While the previous episode of “Surface” had completely left out police officer Thomas Baden from the picture as James told Sophie what their real past was, episode 7 centers mostly around the undercover policeman and his fate. Possibly one of the weakest episodes of the series, Episode 7 feels like a drag at most times, as it strives to create drama instead of mystery and suspense. As Sophie struggles to make up her mind regarding which side to choose, since both James and Baden now tell her contradictory things (as expected), the intended drama has very little effect.
Spoilers Ahead
‘Surface’ Episode 7: Recap And Ending
After getting to know the truth about who she was from James, Sophie seems to be on a mission to mend her relationships. At the beginning of the episode, she visits her therapist, Hannah, and then, later on, she meets up with Caroline to speak with her after quite a few episodes. At Hannah’s office, Sophie apologizes for having been rude to her earlier and admits that she might have just as well jumped into the water of her own accord. The therapist once again advises that she should try to accept this idea instead of chasing wild theories about her being pushed. Sophie then meets with Baden and asks him to delay their plan of submitting the incriminating evidence against James. Although Baden insists that Sophie should not really trust whatever she has learned about her past because James has said all of it to her, he agrees to hold off for twenty-four hours before submitting the documents to the Financial Crimes unit.
After Sophie returns home, though, James tells her that the SFPD has already asked to interview him because someone had tipped them off about the internal investigation that was ongoing at his firm. The husband now asks her whether Baden had something to do with this tip, as he doubted it was he who had worked against him to remove him from the way. Sophie tells him about how, indeed, it was Baden who was unofficially investigating him on the charges of suspected murder, and she shows him the burner phone she used to keep in touch with him. James still seems to support his wife, saying that they would be alright, and asks her to withdraw all the money that he had transferred to her bank account before her accident.
Sophie visits the bank, introducing herself as Tess Caldwell, and asks to remove the entire $3.1 million from the account, and tries to convince the bank worker that she is unable to produce any passport or official documents because all of that has been stolen from her house recently. The worker asks her a personal question about her past, which was a safety question, in order to confirm her identity, but Sophie fails to answer it correctly. While the worker goes away to talk to her supervisor, Sophie walks away from the bank with no issues, as if a bank would treat a person faking their identity with no doubtful concern at all. She next goes to meet with Caroline, who tries to comfort her when she expresses her feelings after getting to know the real truth about herself.
After returning home, James tells Sophie that the investigation into them was more serious than he initially thought it to be, and the woman now wants to go over to Baden’s house and convince him to destroy all the evidence. Despite James not wanting her to do so, claiming that she might get into danger trying to do it, Sophie is confident in the fact that the police officer did all he did out of love for her, and she decides to try her luck. At his house, Sophie tells Baden how it was she who had stolen the money and how James was only trying to hide her actions, but the man is not convinced as he insists that she should not trust James. He says that he knew Sophie was in a broken marriage when they had met and that James’ account of his and Sophie’s past was only a perfect picture of love and affection that he was trying to paint in her mind. He then finally admits that it is too late now to destroy the evidence, as Financial Crimes knew he was working against James and would easily take him down if they got a whiff that he was trying to stop the investigation. Instead, Baden’s solution to this crisis is to go away from the city and try to hide away from the world, and he asks Sophie to come along with him. He says that if they disappeared together, then it would be easy for him to destroy all the evidence, but she does not agree to it.
On the other side, James had told Harrison of his predicament, and it was the best friend who found out that the snitch in their office was the IT worker, Todd. The two confront Todd on the terrace of their office that day, and Harrison instantly recognizes the name Baden when he hears James say it. He does not say anything to his friend at that moment, though, and it is only later that evening that he tells James who Baden really is. As Sophie leaves Baden’s apartment, she is picked up by her husband, who now reveals Baden’s real identity—after she and James had met and got married, Harrison always wanted to check her background, and he hired the police officer, who worked as a private detective during his free time, to follow Sophie and find out who she really was. In essence, Baden had been paid to stalk her and gather information on her, and that was how he had met her and started a romance with her. Sophie has trouble sleeping that night, and when she revisits the intimate video of her and Baden on her iPad, she probably gets the feeling that she had wanted to see their relationship as something casual only for the time being while Baden imagined a shared future. She then drives over to a train station to meet Baden and confronts him about how they had met. Baden admits that he had been paid to follow her, but he had found her to be a person alone and lost in the world just like himself and had therefore developed feelings for her quickly. Sophie also confronts him about not telling her the truth for all this time and also about blackmailing her into going away with him in order to destroy the evidence against James. She finally leaves the place, blackmailing James herself, saying that if he does not destroy all the evidence and leave their lives, then she will tell the police and press about his illegal methods of investigation and how he had trapped her in his life.
