Sullivan’s Crossing Season Finale Review: “Sins of the Father”
Sullivan’s Crossing’s first season has come to an end, yet not in the way viewers may have hoped. The throughline of the episode appeared to be not repeating mistakes of the past, whether that be the character’s own, or of those around them.
Maggie played that theme on both fronts. With her malpractice trial, she had to face Mrs. Markiff once again and her own past mistake. Whether she made any professional mistakes, that’s difficult to say. I went back to the first episode, because I had been sure she had checked the Markiff boy’s eyes for brain damage. The show is so good at the small details, because I found that there was no clear certainty of whether she checked his eyes or not. She took out the flashlight, yet the young man was squeezing his eyes shut and pulling away, and they showed that from the nurse’s perspective, whose view was blocked. That’s what a lot of the show has been about, skewed perspective and perception. To Mrs. Markiff, Maggie was cold and rude. To my eyes, she was in the middle of trying to save the other boy’s life and, as far as she knew, Mrs. Markiff’s son was okay. The mistake, I think, came afterward. The proper legal thing to do is to not have any contact with your prosecutor, yet is that the proper human thing? Maggie did try to reach out, yet at the time I think she would have been trying to prove to the woman she did nothing wrong, instead of recognizing her pain and empathizing with her. Her self healing journey within Sullivan’s Crossing has allowed her to reconnect with her emotions and truly see other people. That led her to be willing to sacrifice her entire career to have Mrs. Markiff know that she really saw her. That was all Mrs. Markiff really wanted. She thought Maggie was someone who didn’t care about her patients and didn’t want someone like that continuing in the field. Yet Maggie’s act showed true compassion and Mrs. Markiff dropped the charges against her.
All’s well that ends well! Not. Maggie returned to Sullivan’s Crossing to find Cal gone without a word and discovers she’s pregnant, leading to a confrontation with Sully that ends with her leaving once again. I get that Maggie doesn’t want the mistakes that affected her childhood to be repeated with a child of her own. Yet I think she’s taking the wrong lesson here. Her mother was right to not stay in an unhappy marriage with Sully just to keep their family together. The mistake was that of all the parents, keeping Sully away and him not fighting. Maggie does not love Andrew and her potentially going back to him to be together for the sake of the child is not going to lead to happiness for any of them.
Watching Sully once again hold back when talking to Maggie and then letting her leave again, I thought he was repeating his past mistakes, yet with the reveal that he did go after her, I have a new theory. Perhaps Sully has continuously let her go because he views his past mistakes as getting so emotionally involved that he loses control and other people get hurt, with what happened with Lola and earlier in the season when he lost control and punched Walter. Either way, his suppressed emotions are overwhelming him and have now caused him to collapse to the floor as part of the season’s cliffhanger in the last few moments of the episode.
Meanwhile, the other character’s storylines echo the theme of the first episode, with how close are you willing to let others get to you? Sydney’s afraid she’s getting too emotionally involved and moves out. Cal, on the other hand is ready to let go of his wife, yet wonders whether he can find that kind of love again.
Written by showrunner Roma Roth and directed by Jerry Ciccoritti, the finale delivered with the emotion, yet faltered in some of the structure and pacing. The episode had a feeling of being disjointed, as though the events in Sullivan’s Crossing and the ones in Boston took place in two separate episodes. There was a disconnect there, with the scenes before the trial wrapping up storylines from the previous episode, with those characters then not appearing afterward. The trial sandwiched in the middle again just was so separate from everything else and concluded too quickly, in my opinion. Then there was the pregnancy reveal that, while I expected that would happen following episode six, the placement of the scene felt kind of random.
Another issue I had was that a couple character’s actions felt disconnected from what had happened earlier. Lola and Maggie had just had their heart to heart in the previous episode, so Lola hiding the letter didn’t feel genuine. Had they not had that talk, I think that would be in line with where Lola was at, yet after their talk I do not. Andrew as well. Apart from punching Cal, he had finally spoken up about how she didn’t love him and he decided he was out. Yet now he’s waiting for her again? With her possibly going back to him, and we know that won’t last, poor guy is going to have whiplash.
Speaking of whiplash, Maggie leaving Sullivan’s Crossing is starting to get repetitive. And obviously she’ll have to come back, otherwise there wouldn’t be a show, or they’d have to change the name!
All the scenes were good, yet I just think the structuring of them could have used some work. Perhaps having Maggie go back to Boston at the end of the previous episode would have at least cut down on the back and forth of everything.
The acting was first class, with the standout scene being the final one between Maggie and Sully, the distance between them so great. Morgan Kohan brought such a desperation to her words as Maggie tried to get answers from Sully she had been seeking all those years. Honestly, watching the chemistry between the cast with her as the lead has been the best part of the show, in my humble opinion. I’m so excited to see them all again in Season Two!
While the finale brought some conclusion, the episode faltered with the disjointed nature and pacing issues (and perhaps my own bias wanting everyone to be happy!). I give the episode 6 out of 10 pine trees.
Give our interviews with Morgan Kohan and Scott Patterson a read, with the two actors reflecting on the finale and hinting at Season Two!
