Surface Season 2, Episode 6, “Atonement” is the episode that the Apple TV+ show has been building to. It’s the one that fans have been anticipating, knowing that one way or another, Sophie Ellis would confront the Huntleys. They may not have guessed the season’s big plot twist, but every “upstairs, downstairs” story has that chapter where everyone’s on the same level. The problem is that everyone also comes out looking worse.

“Atonement” centers around Henry Huntley’s planned meeting with Sophie, now that he’s come clean to his children about their half-sibling. Of course, this dovetails with Quinn and Grace’s pre-wedding party for maximum scandal and embarrassment. The best parts of the episode, though, are the ones that happen away from the glitz and glamour, the ones that are the most real — because the truths this series deals with are more in back alleys than banquet rooms.

Surface Season 2, Episode 6 Features One Big Moment – And Avoids Another

Viewers Will Never See Henry’s Confession to Eliza

Surface Season 2, Episode 6 is called “Atonement” for a reason, and it features the scene in which Sophie gets to confront her father, Henry Huntley (played by Rupert Graves, whom audiences have likely already recognized from his work in the possibly not quite dead Sherlock). The show takes the roundabout way to get to this moment, though. Sophie and Henry’s first conversation happens over the phone, in which the two of them agree to an in-person meeting that evening. However, when Sophie arrives at the meeting place, she discovers that Henry has pawned him off on Richard, the Huntley family’s lawyer. It’s not until much later that Surface actually gets to the point.

This is one of the frustrating things about the episode. It’s understandable that the writers want to drag out the dramatic tension as long as they possibly can, and Henry sending Richard in his place is the last piece that Sophie needs to realize that the Huntleys see her more as a problem than a person. But from an audience point of view, the phone call and the Richard scene are just two extra hurdles making the wait even longer. At least when the moment finally happens, it’s worth it. Sophie says what she wants to say, and Henry gets to offer his explanation for Sophie’s abandonment and her mother’s death. He claims that Sophie’s mother was involved in a car accident, and apologizes for doing what his father told hm to do. Sophie, naturally, slams the apology as insincere — but there’s a later clue that suggests Henry might be telling the truth.

That clue is found by Eliza, who realizes that the car in one of her family photographs is the same car that was seen buried in the woods on the Huntley estate in Surface Season 2, Episode 5, “Daybreak.” If the Huntleys were indeed trying to cover up a car accident, it makes sense that they’d also hide the car itself. Eliza knows from her mom that Henry had given Sophie’s mother a car. And frankly, the idea of a tragic accident is more dramatically juicy than an out-and-out murder. An accident, even an obfuscated one, is much harder to cope with and process than just hating a specific someone. The person short-changed here is Eliza, because Surface moving forward means that Eliza’s whole conversation with her father — huge for her character — happened off-screen. Quinn got his on-screen argument, and so did Sophie, so why not Eliza?

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Surface Can’t Decide What It Wants With Sophie and James

Season 2, Episode 6 Is a Big Step Backward for the Ex-Couple

The biggest issue with “Atonement” is that the characters occasionally feel inconsistent with who they’ve been before. The biggest example of this is Sophie and James, who were already back-and-forth by the end of “Daybreak.” In Episode 6, Sophie is so upset at being blown off by her father that she calls James for comfort — and it’s no shock that the two share an intimate moment before James spends the night. That and the conversation they have the next moment suggest that they still have some love and compassion for each other, which is more compelling than their being at each others’ throats.

But when Sophie leaves to get them coffee, James wastes little time in getting into the closet where Sophie has her safe. He also convinces her that he’ll meet her back at her apartment after the wedding party, which is apparently so he can clean out the safe in her absence. One of the last scenes in “Atonement” is Sophie seeing her empty safe with James standing in the background. All of this creates shock and surprise for the next episode, yet is James continuing to stab Sophie in the back — and thus validating her fears about him from the Season 2 premiere — what makes sense for these characters? There’s only so much one can explain away with “well, he’s angry because Sophie betrayed him first.” At some point, he’s just a jerk.

Speaking of jerks, Quinn goes back down that road as well. He makes a point of stopping Sophie as she’s leaving the party, and at first it seems like he’s going to be as sympathetic an ear as his future wife. He asks Sophie if his father tried to pay her off, and warns her that for people who don’t take the money, things get a lot worse. But there’s also a smarmy, “gotcha” tone to his interaction with her that’s at odds with the guy who was so horrified at the idea of his father having someone killed on his behalf. One would think Quinn could have a little more empathy, even if just out of a continued disgust for his father’s practices. Instead, it seems to be Sophie against just about everyone.

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Surface Episode 6 Ends on a Dangerously Interesting Note

Have the Tables Turned on James?

Quinn not only gives Sophie a largely cold shoulder, but he’s responsible for the cliffhanger ending to Season 2, Episode 6: he comes up behind James on the street and throws him into a black van. Every TV and movie viewer knows nothing good ever happens in a black van. Quinn had previosly called Richard to make sure James had left England, and Richard had mentioned doing a background check on the other man. So does Quinn know via that background check that James is Sophie’s estranged husband, and he now sees him as another threat? Or has his (correct) suspicion that James slept with Grace finally reached breaking point? Or both? Who knows, but Quinn has created a really fun issue for the rest of the season.

James followed Sophie to England in Season 2, Episode 2, “Speak of the Devil” to get his revenge. He’s gotten it now with what he did while Sophie was away. But now Sophie is the best person to save him from whatever Quinn and his people have planned. In fact, she’s likely the only person who’s even going to notice he’s missing, unless Grace has a reason to catch on. So what will James and Sophie’s relationship be like when now the roles are reversed? When she has to come after him, and when he’s got a secret, albeit not as huge of one as she kept from him? Will being put in a similar position change James’ attitude toward Sophie? Surface Season 2 is a great episode dramatically, despite its inconsistencies, and proves the show has legs after its big reveal.

Surface streams Fridays on Apple TV+.

Surface Season 2, Episode 6

Release Date

July 28, 2022

Network

Apple TV+

Directors

Kevin Rodney Sullivan, Jennifer Morrison

• 

  Gugu Mbatha-Raw

  Sophie Ellis

• 

  Oliver Jackson-Cohen

  James Ellis

• 

Pros & Cons

• The episode has plenty of dramatic payoff, all the way around.
• The mystery surrounding Sophie’s mother gets some big clues.

• The characterization of certain characters seems to regress for drama’s sake.