How Had Sophie Fallen Into The Water? What Is The Next Repercussion Of The Incident?
On returning home from the train station, Sophie finds James awake and waiting for her. She admits going to meet Baden again, and when James tries to understand why she trusted the police officer, who was really just a hired detective, so much, Sophie comes clean to him. She says that she found Baden relatable because he was the only one who told her a story that answered a burning question in her mind. She admits that she always had the belief after her accident that someone must have pushed her into the water, and Baden’s theory of James pushing her fit her idea very well. Shockingly, James now says that he, too, had always believed that his wife had been pushed into the water by some perpetrator, for he believed Sophie was never someone to kill herself. But nobody had believed his theory after her accident, and he had therefore not spoken of it to Sophie. James now proposes that it was most probably Baden who had committed the crime and then had tried to cover it up when Sophie survived by feeding her the false story of James doing it. While Sophie is shocked to think of such a possibility, James seems to take her silence as her agreement with the theory. James is then seen leaving a voicemail on Baden’s phone, a rather threatening one, telling him to never come close to her again.
Some time seems to have passed, and James returns home to Sophie, who once again seems lost in her deep thoughts. He tells her that every problem is now over as they have taken care of Baden and that he would never try to harm her ever again. It seems that the police officer did destroy all the evidence, and nothing incriminating was found against James. The husband insists that they should now start living their normal lives again, and he takes Sophie out for dinner that evening. Once Sophie excuses herself from the table and walks towards the restrooms, she is intercepted by Baden, whose face clearly shows that he has been thrashed up recently. He says that the people he was working with undercover realized that he was a cop and had tried to kill him, and he had barely escaped. Baden now admits that he had hidden the truth from Sophie all this while, but he had never wanted to hurt her, and he then hands her a USB stick. James intervenes at this moment, and he throws punches at Baden, and the restaurant workers have to stop him. During their ride home, Sophie asks James whether he had anything to do with the injuries on Baden’s face, but the husband avoids answering the question directly. Later that night, Sophie checks out the USB stick she had been given, and it contains a video from a different boat of the time when Sophie had fallen into the water. From the video, it is very evident that she had herself jumped into the sea, and there was nobody around to push her. With shock and disbelief, she instantly drives to Baden’s house and finds the place wrecked apart. It is she who then finds Baden dead and calls the police. As authorities believe it was the gang with which Baden was working undercover that killed him, James drives Sophie home.
She seems to have doubts that it was really James who had ordered the hit on Baden, and she now tells him of the video that she had found of herself jumping into the water. For a moment, James is shocked too, and he says how he thought Sophie agreed with him when he proposed the theory that Baden had pushed her. This further hints that it was indeed James who had killed the man. Finally, James tries to tell his wife that Baden could have very well tried something like that, even if he hadn’t actually done it, and he consoles her by saying that they had done nothing wrong. Perhaps James’ character really did not need a second chance to kill off Baden, and he made use of the opportunity. By now, “Surface” seems to just try and stretch itself unnecessarily, and it might arguably be rather disappointing if Sophie had indeed just jumped in. It seems like that is the case, though, and “Surface” really tries to stress drama more than mystery, which works terribly for the show.
What To Expect Next From Finale Of ‘Surface’ Season 1?
With next week’s release, “Surface” season 1 will come to a close and will finally present the entire picture in front of our eyes. For now, it seems that Sophie has indeed jumped into the water to either kill herself or somehow carve an escape from her situation. Also, at present, it seems most likely that James had Baden killed because he believed the cop was responsible for his wife’s accident. These two are probably the biggest questions the show is dealing with right now, and what resolution is reached with regards to them is to be seen. Sophie is also gradually coming to the realization that no matter what her history with either of the two men was like before her accident, both of them had tried to make use of her memory loss to make her believe versions of the story that were most convenient for them. Lastly, what Baden had discovered about Sophie’s past has still not been revealed, and perhaps that is what “Surface” will use to round its plot up.
