The Waterfront Recap ‘Hunting Season’: Aquatic

The sixth episode of The Waterfront (now streaming on Netflix) answers the question – What happens when an unstoppable force (Grady) meets an immovable object (Harlan)? Also, Bree reveals some heartbreaking details about her childhood.

The Waterfront Season 1 Episode 6 Recap and Review

Granted, Harlan has been out of the drug business for a while, but did he really miss all those staggering warning signs about Grady? Did he really think Grady shooting his grandson after he refused his last minute urgent shipment demand was an accident? The last time Harlan stood his ground against someone who clearly had the upper hand, Sheriff Porter had Peyton attacked, threatened Belle, and pulled a gun on Harlan. This was beginning to look like a fatal character flaw, this inability to recognise when his Buckley charm and authority would not work. In case things were not clear yet, Grady made it crystal, using jellyfish (Portuguese man o' war) to make his point right there in the fish house that was founded by Harlan’s father. Belle told Harlan their luck had run out. What a way to underline that. 

Grady dropped his genial mask multiple times in this episode, in scene after scene after scene that illustrated his danger and gave Topher Grace more time to flex his arresting portrayal of a sociopathic drug boss attempting some management techniques on his uncooperative employee. The money did not work, a huge amount of cash, far more than what was agreed. The team building exercise did not work, though that was probably bound to fail given that he forced that by kidnapping Harlan’s grandson Diller. He finally just shot the kid, and even that didn’t get through Harlan’s established illusion that he had control, that he could control Grady. 

Belle did not have Harlan’s cool, and she punched Grady in the parking lot whilst he carried get well soon balloons for Diller. She might have seen the far darker face of Grady that night if not for the intervention of Shawn, who apparently had some cool martial arts skills. Perhaps Harlan did not tell Belle about what he witnessed in Grady’s farm, because if he did, would she still have punched him? 

'Hunting Season' was an exercise of pushing when you should really consider pulling, and it mirrored the Harlan-Porter dynamic in that Harlan had no idea of the depth of the abyss he was facing. It was illustrative of the Buckleys’ decades long social standing, of the wealth and power that protected them, so that when they lost it, when they met someone who would not acquiesce to the clear lines they drew, they flailed in response.  

Of course, the family was going through major stress. Bree was largely apart from the drug business drama, as she struggled with withdrawal and fresh trauma, and later, the shooting of her son and the face of her ex husband and his current judgy partner. Bree finally told Cane what she had kept secret all these years, that she witnessed the torture and murder of their grandfather. Mother of the year Belle told young Bree to pretend it did not happen and it would be like it did not, but Bree had carried the image of her grandfather dying before her eyes all these years. She remembered that as she watched Marcus die too. 

Bree had not planned on murdering Marcus. She lured him to use and took photos which she thought she could use to blackmail him into leaving her family alone. This was a Bree in recovery, and she took full responsibility for what she did, not only for Marcus’s death but also for putting her son’s life in danger when she burned down their house. After years of sibling anger, there was a rapprochement between Bree and Cane, with Cane finally understanding the silent trauma Bree had carried since childhood, and their parents’ lack of action to address it. 

What Cane feared had some to pass, the bank had executed the sale of the Buckley loan to Wes Benson’s company. Belle tried to negotiate with him, to offer partial payment, but he would not budge. Either the Buckleys paid their whole loan in 45 days or they would lose everything. 

‘Hunting Season’ saw the Buckley family at their lowest yet. Perhaps that side trip into Dawson’s Creek territory with Cane and Jenna was meant to lighten things up a bit. It’s okay, show, we don’t mind the dark. When The Waterfront feels like a single coherent tension-filled story, it shines. When it strays into Capeside, well, it didn’t do that too much in this episode so I suppose I can live with it. 

Rating: B 

Strays

🛥️I did not buy Grady’s attempt to bond with a father figure, it felt like it was part of his psychosis. Also, he was gaming Harlan, pretending to know nothing about hunting and needing Harlan’s guidance, so he could slither closer to Harlan and, when that didn’t get him what he wanted, sell his ‘accidental’ shooting of Diller.

🛥️Bree saw two people who attacked her grandfather that night, not one as the police said.

🛥️Harlan was reading the Debt Purchase Agreement that Belle gave him when Grady and his boys came to visit. So, he now knew how deep the hole the family was in. Perhaps that was why he was willing to walk away from Grady; what his father built was already gone anyway.

You can access Recap Lab's full coverage of The Waterfront via this link.

Episode Title: Hunting Season

Episode Writer: Lloyd Gilyard Jr.

Episode Director: Erica Dunton

Original Air Date: June 19, 2025

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