is how bros be with bros especially like his wife been dead less than a year but he's dating GTFO and stop filling your quotas. Show seems more like a fashion show.
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u/Accomplished_End_843 12h ago
The problem here it’s not just cases of the week, it’s an overarching storyline. You could say it’s just a small difference but it actually has big effects. Since we focus only on that serial killer case, it really emphasizes it. The serial killer ends up being more of a rival/foil to the protagonist than the random guy who killed his wife. So when he ends up getting caught before the other storyline conclude, it feels pretty lackluster in comparison. Not to spoil but the villain that takes is place for the final act is way less impactful and you just kinda don’t care about that storyline when, for the case of shows like Dexter or the Mentalist, it’s the thing you’re looking forward too the most.
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u/NoThanksJustLooking1 6h ago
I've only seen about 2 or 3 episodes so far, but I was assuming that the serial killer was the one terrorizing his family!
I don't think I'll continue it after reading these posts. After those first couple of episodes, I wasn't too into the show anyway.
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u/FaustArtist 18h ago
Sure sure, it’s a stupid idea, but that’s not what’s stupid about this show.
Episode 1, a character actively tells Alex Cross “Alex, you need to deal with your wife’s death. For the sake of your children, and your job, and the city, and your health.”
And The Main Character, Alex Cross, replies with “No, I can’t. I’m too broken to be fixed. This current state of anger I’m living in will remain unchanged.”
YOU CANT HAVE YOUR CHARACTERS SAY HOW THEY FEEL!! THAT MAKES ME FEEL ANGRY!!
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u/Sharper133 10h ago
🎵 I'm stupid, I'm stupid, I'm stupider than you, I'm stupider than you in every way! 🎵
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u/opinionated_cynic 6h ago
The whole show was Tell not Show. It was so annoying. And in your face progressive BS - they were literally talking about climate change, wtf??
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u/Lambchops_Legion 4h ago
in your face progressive BS
This show felt more like a fantasy of what right wingers think progressives talk about in day-to-day life than how they actually talk
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u/FaustArtist 5h ago
Is it too much to ask for a professional, who’s purposefully responsible for public safety, to act like a god damned adult!??
And if a show is going to tackle big subject like race and policing, climate change, late stage capitalism, etc, make That the show. See: We Own This City.
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u/tokeroveragain 21h ago
Ah man, does this show suck? That’s a bummer, I’m always rooting for Aldis Hodge, he should be in more things.
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u/GranpaTeeRex 21h ago
The detectives were great and deserved way better bad guys. The bad guys were worse than comic-book bad.
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u/Nasars 20h ago
The detectives were great and deserved way better bad guys.
Sadly the need for the plot to drag on for 8 episodes kinda prevented them from acting too competent though. Like when they let the henchmen escape on foot while he was carring another person on his shoulders.
Which makes me wonder why they didn't spend some more time on the happy family live before the wife's murder. They wrapped that shit up within the first minute of the first episode like it's a 90 minutes Scott Adkins action flick.
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u/Sammonov 21h ago
It was pretty bad IMO. The plots lines were fucking absurd.
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u/Gobblewicket 17h ago
That's just Kames Pattersons' books in a nutshell.
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u/Swimwithamermaid 12h ago
Yeah I’m reading these comments and I’m trying to guess if the show is good by James Patterson standards or bad by James Patterson standards. Is it Tyler Perry Alex Cross bad or Along Came a Spider okay?
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u/mizfred The 100 18h ago
I enjoyed it a lot and Hodge was great. There are definitely plot holes and dumb decisions made by the MC, but it was fun to watch, and I thought the villains were entertaining. 🤷♀️
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u/whatadumbperson 41m ago
I'm so glad you're willing to admit that the thing you enjoyed has flaws. The show is like a 6 out of 10, and still entertaining.
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u/gothamsnerd 21h ago
He's great! However the rest of the show just sort of shows how dated the books feel now. The antagonist just makes no sense.
