Noughts + Crosses Episode 3 Review

The third episode of Noughts + Crosses sees tensions, both personal and social, increase as Callum and  Sephy decide what to do next.

Within Albion, the government has allowed the first sanctioned the Midsummer festival, a popular Nought event. Despite this moment of progress, there are forces within both communities who want to disrupt the festivities, leading to an unholy alliance between the Home Secretary Kamal Hadley (Paterson Joseph) and Liberation Militia leader Jack Dorn (Shaun Dingwall).

Noughts + Crosses is clear with its intentions: it’s a societal role reversal. African people are the colonisers and Europeans are the colonised and the show has fun with the premise. In the world of Noughts + Crosses, Britain was conquered 700 years ago, so the traditions the Noughts celebrate are from that time. The celebration was cross between the May Day festivals in The Wicker Man and the Notting Hill carnival. I found it assuming when the Home Secretary ‘Noughts get to eat their roast beef in peace.’

The cultural role reversal offers up a bit of social commentary about the education system. Before the pre-title sequence, Sephy’s (Masali Baduza) history lecturer talks about England being a land of civil war and disease before the Africans arrived. He was pretty much saying the Crosses were doing the Noughts a favour, similar to how some people justify Western empires. Sephy calls her teacher on this by stating that Noughts are not better off and argues that Noughts are driven to violence. She pretty much defended this world’s version of the IRA or Al-Qaeda.

The meat of the episode was Callum’s personal and professional struggles. Lekan (Jonathan Ajayi) becomes even demanded to drive Callum out of the army due to his suspicions about Callum’s friendship with Sephy. Lekan even tells Callum of his intentions. Whilst at home Callum has to be the main breadwinner and gets nothing by hostility from his brother, Jude (Josh Dylan) who has fallen under the influence of Dorn. Both these storylines collide when Callum has to monitor the festival and leads to the unthinkable.

An interesting aspect of the army storyline was the role of the Sergeant Major (Nathaniel Ramabulana). In the past episodes, he was a typical drill sergeant who yells, shouts insults and riles up Callum. He has no problem using the racist term of this world. But when Callum and Elaine (Jodie Tyack), are ordered to go monitor the festival the Sergeant Major shows he cares about their welfare. He realises that Lekan was putting the Noughts cadets in harm’s way and their presence would anger the Nought festival-goers. When the Sergeant Major speaks to Callum after a major incident he shows he has a softer side.

Jude has fallen into political extremism and taken under the wing of Dorn. Dorn plans to use the young man for terrorism, leading to Ryan McGregor (Ian Hart) to rejoin the LM to protect his son. Although Dorn has been portrayed as a villain he showed loyalty to Ryan when he tells Jude not to slag off his father. It reminded me of a little moment in X-Men: The Last Stand when Magneto told Pyro off for criticising Charles Xavier.

The other storyline in the episode involved Meggie’s (Helen Baxendale) position within the Hadley household. Jasmine (Bonnie Mbuli) had fallen into a depression and starts to drink, leading Meggie to get involved with the family affairs because she knows their secrets. But she ultimately pays for this. Meggie is also shown to be fairly smart: through the acting, editing, and direction she was able to put two and two together and figure out what Callum and Sephy were up to. Meggie wasn’t surprised when she caught them together.

Callum and Sephy were able to take their relationship to the next level in this episode. They also discuss what their future can be and propose going to Africa where the people are more tolerated. It adds a little bit more to the world-building and leads to the question that Africa has a near-mystical status and questions that it might not be as enlightened as the characters believe it is.

The strength of this episode was the focus on Callum’s struggles and the growing political tensions and it shows that the mix both a personal story and the wider social issues.