The Waterfront Recap ‘I’m a Hugger’: Bree
- Cherish
- Jun 25
- 6 min read
The Waterfront Season 1 Episode 5 Recap and Review
All eight episodes of The Waterfront are currently airing on Netflix. Please watch them before reading these spoiler-filled recaps.
After a strong fourth episode, The Waterfront went ahead and decided to top it with a fifth installment that fully utilised the dramatic elements it set up early in the season. I wondered how the show would solve the pickle it placed the Buckleys in, and it went with perhaps the most heartbreaking way possible. The child who had been on the outside, Bree slowly emerged as the family’s volatile centre. She imploded in this episode, taking with her a huge threat to her family, whom she loved in her own messy, unquestioning way. Rather than take the way out offered, she went all in on the family mess.
If she weren’t one of them before, she is now.
The Buckleys were feeling pressure from all sides. First, there was Grady, who decided to pay the Buckleys a visit. I thought last episode that there was a disconnect between Grady’s ambitious plans and the Buckleys’ more modest goal to simply get out from under their crushing debt. That came to head this episode, when an unsuspecting Diller gave Grady a tour of the fish house and confirmed what Grady likely already suspected, that the Buckley family operation was larger than they were letting on, that they could accommodate more runs.
The thing was, even prior to this, Harlan had already decided to increase his initial limit of two shipments per week. Though not pleased, Harlan took Grady’s visit in stride (Cane wanted Grady out of there asap), and when Grady told him to come with him, he did.
A routine traffic stop by Sheriff Drew netted him a truck full of drugs and a massive threat to his life. Grady just wanted to kill him, but Harlan intervened and asked to talk to Drew in private. His face bruised and bloody, Drew complained that he was never given a choice on whether he wanted to be involved in Harlan’s drug business or not. Drew may have looked away when Porter was killed, a man who was not well-liked, a man whose job he wanted, a man whose life he could not bring back anyway, but he was still a cop at his core. He told Harlan he could not look away, not with this massive amount of drugs.
But the choice was already made the moment Drew stopped that truck. Unless he agreed to sell his soul to Grady’s crew, he would die. To the very end, just before he left, it looked like Drew was still keeping a part of himself shielded from the corruption of Harlan. He was still trying to figure out how to get out of there with his integrity intact. Then, Harlan handed him a roll of cash, which he had no choice but to accept. That was the taint, that money he had in his hand. He was now a cop fully in the pocket of drug dealers.
How long would Drew live? Given Grady’s volatility, it was unclear. Grady continued his mask of genial madness, which slipped only when he learned that the DEA was sniffing around. The DEA was the one thing he would not tolerate. Harlan assured him it was not a problem, though it very much was.
Against the orders of his captain, Agent Marcus Sanchez stayed in town. He went to Porter’s house and found a trail camera on a tree near his garage. I watch The Waterfront one episode at a time, but I reckon this would be more noticeable on a binge – there was no setup to this development. I get not wanting to telegraph your next storytelling moves, but won’t a grainy shot of Belle and Harlan outside Porter’s house, seen through the lens of the trail camera, have increased the tension further? In any case, Marcus found the camera and showed Harlan the footage. Marcus told Harlan he did not care about Porter’s murder, what he wanted was a bust. He wanted Harlan’s supplier. Harlan had until the next day to give him the name he wanted, or he would go to the DA.
Let’s parse this a bit. Marcus later told Bree he did this for her. The deal he tried to give Harlan would have protected both Belle and Harlan from a murder charge. After all, Porter’s death was already ruled an accident. Once Marcus made the footage disappear, that was that. Was his offer really all about Bree?
It was likely mostly about Bree. Marcus fell in love with Bree. But there were a couple more things about Marcus that would have made him value getting a major supplier over a small town murder charge. One, he was an addict. When he was going after Cane, it was almost like he was trying to replace the high he desperately wanted with the high of the job. Marcus was not really managing his addiction all that well, he was not even going to meetings after he got out of rehab. Secondly, Marcus’s job was on the line. He was still on probation. The investigation he started on Bree’s information so far had gone nowhere. His captain refused to authorise the surveillance he wanted and had ordered him to come home. Getting a major drug supplier would very likely save his job. So, yes, this decision to give Harlan and Belle a break on a murder charge was mostly about Bree, but this was also about Marcus.
Cane had been inside Bree’s head over her decision to unleash the DEA on their family. She broke down this episode, tearfully telling her son that she managed to make a mess sober this time. When Bree showed up at Marcus’s motel room, it was not to attempt to persuade him to back off her family. Bree was drunk and on drugs. Only partly clothed with Marcus’s favourite whisky on her lips, she brought water to a man who had been dying of thirst.
Marcus overdosed. Harlan went to his motel expressly to kill him and retrieve the trail camera footage, because that really was the only way to protect his family, and found Marcus naked and already dead with a needle in his arm. Cane went there, too, perhaps to stop his father from committing cold blooded murder, and immediately realised that this was Bree’s doing. Cane rushed his father out of there, because he knew the incriminating evidence was no longer in that room. Bree would have made sure she got it.
She did. Cane found his sister facedown on the rain soaked road with the evidence that could send their parents to jail, and carried her to his car.
‘I’m a Hugger’ was The Waterfront embracing tension scene after scene after scene, and it was all the better for it. Even the family meeting that had Harlan and Belle introduce Cane and Bree to their brother Shawn, and Shawn’s repeated attempts to talk to Cane, met the episode’s general tone. ‘I would not wish us on anyone’, Bree told her new brother, and through this very good episode, The Waterfront showed why.
Rating: A
Strays
🛥️Bree: ‘Oh sh–. Did I hit on you?’ Shawn: ‘Uh, yeah, a little.’ Lol.
🛥️What’s up with Grady’s yacht? Who owned that previously?
🛥️Grady: ‘Keep up sexy.’ Topher Grace is having a lot of fun with this character. His ‘I can’t?’ was a quick tonal shift, a slice of danger, so was his reaction when he heard from Drew about the DEA problem.
🛥️Even Diller could tell that whatever was going on with his mother was serious. His father found out about his job at the fish house and forbade it.
🛥️Harlan kept trying to tell Grady that they needed to do things his way. He wanted to slow down the deliveries and not store the product in his boats.
🛥️Cane was upset that Belle killed the land deal, and went to the bank to get more information about it. It turned out that the local bank was selling the Buckeys’ loan to Wes Benson, who was working with a bigger bank. The deal was not done yet; once it was, the bank would notify his parents. This meant that Wes Benson could end up owning the Buckeys’ land anyway, should they foreclose on their loan.
🛥️Shawn did not realise it, but Cane was trying to do him a favour by telling him to leave whilst he still could.
🛥️Cane, Harlan touched the drawers too. If you’re worried about fingerprints, you need to wipe those down as well. Surely Cane watched CSI growing up?
Episode Title: I'm a Hugger
Episode Writer: Hannah Schneider
Episode Director: Erica Dunton
Original Air Date: June 19, 2025