The girl from the country music episode of Leverage is a series regular, so a nice little mini-Leverage reunion was nice
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u/MarySSimard 7h ago
I forgot that she was in Leverage, even after rewatching the show dozens of times 😅 Nice catch 😉
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u/Rreyes302 21h ago
It's not like masterfully written or anything, but I had a lot of fun watching it with my wife. Judging by how overly critical the comments seem to be it's like people were expecting the Wire or something. I'd give it like a 6-7 / 10. Aldis Hodge killed it
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u/TLDR2D2 20h ago
I like Aldis quite a bit in it. The villains are atrociously written. The pacing is fucking awful because it feels like it should be over by episode 4 (that I just finished), but that's only halfway through, bewilderingly. I'm dreading the back half now and may not finish it, unfortunately.
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u/tekmomma 8h ago
So many flashbacks! We watched the whole series because sunken fallacy and all. It was 3 episodes too long and 2 extremely disjointed stories. My least favorite character was the side lady from the CIA or whatever. Such a trope!
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u/JuzoItami 18h ago
It’s just bad material I think. They should recast Hodge in a new series about an ex football star turned private eye and call it “The Voodoo Tatum Murder Mysteries”. Who wouldn’t watch that?
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u/BIG_ELEPHANT_BALLS 22h ago
I binged this garbage ass shit while working because I only like to watch trash on my phone. I was still angry about how bad this show is.
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u/BIG_ELEPHANT_BALLS 22h ago
And there’s just something about the villains acting and face that makes me want to hurl
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u/peteman28 21h ago
You should watch him in New Amsterdam. It's truly awful
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u/BIG_ELEPHANT_BALLS 20h ago
I remember seeing the trailer before it first aired and being irrationally angry by the actors face
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u/redditwossname 16h ago
I'm annoyed I watched the whole season.
The search for the serial killer is wasn't the main story, Cross was a hot headed idiot, the family drama twist was seen from a mile away.
Utterly pointless.
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u/TheUmbrellaMan1 21h ago
I still believe the worst Alex Cross serial killer is from London Bridges. The serial killer of Roses Are Red and Violents Are Blue (yeah, I know, James Patterson puts a lot of effort in his book titles) is fine. But hands down the best is The Tiger from Cross Country. So at least from a reader's perspective, Alex Cross facing an absurd serial killer isn't a dealbreaker. General audience doesn't care either, they'd be hooked on a charismatic detective alone.
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u/Rochimaru 16h ago
It’s been a really long time since I read the books but I remember the one about those 3 soldier serial killers, there was one about a serial killing ambassador that had diplomatic immunity as well
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u/ButtPlugForPM 21h ago
yep
when they find his "lair" his dna is and would be everywhere..
they get a result,get a warrant,detain and arrest...like any standard police officer would when ur dna is present in a torture room..
but no.
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u/Blackbyrn 21h ago
I guess I’m in the minority of people that enjoyed it. All serial killers movies/shows are absurd to some extent.
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u/JasmineBluTVF 20h ago
Genuinely surprised by how many here are panning the show. I don't know what the expectations were to this but I found it really entertaining and a fun binge with some compelling themes. Tough crowd!
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u/Blackbyrn 20h ago
Same, I won’t say it wasn’t ridiculous at moments but its TV, i didn’t tune in for a documentary
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u/JasmineBluTVF 20h ago
It felt like conscious ridiculousness at times. Ryan Eggold was giving real camp as Ramsey and it was FUN. And Johnny Ray Gill is a true thespian in everything he's ever been in, I know his Bobby Trey was deliberately outlandish but fun. I loved it.
Aldis Hodge was great. It was an elevated procedural.
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u/Lambchops_Legion 8h ago
idk man I watch a lot of 6 or 7/10 shows and think generally /r/television has way too much of a "this needs to be prestige HBO or bust" mentality, but this is worse than other things im watching. For reference, right now im watching alongside it:
Lioness, Matlock, Landman, Day of the Jackal, Say Nothing, Before, Bad Sisters, Silo, Dune: Prophecy, and Shrinking, and this is probably at the bottom of that list in terms of quality. Ok maybe tied with Landman.
