In its first season, Sullivan’s Crossing sees a woman’s tidy life upended as she confronts her messy, painful past — and discovers new possibilities for her future. Created by Roma Roth and adapted from Robyn Carr’s book series of the same name, the romantic drama premiered in 2023 on Canada’s CTV and stars Morgan Kohan as Maggie Sullivan, a driven young doctor who makes an unexpected return to her quaint hometown in Nova Scotia. Read on to see where Maggie stands in terms of family, friends, love, and career by the end of Season 1.
Maggie Sullivan (Kohan) is a talented neurosurgeon in Boston, her career on the rise. All her careful plans are disrupted, however, when she’s sued for negligence due to the fraudulent schemes of her business partner … and also sued by the grieving mother of a patient, who blames Maggie for the loss of her son. With her reputation on the line, Maggie retreats to her hometown of Timberlake, Nova Scotia, to keep a low profile and clear her head.
“Maggie is facing a lot in Season 1. Her world in Boston has imploded, and she is forced to trade her exciting life as a surgeon for a much quieter one at The Crossing with her estranged father,” Roth tells Tudum. “Going back to your childhood home is always a challenge, but for Maggie there’s a lot of painful history there, and returning only forces her to face the feelings of abandonment she’s been ignoring for years.”
Maggie’s estranged father Sully (Scott Patterson) owns and operates a sprawling campground in Timberlake called Sullivan’s Crossing, a haven of untamed nature that has been in his family for generations. The taciturn, baseball cap–wearing Sully stands in a sharp contrast to Maggie’s stepfather, Walter (Peter Outerbridge), in Boston, a well-connected neurosurgeon who has assisted her professional ascent alongside her ambitious mother, Phoebe (Lynda Boyd). The father-daughter reunion is stiff, but Maggie is lovingly received by Frank (Tom Jackson) and Edna Cranebear (Andrea Menard) — friends who are more like family — and her childhood pal Sydney (Lindura).
A less welcome sight is Lola (Amalia Williamson), to whom Sully is a father figure; Maggie’s resentment toward her is clearly reciprocated. But the most awkward meeting of all is with Cal Jones (Chad Michael Murray), a newcomer who works as a handyman for Sully. After getting off to a frosty start, he and Maggie gradually warm to each other — though he refuses to tell her what “Cal” is short for.
Her relationship with Sully proves harder to thaw. They love each other deeply, but have both buried their pain for so long that they struggle to confront it. Their communication is clumsy, their misunderstandings frequent. Maggie hasn’t visited since she was 15, and the memories of that summer haunt them both. Sully has his own problems, too. A recovering alcoholic, his sobriety becomes increasingly fragile as his financial situation deteriorates, threatening the future of Sullivan’s Crossing.
Maggie finds comfort in her friendship with Cal. They slowly open up to each other, bonding over their love of nature. Maggie learns that he’s a lawyer and widower, and that his real name is California. Their chemistry is undeniable, but they both resist the urge to express their feelings fully. After all, Maggie still has a boyfriend, Andrew (Allan Hawco), waiting for her. Andrew is anxious to start a life together, and jealous of her time with Cal. On a visit back to Boston, he proposes; she doesn’t give him an answer. Soon after, they break up.
When in Boston, she also finds herself less and less aligned with Walter and Phoebe. Because, as much as she resists Timberlake, it’s there that Maggie rediscovers a piece of herself she’d forgotten. She also becomes an essential addition to the community: Her medical expertise and OR-honed composure prove invaluable when she helps with a series of crises, the last of which is an accident that leaves climbing instructor Jackson (T. Thomason) in bad shape.
Jackson’s rescue marks the first time Maggie has had to operate on someone she knows — and whose family she knows. As she watches Jackson’s parents agonize, her heart aches for the woman suing her, whose son died. That, along with everything else she’s experienced since returning to Sullivan’s Crossing, makes her question who she really is and what she wants to stand for.
