The Final Push
Episode 8 of Surface starts with Sophie running. It’s been several weeks since Baden’s murder, and she makes her way to Baden’s empty apartment, struggling to hold back tears as the memories of the past taunt her mind. She continues running, making it back home where James is chatting to Inspector Seager from SFPD. He’s there about Baden, and specifically the fight that happened earlier in the night. Sophie brings up the affair, but the officer is already aware of this. In fact, he decides to question Sophie alone at the dining table. It turns out Seager has also been investigating and believes the jump could well have been deliberate and she may have been “waiting for the right moment and place.” Just before he leaves, he hands over his card to Sophie, encouraging her to ring and urging her to go back to the beginning and look deeper into this as there could well be more to the story than meets the eye. James confronts Harrison about what’s been going on and urges him to stop getting involved as he only makes things worse. It would appear that he could be involved in Baden’s murder but we’ll have to wait and see on that account. As for Sophie, she has a bath and submerges herself under the water. It doesn’t seem to work – at least not on the surface (no pun intended.) Although on a side note that dripping tap is very annoying. Sophie decides to throw some of her things away, failing to see their emotional significance and wanting to get rid of extra stuff she doesn’t need. Sophie urges James to stand by her side through this, believing they can come out of this stronger together. Back at therapy, Hannah is pleased with Sophie’s progress. Hannah admits this case was uncharted territory for her and wasn’t sure it would even work. But it would seem like it has and after thanking Hannah, Sophie leaves. That night, a big work do gets underway and Sophie ends up giving a scathing assessment of Harrison. His smug demeanour and believing he’s a good guy; one of these days James will see him for who he really is. Harrison’s smile disappears completely upon hearing this. Sophie’s happiness appears to be a front as she drives her car over to the bridge later that day and goes for another run. The next scene, we cut to James who receives a call from the police. Sophie’s things have been found and James is forced to answer honestly about Sophie’s history of suicide. It would seem like it’s happening again but we’ll have to wait and see if this is really true. Back home, a note is left for James. Opening it up, Sophie blames him for Baden’s death and confirms they can’t come back from that. She’s decided to do what she should have done before. Caroline shows up to comfort James in the morning, pointing out she’s done this before and she could come back. Not only that, but Hannah too believes Sophie may have committed suicide given she exhibited all the signs before leaving; telling people the truth, being overly happy etc. Off the back of this, James struggles to get his life back in order. Harrison confronts James about Sophie’s behaviour but James bites back, venomously pointing out that he pulled the trigger and killed Baden, as well as messing up his marriage. James took the fall for him as he didn’t want Harrison to go to jail for life, knowing that Sophie would protect him and not his colleague. Back home, James receives another bombshell reveal. It turns out the $3.1 million in that account was actually Caroline’s. James is rattled and shows up at the bank. There, he learns the account holding that money doesn’t exist. James realizes that Sophie may well have taken the money out and run. James manages to get into Sophie’s Apple account and notices a video from Sophie. She tells him nonchalantly that they’re not good for each other. “An innocent man died because of what you did” I mean innocent is doing a lot of heavy lifting here given he was stalking her, but I digress. Sophie believes James deserves all of this as he lied and changed their life when she woke up. Flashbacks reveal more of Sophie’s behaviour. It turns out she found a blue key with the word “terminus” on. This belonged to a storage warehouse just across the street. Heading there, she finds a single bag is on the floor. And that bag holds a phone, cash and one contact – Eliza Huntley. There’s also Tess’ passport too. It’s everything she needs to get away. We then return to James, who hears Sophie sign off with a goodbye and a “see you on the other side.” As for Sophie, she adopts her Tess persona and makes it back to the UK. James leaves her a message though, pointing out that he loves her and her past is a dangerous place to visit. And we end on a cliffhanger as a woman leaves a bar (presumably this Eliza Huntley character) and asks Tess just what she’s doing there.
The Episode Review
So after meandering our way through 8 episodes of a mystery-but-not-really-a-mystery, we’re baited the prospect of a second season where we explore more of Sophie/Tess’ past. My question is, why would we want to? Sophie has proven herself to be a pretty horrible protagonist. Now, don’t get me wrong James, Caroline and Harrison aren’t exactly squeaky clean either but this is our protagonist we’re talking about, the person we’re supposed to rally behind. Episode 6 went some way to try and lift any ill will against Sophie, showing her confronting the past and her manipulative ways, including her affair and constant lies to try and push James’ career forward, even though he wasn’t exactly onboard with this to begin with. Then we end with Sophie deciding James deserves everything he has coming for him, punishing the guy over her mistakes regarding work and, more importantly, the fact he had nothing to do with her jumping. This whole hook ended up being a switch and bait as in the end, it turns into more of a whydunit rather than a whodunit. Whether Apple will actually greenlight a sequel to this one or not remains to be seen but given the tepid reaction from both critics and audiences to this, I’m failing to see the need for it to be honest. Either way, we wrap up most of the big plot points but also leave a lot of unanswered questions too. As far as finales go, this one was average at best.
