The Waterfront Recap ‘Nice Try’: Run

The seventh episode of The Waterfront (now streaming on Netflix) ups the violence and dramatic tension, as now every member of the Buckley family find themselves at the crosshairs of Grady’s vengeance.  

The Waterfront Season 1 Episode 7 Recap and Review

Seven episodes in, and The Waterfront has done a good job in packaging this story of generational wealth with generational trauma, and now generational violence. The tentacles of Beau Buckley’s decision reached from beyond the grave and now impacted his family. Harlan worked hard to get the Buckleys away from the Parkers. Now, his son and heir brought them back. 

Let’s unpack this for a bit, because the road to the violence via Harlan and Belle was some of The Waterfront’s best dramatic work. Harlan Buckley was introduced to us as a semi-retired man with a heart condition and a lover named Rhonda, whom his wife knew and was cool with. That was one of The Waterfront’s earliest indications of the Buckley wealth and social standing, that the wife of the patriarch, who did not come from money, calmly accepted the infidelity of her husband. Those of us who spent our childhoods in small towns recognise this dynamic. 

At no point in the first six episodes was it indicated that the Buckley marriage was in trouble. If anything, we saw Belle’s consistent show of love for her husband, through all the cheating and the drinking, and the secret son, and the health issues. Yes, Belle slept with Wes, but that was a very clear case of scratching an itch. The Buckley marriage may have been, as Cane described it, toxic, but it was solid.

From Belle’s point of view, they were husband and wife, and when she made the decision to enter a land deal, that was her right and responsibility as a wife. But from Harlan’s point of view, what was his, was his, and the beachfront property was most definitely his. More than the sentiment attached to the memory of his mother was this pocket long untouched, that Belle was a Buckley by marriage and not by blood. When Belle pointed out that she earned the Buckley name, she spoke of hope and not fact, because in some families, a married-in could never truly belong. The line of blood would always be there, despite decades of being part of the family. Again, some of us have seen this in small towns, and royal families. That was actually a sliver through which Wes slithered to get Belle into his bed, this connection he had with her as someone who also came from a background without wealth. 

Cane said Belle leveraged all the family assets to get the bank loan, which was then purchased by Wes Benson’s company. Clearly that included the fish house, the restaurant, the harbour, and the beachfront property that Wes wanted. Did it include Harlan and Belle’s house? Perhaps. Cane’s house? Unlikely. 

The loan defaulting would have meant the end of the Buckleys as an establishment. There would be no more Harlan genially buying people drinks. A significant portion of the town would no longer be dependent on the Buckleys for their income — the food they eat, the clothes they wear, the money they use to send their children to school. More than losing the money, this meant losing the tradition of responsibility that the Buckleys have carried for decades. Harlan, Belle, and Bree could move to a smaller house and be fine, but the wound of no longer being able to take care of people, to be the one they depended on, would be grave. Harlan especially would feel that. Two heart attacks did not kill him, but his loss of status that was his whole being might. 

So, when Cane reached out to Emmett Parker, it was not just because he was a spoiled rich kid looking for a quick way out. He was a son trying to save his father, and perhaps his parents’ marriage. The fact that Cane reached out to Emmett without truly knowing who the Parkers were was a rather Cane thing to do, head scratching to us viewers perhaps but totally in character. But, even after Harlan had explained exactly who the Parkers were, there was no going back now. Harlan needed to shake the hand of the man who killed his father.

Beau Buckley worked for the Parkers. He crossed them and was killed, brutally, with the then seven-year-old Bree watching from inside a closet. Emmett came to the fish house with his father Jeb, who had ordered Beau’s death. 

When Emmett showed up at Porter’s funeral, he was already feeling out Harlan (and Cane, to whom he gave his number). Clearly the Buckleys’ boats and their legitimate businesses were tempting assets to the Parkers. Cane named the terms — 12-month contract, seven million up front, five million at the end of the deal — and, Harlan added, Grady’s death. That the Parkers readily agreed despite their history underlined the potential upside of the Buckleys in their operation.

There was no way Grady would go down that easily, not even to an operation multiple times the size of his. Grady left the bodies of two men the Parkers sent to kill him right there in the fish house office. Then, he grabbed Harlan, who happened to be with Shawn at the time. At gunpoint, Shawn was forced to confess that he was Harlan’s son. 

What Cane lacked in smarts, he made up for in his absolute determination to protect his family. He went up to Grady’s farm with Tim and Reggie, and I liked that he paused and gave them a chance to back out of coming with him. Dude would not have lasted five minutes without Tim and Reggie, but he still gave them a choice. Of course they went with him.

Setting Grady’s supply ablaze worked as a distraction, but it was not enough for the Buckley crew to get away unscathed. Tim, who had saved Cane’s life, was killed and Reggie was wounded. Harlan immediately wanted to reach every member of the family, including Peyton, because they were in danger. 

Belle was in the office, trying to clean up the bodies there alone until Bree walked in on her. Bree wanted to call the police, but of course Belle prevailed against that. After they worked on the corpses, Bree finally opened up her hurt, that Belle made her lie to the police. Belle said it was to protect Bree; if the Parkers knew she was a witness, she would have been killed. Harlan seemed to have suicided one of the men who killed Beau, but he could not touch the top man himself, Jeb, or his son.

Bree finding her mother with two corpses was just another part of her already horrible past few days. Still reeling from her lover Marcus’s death and going through withdrawal, her ex husband Rodney used their son to trick her into coming to his house and ambushing her with a drug test. Bree refused, because she knew what the test would say. When Rodney called her and told her Diller had run off, she was confused because she assumed Diller would be mad at her. But, it was worse. Rodney got a job offer at Virginia Beach and was moving his family, including Diller. He and his judgy wife Georgina were taking a son away from his mother. 

Bree figured out soon enough that Diller was hiding in one of the Buckley boats. Fire setting and drug using aside, Bree was a good mother, and she did not unload on Diller her annoyance with her ex. Instead, she supported a reconciliation and told Diller he was a good father. When they parted, Diller was supposed to go back home.

He did not make it. Night had fallen and Rodney called her again to ask where Diller was. It was at that point that Bree herself was accosted. She tried to fight back, but there were two of them. One guess who was behind this.

Grady’s operation may have been small, but his ambition was not, and neither was his madness. He wanted Harlan’s help to take down Emmett Parker himself, despite Harlan’s warning that that would unleash a turf war. And now that Cane blew up his stash, his vengeance was now on the Buckleys. 

In its penultimate episode, The Waterfront unleashed chaos and violence that remained grounded on a generational family drama. As Harlan said when he fired a warning shot at Grady’s man who was on his beach keeping an eye on him, that felt good.

Rating: B+

Strays

🛥️Aw Tim, we lost you before we knew you. I hope Reggie’s all right. 

🛥️’Selling drugs is a drug.’ Why do I feel like we’ll return to this truism at some point in future seasons? 

🛥️Grady shared that his official diagnosis was ’raging narcissistic sociopath’, which tracks.

🛥️Cane let one of Grady’s boys live. Hmm.

🛥️Belle and Bree kept the bodies iced in the fish house. Belle now knew that Bree broke her sobriety in an ultimately tragic effort to get DEA Agent Marcus Sanchez off her parents' backs.

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

Episode Title: Nice Try

Episode Writer: Katelyn Crabb

Episode Director: Jann Turner

Original Air Date: June 19, 2025

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