[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Cross Season 2 Episode 4.]
The second season of Cross plays with the audience’s perception of what makes a villain by presenting two very different kinds of outlaws. One is systemic, a calculating force that manipulates corporate and political structures to exploit the vulnerable while remaining untouchable and respectable. The other is personal and visceral, driven by grief and rage, willing to shed blood in the name of justice.
Alex Cross (Aldis Hodge) knows he has a malefactor he needs to nab, but the audience is in the midst of a moral dilemma, not knowing who to root for.
The plot becomes more complicated as we get to know our antagonist, Rebecca Matthews, a.k.a. Luz Perez (Jeanine Mason), an enigmatic figure on a mission to avenge her mother, Gabriela Porras, who was slaughtered by human traffickers, possibly men tied to Lance Duran (Matthew Lillard). Lincoln Esteban (Rene Moran) crosses her path while secretly hunting the same network and pursuing a similar goal to free victims of human trafficking and to punish the evil people who use and destroy women and children for a lower profit margin. Along the way, he grows to adore Luz, to revere her strength, and ultimately, falls in love with her.
Prime Video
Together, they form a powerful bond that quickly turns romantic. As Luz hides Esteban away in a high-end casino with promises of a new identity and safe passage, their connection deepens. Esteban recognizes Luz as a kindred spirit and understands the pain driving her, as she understands him. He believes in La Luz (“The Light”), a philosophy that “monsters” have stolen culture and history and must be answered with a reckoning. What begins as an alliance of purpose soon turns intimate; the two connect through shared grief, faith, and fury. They quickly give in to their passions and fall into each other’s arms.
Unfortunately, Esteban is not as careful as Luz, and as a result, Cross and his people soon locate Luz and Esteban. He has become a liability to Luz, and though she has developed deep feelings for him in a short amount of time, his existence puts her, her plan, and all those she means to save, in danger. In her mind, there is no other choice but to eliminate him.
But Esteban is aware of this, and he understands Luz. When the moment arrives, Esteban, realizing how much he loves her and her cause, offers to take his own life so she can finish her work. When Alex and the authorities find him, they will regard his death as a suicide and not tie it to her. The act becomes a tragic declaration: devotion expressed through violence.
Their love is brief, tender, and impossible — two wounded believers finding solace in each other, even for a short while. Luz ultimately chooses the crusade over the man, and Esteban becomes another sacrifice to the cause, proving that in this story, even love is consumed by vengeance.
TV Insider had the opportunity to talk to actress Jeanine Mason about the episode, her relationship with Esteban, and the heartbreaking choice her character felt compelled to make.
“I think it was such a beautiful episode and positioned so gorgeously in the season,” she said. “I think when you meet Luz/Rebecca, you see a dead woman walking. She’s just so committed to [the idea of], ‘I’m not coming out of this alive. I’m going to lay my life on the line in this pursuit.'”
“And he, for a second, brings her out of that sort of mission and allows her to just be a woman for a moment, who’s never been loved and who has such tenderness for somebody who has had a similar experience to her,” said Mason of the doomed love affair. “That she has to snap back into the mission at the end of that episode, it was so heartbreaking. It was such a hard scene to do!”
Mason explained she couldn’t have captured the intensity of the moment without her scene partner, Rene Moran.
“I loved Rene. He’s such a beautiful actor, and also sort of brought that kind of conviction behind the eyes, that of what they believe in, and the mission being bigger than allowing themselves any sort of fleeting joy in their lives,” said Mason. “It was a really devastating love story.”
Cross, Season 2, Wednesdays, Prime Video
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