The Waterfront Recap: Hey, Let’s Have Fun

If, over the past few episodes, you’ve been wondering why Belle would stick it out with a guy like Harlan as he attempts to rebuild his family’s illegal drug business, the answer becomes obvious in episode four: She likes it. She is on board with everything. She has more than one option to get out of it, and her best one — Wes and the beachfront property development — she walks away from. She admonishes her son, who does not want to break bad, for insinuating Harlan is a cold-blooded murderer. Whatever helps you sleep at night, babe! She admits she’s scared of what might happen to Harlan or her, and that might be true, but she also gets off on that fear — as evidenced by the fact that immediately following her admission of fear, she and Harlan have a hearty afternoon fuck. Belle plays everything cool and cautious, but she might be more into this business pivot than Harlan.

More evidence that Belle is all hot and horny for being the matriarch of a crime ring? The turn in Belle and Harlan’s relationship takes place after they work together to cover up the sheriff’s death via a screwdriver to the jaw. You know, nothing like watching a man’s skull get crushed under his Chevy Chevelle after you and your husband moved his dead body underneath it to make his death like an accident. Personally, I heard the “wet crunch” of Clyde Porter’s body (friends, if you have not enjoyed the magic of Netflix’s closed captions yet, I implore you to try it out) and wanted to vomit; Belle heard that wet crunch and wanted to get laid. Listen, everyone has their kinks, but I do find it amusing that The Waterfront refuses to admit that when it comes down to it, Harlan and Belle are just two little psychos running around Havenport.

It’s not like the show is afraid of psychos, either. Harlan finally gets to meet the man running the show, Grady, and boy, oh boy, is that guy a raging psychopath. But, like, in a fun way. Or, at least, in a way that The Waterfront desperately needs. This show is simply not clever or edgy enough to take itself as seriously as it does, and leaning into the soap and the ridiculousness of it all by way of Topher Grace’s Grady puts a little pep in its step.

Grady is a Harlan Buckley fanboy. He’s also kind enough to fill in some blanks about Harlan’s dad and his death: Harlan’s dad was one of the top dogs of the Cali cartel in the 1980s and was tortured to death — we already know Bree witnessed his murder as a child — and then the guy who killed Mr. Buckley was found dead by suicide, “wink, wink,” Grady adds, not long after. Grady, who inherited his farm in the middle of nowhere from his grandparents, works alone and is pretty jazzed to find someone like Harlan to work with. Grady is big on loyalty, he tells Harlan. Grady’s enthusiasm doesn’t amuse Harlan, but after seeing Grady’s operation — the man is flush with opiates and about to start growing his own supply — he agrees to a partnership if Grady doesn’t interfere with how he would like to run things. This, of course, was the big screwdriver, er, wrench in the Harlan-Clyde partnership. But Harlan is adamant — he wants to use his people and he’s not doing more than two runs a week or it will look suspicious. He’s in charge of his side of the business. Grady shakes his hand like it’s a deal, but Grady’s face seems to say, “LOL, that’s so cute that you think that’s possible.”

And then Grady elaborates on that facial expression by how he handles the Stevie situation. Oh, Stevie. You remember this ding dong. He’s the one who brought Harlan to Grady, but before that, he was working for Clyde. He also confronts Harlan at Clyde’s funeral — he knows he killed his former boss. Grady brings Stevie out and playfully forces the guy to admit that he has been talking shit about Harlan, and he thinks he is the one who should take over for Clyde. Grady gives Harlan the option to kill Stevie right now if he wants, as casually as if he’s asking if he wants to go get something to eat. Harlan gives Stevie a reprieve if he comes and works for him, and Stevie takes the offer. And that’s when Stevie makes a run for it across Grady’s fields. Like I said, real ding-dong energy here. Grady gives his guys the go-ahead to do what they do, and what they do turns out to be unloading so many bullets into Stevie’s body by way of a machine gun that some of his limbs just fall right off. So, yeah, I’d say Grady is a psycho, and Harlan knows it’s too late to get out of this now. Grady’s parting “Let’s have fun” might be the most real and dangerous threat Harlan’s faced since he started this little venture.