The first season ends with some resolution, but even more revelations. Maggie has been exonerated in the case of her former business partner’s misdeeds, but the lawsuit about her patient goes to trial. In court, she’s deeply affected by the devastated mother’s pain, and seeks her out during a break. She acknowledges to the woman, Mrs. Markiff (Shelley Thompson), that nothing can make up for her loss, and apologizes for any mistakes she might have made. Back in the courtroom, Maggie addresses the judge, accepting liability. “Somewhere along the way I stopped looking at my patients as people, with families,” she says. The judge is impressed by her admission, but Maggie is too late. Mrs. Markiff has already had her attorney ask for the case to be dismissed.
With her surgical license safe and her conscience clearer, Maggie’s legal troubles are apparently behind her — until her disgraced former business partner Bob (Bob Mann) tracks her down, begging her to listen to him. He’s been promised immunity, he says, if he’ll help bring down a bigger fish: Walter. Before he can say more, their conversation is interrupted, leaving Maggie questioning her stepfather’s integrity.
She returns to Sullivan’s Crossing one last time (this season, anyway). Andrew has said he’ll wait for her, but she searches for Cal. He’s checked out and left town, however, after first scattering his wife’s ashes on the coast. Maggie finds Lola cleaning his cabin, and despite their having established a tentative truce earlier in the season, Lola hides a letter that Cal had left for Maggie. Hurt that he didn’t say goodbye, Maggie decides to leave for good, accepting a job offer in Boston. The move would seemingly put her back in Andrew’s orbit — as does the discovery that she’s pregnant.
“Witnessing a mother’s grief over losing her son, and realizing she’s partially responsible for that, causes Maggie to reevaluate her training and see her patients as people,” says Roth. “After the trial, when Maggie learns she's going to be a mother, that news lands even harder on her — especially since the pregnancy is unplanned.”
She’s not the only resident of Timberlake who finds herself at a crossroads: Sydney, who came back to town after a stint in New York City to help her widowed brother Rob (Reid Price) run his diner and raise his son Finn (Zayn Maloney), believes that Rob has grown to resent her and moves out of his house to figure out what to do next. She stays with Rafe (Dakota Taylor), her friend-with-benefits who may be turning into something more. Meanwhile, Frank and Edna take a vacation — a much-needed break after his accidental shooting — leaving both Sully and Maggie without their reliable support.
Before leaving for Boston, Maggie finally asks Sully the question that has tormented her all season — and, in fact, for most of her life: “Why didn’t you come after me?” He says he had no choice, which doesn’t satisfy his daughter. She drives away in tears, leaving her heartbroken father looking through an old photo album, remembering. In addition to the now-familiar memory of the day he lost her, Sully revisits another dark piece of his past: Driving after Maggie years ago, while drunk and desperate, he hits young Lola on her bicycle — leaving her with lasting injuries. It explains, in part, why he felt obligated to take on a fatherly role for Lola growing up — which, in turn, is what alienated Maggie when she came back home to visit as a teenager.
The painful recollections, combined with the fact that Sullivan’s Crossing is mere weeks away from foreclosure, seem to be too much for Sully. Alone in his room, he suffers an apparent heart attack. It’s a brutal conclusion for such a conflicted character, but here’s hoping there are brighter days for Maggie and her family in the next chapter of the series.
Roth reflects on the traumatic season ending for Sully’s character, and her intentions: “I wanted to show the audience that there was more to Sully's story and that there was a valid reason he didn’t go after Maggie when her mother took her from the Crossing,” she says. “At the same time, ending the season on a big emotional dramatic cliff-hanger leaves the viewers on the edge of their seat, so they are eager to tune into the next season. I love being able to carefully peel back the layers of our characters’ backstories, letting the audience get to know them in a deliberately slow way that keeps us guessing.”
Stream Seasons 2 and 3 on Netflix now.
“Season 1 is just the beginning of Maggie’s journey,” Roth says. “You can expect a lot more ups and downs and plenty of cliff-hangers as we get to know our characters and what makes them tick.”
