Spoilers: The Preposterously Satisfying Ending of Prime Video's 'Cross' Explained

Literally, the first thing my teenage kid asked me this morning was, “Why are there suddenly so many mystery shows on television?” I responded: Actually, this is the way it used to be. Television was once dominated by cops and lawyers, and it feels like we’re circling back to that — not just with the usual array of CBS procedurals, but with new entries like High Potential, Elsbeth, and Matlock.

Still, I think the cream of the crop in this genre remains Michael Connelly’s series: Lincoln Lawyer and the Bosch universe—television adaptations of better-than-average airplane novels. As Jen wrote earlier this week, the first season of Cross is certainly part of the conversation now. Based on James Patterson’s character, the Prime Video series offers the meat-and-potatoes reliability of Bosch and Lincoln Lawyer, with a dash of social politics to give it heft. Aldis Hodge and Isaiah Mustafa shine, often lifting the mediocre writing.

That mediocrity is most evident in the season’s main villain, Ed Ramsay (New Amsterdam’s Ryan Eggold, sporting a bad blond dye job). Ramsay is a cartoonish antagonist: a “fanboy” serial killer, obsessed with other killers. His entire schtick involves kidnapping people who resemble his heroes, altering their appearance through plastic surgery, and recreating their deaths—right down to their last meals. Naturally, his final victim, Shannon (Eloise Mumford), was kidnapped and transformed into Aileen Wuornos, because serial killer shows can’t resist torturing women.

Eggold’s screen time in the first six episodes mostly involves Ramsay torturing Shannon, including chiseling out her teeth for dental reconstruction. To add insult to injury, Ramsay even orchestrates a bizarre reenactment of Wuornos’s botched execution, unbeknownst to Shannon.

Two major leads — the plastic surgeon who helped alter Shannon, and a detective mole aiding Ramsay — eventually guide Cross and his partner Sampson to Ramsay just in time. Ramsay’s requisite overlong villain monologue gives them the time they need to rescue Shannon (who ends up in a coma). Ramsay appears to take his own life via injection before Cross can arrest him.

But straight out of the paperback mystery playbook, Ramsay’s injection only slows his heart. Awakening in the morgue, he kills the medical examiner and later the police officer guarding Shannon’s hospital room. Cross, suspecting the “suicide” was too easy, is there to stop Ramsay just as he tries to kill Shannon.

In a final twist, Cross denies Ramsay the infamy he craves. During interrogation, Cross burns the book detailing Ramsay’s crimes and charges him with only one murder and one kidnapping, ensuring a life sentence but erasing Ramsay’s dream of being remembered as a notorious serial killer.

The Ramsey case wraps in the penultimate episode, leaving the finale to focus on a secondary villain: the person who murdered Cross’s wife, Maria, the year before. Throughout the season, this mysterious stalker had been tormenting Cross, determined to ruin his life. Unfortunately, the reveal falls flat. It turns out to be Miss Nancy (Karen Robinson), the kids’ kindly piano teacher, who had insinuated herself into Cross’s life under the guise of helpfulness.

When Cross needs a safe place for his kids (and girlfriend), Miss Nancy offers her remote cabin in the woods. Cross eventually pieces together that she’s the stalker and arrives at the cabin with Sampson just in time to save his kids.

Miss Nancy’s backstory involves her role as a “street mother” to two children, Peter (a Black man) and Dierdre (a white woman). Years earlier, Miss Nancy convinced Dierdre to take the fall for a murder Peter committed, believing Dierdre’s whiteness would secure leniency. Instead, Cross testified that Dierdre was a psychopath, leading to her life sentence. Dierdre later took her own life in prison, and Miss Nancy blamed Cross, though her response — killing his wife and trying to murder his children — was wildly disproportionate. But James Patterson villains rarely worry about proportionality.

Ultimately, both villains were admittedly lame, but that’s part of the charm with adaptations of pulpy detective novels. Audiences know exactly what they’re signing up for, just enough intrigue to scratch the part of our brain that loves solving puzzles without requiring us to think about it too much. With its preposterously satisfying endings, Cross fits the bill perfectly.