Cane’s already so stressed it looks like his head could explode at any moment. Can you imagine how he’ll do meeting Grady? My guess is not well. But for now, Cane is dealing with threats closer to home. He catches Bree chatting it up with her DEA agent and confronts her. This whole argument could be diffused by Cane giving Bree a few details about what’s going on, but the Buckleys can’t make anything that easy. Instead, he yells at her for being stupid, and the siblings proceed to unleash all the anger and resentment they’ve been holding toward one another. Bree blames Cane for being declared an unfit mother and losing her custody rights. Apparently, she believes his testimony at her court hearing is what did her in. Cane lovingly reminds her that, uh, she burned a fucking house down with her son inside of it. Bree’s immediate “I pulled him out!” is hilarious to me.

Cane continues to surprise me as a character because he does have resting dumb-guy face, but out of all the Buckleys, he seems to be the one with the real moral compass here. He isn’t wrong when he screams at Bree to take some accountability for her actions. Her response is that he should’ve just kept quiet. Now, she wants him to suffer. He won’t go to jail, she tells him, because he’s the golden boy, but she wants him knocked down a peg or two. It’s not surprising that this is Bree’s stance: We already know that her parents put loyalty above accountability, too.

Cane doesn’t exactly divulge everything that’s going on, but he does tell Bree that her little plan with the DEA agent isn’t only going to hurt him: It will hurt the entire family. They are all involved. Their parents will go down too. Everything they have is at stake. He doesn’t exactly say that their dad killed Clyde, but Bree gets it. She fucked up big time! Now, I did have a big ol’ laugh when Bree has a chat with her mom about how she is always kept on the fringe of this family and she wishes she were seen as an ally because what she’s trying to do is blame her family for her working with the DEA. If only they had included her more, then she never would’ve ratted on them. Where is Cane to come yell at her about accountability again?

Thankfully, she doesn’t need to rehash the fight with Cane; we can tell her brother has gotten through to her because she heads over to Marcus’s hotel room in an effort to throw him off the scent. But it’s too late. Thanks to the very half-assed investigation into Clyde’s death, Marcus is more convinced than ever that the Buckleys are up to something, and he is going to uncover it and save his career. Bree cannot unring that bell.

Perhaps the same can be said for the other problem Cane is dealing with: his marriage. Cane and Jenna were giggly high-schoolers with some obvious attraction going on during their substance-heavy double date, and no one can unsee that. Especially not Peyton. Peyton is trying her best: She simply wants her husband to be honest with her, honest about what’s going on with Jenna, and honest about what’s going on with his family. She was almost lit on fire, so honestly, this is fair. She’s marking her territory by way of suggesting a hand job at Clyde’s funeral; she’s threatening to leave for her parents’ house in Durham, but none of it works. Cane won’t bring her in on what’s really happening at the fish house, nor will he strongly assure Peyton that she’s the one he loves. Peyton takes their daughter, and she heads out of town. And good for her!

Because Cane is woefully predictable, he heads over to Jenna’s to tell her that he doesn’t think he can see her anymore. It’s sort of mixed messages there … and again when he tries to kiss her, but Jenna is quite respectful of Peyton. Jenna’s a girl’s girl! She’s also making a wise choice by keeping her distance from Cane. There are so many innocent people circling the Buckleys — Jenna, Peyton, Shawn — and now, with Grady’s involvement, the likelihood of collateral damage just went way, way up. Hey, are we having fun yet?

Bait & Tackle

• Not trying to be judgy here, but if you’re gonna give someone a hand job at a funeral, at least, like, go into a private area or something. A man has died!!

• Cane can’t figure out why his mother would pull out of the land deal with Wes when it is so clearly the best way out of their problems, so he calls a meeting with the guy for himself. Wes is still interested in the deal if Cane can make it happen, but he basically has to say “Me and your mom had sex, and she got weird” more than once for Cane to begin to understand what he’s dealing with here.

• Postcoital, Belle tells Harlan about Shawn, and father and son have about as nice a first conversation as you could expect from a situation like this. Shawn should get the hell out of Havenport as soon as he can, but he’s already taken a liking to both Harlan and Belle, and you just know he’s going to be sucked into the family business before this thing is through. Run, Shawn! Run home to your boyfriend and your law degree!