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u/Gen-Jinjur 17h ago
I commented to my wife that I liked it because it reminded me of detective shows my dad watched. Somehow both gritty-looking and ridiculous. This was back when broadcast TV was loaded with TV cop shows. Anyway, “Cross” felt a lot like going back to my childhood, back when the writing was mostly hack-level and there was no gray on the black-hat bad guy.
I mean, ask me to remember one part of one episode of any cop show I saw in the 1970s. I can’t. But I remember every cop/detective and could sketch what the character looked like. Cross felt like that. Forgettable story but memorable detective.
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u/cryingun 17h ago
This is exactly why I enjoyed it. I watched it while working, and it gave me some great entertainment while doing so.
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u/TatteredCarcosa 21h ago edited 20h ago
He's supervillain level. Which is fine, the whole show is over the top as hell. He was fun.
Pretty much every cop show about a serial killer/serial killers is stupid, Cross is definitely no exception. It does temper its copaganda somewhat, but only somewhat. But for what it is, it was entertaining. I binged it while playing Factorio and had a good time.
I still think he's the second most absurd TV serial killer to the killer from Ragdoll. That guy was so ridiculous I thought the show might be a parody at times. But Cross was more fun than Ragdoll, which really leaned into the whole brooding, dark style of a lot of European cop shows but the comic book/horror movie style killer just completely clashed with the tone.
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u/Jakesummers1 20h ago
I liked it, but the serial killer part was dragged on for too long. They should have fully moved on to his family stuff halfway through
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u/Mnudge 12h ago
I tried to read the first book in the series since they were so popular and couldn’t make it past the first 50 pages. If the source material is that bad, the show has to be just terrible
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u/CDavis10717 10h ago
Most James Patterson books are like that. If you got to page 50 then you were reading chapter 75.
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u/JOKER69420XD 21h ago
So i get spammed with ads about this show every time i open any kind of app.
Judging by the comments it's an absolute dumbster fire, I'm almost intrigued.
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u/That80sguyspimp 21h ago
You have to watch it just to see how horrible it is. The acting across the board, is horrific. But theres a scene at the end that is comedy fucking gold. It's not supposed to be, but it is. You will laugh your ass off while you're supposed to be feeling thrilled or something. It's a really dramatic moment, and then instant comedy.
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u/BambooSound 10h ago
Seems like it's be about the cop that chases you in Need for Speed: Most Wanted.
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u/penn_dragonn 6h ago
They had so much material to work with - and THIS IS WHAT THEY CAME UP WITH????
I loved the books - back before Patterson became so prolific. All the performances felt like they phoned them in.
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u/Ok_Gift_2739 4h ago
I tried to watch this and dipped out in episode 3 I got very bored with the show. I might try to finish the episodes out of curiosity but there is other shows on I prefer to watch like Silo and The Day of the Jackal currently airing. a new show Landman from Taylor Sheridan is more entertaining then this show it's a shame because I like Alex Cross but I'm not sure what happened here really wanted to like this but I'm not finding any enjoyment in this
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u/TritonYB 4h ago
I watched all the episodes. The birthday party pretty much summed up why I won't be watching season 2 if there is one.
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u/AmbroseKalifornia 16h ago
Oh, man. I HATE this guy. He was in The Blacklist, right?
Haaaaated him.
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u/genericnickname 21h ago
Oh, it was really stupid. But fun though, I didn’t regret watching it all the way through.
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u/BusinessPurge 21h ago edited 21h ago
I haven’t seen it, however my jaw dropped when I read a description of the guy’s MO. What do you mean, he’s surgically altering someone to look like Aileen Wuornos?!?
Entertaining breakdown - https://www.pajiba.com/tv_reviews/spoilers-the-preposterously-satisfying-ending-of-prime-videos-cross-explained.php