'Atlantic Crossing' Ends with a Reminder You Can Go Home Again

After the drama of Nazi spies in our midst and the break-up of the affair-that-probably-wasn’t, I’m happy to report that the final episode of Atlantic Crossing gets us back onto familiar ground. We start off, however, with Olav drunk. He is flirting with women. He’s obnoxious. Nikolai arrives to take him home, and Olav becomes insulting and abusive. Nikolai slaps his face. I’m not sure if that carries a sentence of beheading in Norway, but it subdues Olav, who probably doesn’t even realize his father, the King, is waiting for them in the car, watching.

The next morning, the King wakes his hungover son with a dousing of water and summons him to a Cabinet meeting. There, Olav is nominated as Chief of Defense, the position he has wanted for so long, but the Minister of Defense proposes that the nomination should be dropped and rephrased as an order. It’s unanimous, and the King sends his son out of the meeting to get busy winning the war.

Olav receives a letter from Roosevelt, inviting him to the White House for Christmas; it’s from the President because Märtha doesn’t think he’ll accept an invitation from her. Roosevelt, reading the letter to her, clearly isn’t well, pale, and indecisive. But Olav will only go if the President demands it and stays in England. While he’s recording a New Year’s Eve broadcast to Norway, he misses a phone call from Märtha. His father, who thought he should have accepted the President’s invitation, chides him, reminding him that family is essential.