Well, I guess Cape Fear got me. Many of the twists and turns on this show can feel obvious, the result of a fairly small core cast and some heavy foreshadowing, but I can’t say I guessed the significance of Luke, the creepy young man who feeds the dogs for Robert Cady. I probably should have, though. This show loves a parentage reveal, and it also loves an incest reveal.
First, I want to offer some praise to Juliette Lewis. Her casting in this series was a nice nod to her role as the daughter in Martin Scorsese’s 1991 movie, but most of this season hasn’t served her well at all: Crystal has largely been defined by her mental instability, not considered with any real depth or humanity. She’s just another woman whose life was wrecked by Max Cady, whether she knew him as a lover or a sister or both. In “The Scar,” though, we finally get to see Lewis play some different shades, and it’s a relief to see her in a new mode.
Early in the episode, Anna meets Crystal at a bar in Cape Fear—then wakes up on her boat the next morning with her gun missing. Crystal clearly isn’t to be trusted, but the two strike up a surprisingly friendly and open conversation, and for a while she seems happy enough to play along with Anna’s hunt for answers. In fact, it feels like the first time we’re seeing the real Crystal, even if she’s putting on a façade—a balance that Lewis pulls off nicely, never letting us forget how unstable this person really is. Still, it might’ve been nice to see this other, warmer side to her personality earlier.
We spend most of this time knowing the other shoe will drop, and it does. But over the course of Anna’s investigation and the resulting confrontation, a number of other facts come out—some volunteered readily by Crystal, some pulled out of her as Anna comes to the conclusions herself. We learn that Crystal is “Lila,” the girl Cady mentioned seducing and abusing; we learn that Crystal was the one who killed Cady’s wife, an act of jealousy; we learn that the scarred boy from the old photos in Amy Brancato’s trailer is the son Crystal had with her own brother; we even learn that Luke is that son.
None of these facts are all that shocking on their own, especially with the limited number of characters to play with here. I had a feeling Cady didn’t kill his own wife, though his monstrous behavior throughout the season has rendered that detail almost meaningless. Remember in the first few episodes of this show, when we truly didn’t know what to believe about Cady’s guilt in various crimes? By now, his Machiavellian plotting (based heavily on luck and some admittedly strong improvisation) has just gotten irritating and unrealistic.
A lot of this episode doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny, like most of this season. Setting aside the fact that Crystal is both unstable and unintelligent, why the hell would she actually store that incriminating USB in the same place she’s leading Anna? Why let Anna wake up peacefully on the boat in the first place, rather than keeping her in the hold for her brother to deal with? Most of the big reveals in this episode “make sense,” but there’s no connective tissue to make the pieces click together. How will Cady react upon witnessing this scuffle on the boat—with genuine shock and/or sadness at the realization that he has been lied to, or with rage, or with total indifference?
“The Scar” ends with Anna swimming away from a big Cady family reunion, then pairs that cliffhanger with another in the cell where Tom contemplates ending his life. There’s not really all that much to say about this subplot, really; like basically every Tom subplot in the series, it doesn’t feel all that connected to everything else going on. It’s just another chance for Cady to luxuriate in the torture, triggering Tom with memories of his late brother and blathering on about teaching him what it’s like to lose all sense of freedom and control. He’s pressuring Tom into suicide like Cady has done before, and it seems to be working. It’s just a matter of whether his wife can manage to save the day in time for him to save himself.
There is something evocative about Tom’s solitary setting, and you can imagine the sheer panic and boredom that must be setting in, especially with his son newly missing and his calls to Jared, Noa, and Anna all going to voicemail. But he’s not an active agent in this story anymore, and that’s a bit disappointing, even with Anna as the main focal point. Tom actually feels less important to this show than Natalie, who anchors her own storyline here by facing off against her own Cady acolyte.
That’s not to say Nat’s story fully works, either. For one, the show tries to build some empathy for Nevaeh far too late, shifting her away from villainy right when it seems like only one of them will make it out of jail alive. Like Crystal, Nevaeh has been a poorly defined character throughout this series, reduced to her instability, daddy issues, and general psychopathic bloodthirst. Her hesitation to kill Nat at her father’s behest might track—after all, nobody would want to spend life in prison—but the implication that she connected with Nat on some deeper level, deeper than she connected with Zack, is a big stretch. The only difference is that we saw more of her connection with Nat. And even then, Nevaeh never seemed remotely conflicted about what she was doing, nor did her attraction to Nat feel genuine.
It’s certainly good to see Nat escape with her life at the end of the episode, leaving Nevaeh behind in jail. But it all still feels very schematic and almost anticlimactic, even with the onslaught of big reveals and surprising character turns. Nevaeh is a problem character, but so is Nat; for that matter, so are Anna and Tom and Max Cady. With a batting average that low, the climax of a miniseries can only have so much effect.
Stray observations
- • Anna affectionately calling Crystal “crazy” after hearing about the origin of her face scar is kind of a nice moment, but also seems a little risky.
- •Some quick clarifications that were already mostly implied: Nevaeh did break into Nat’s house, spike the family’s tea with acid, seduce Zack, and make him to bite off his own toe.
- • Another week of confining Noa to the strays. I appreciate her fearlessness in standing up to Cady, I guess, and Javier Bardem handles the tonal switch (from charming to cold then back to charming) well. But not sure what that scene really accomplishes.
- • So, assuming Anna makes it out of all this, will she get Nevaeh to turn on her dad and testify that he manipulated her? That’s the main reason I see for Nevaeh’s continued existence.
- • Speaking of which, I hope Cady does go back to prison rather than dying in the finale. It would be so much more satisfying, given that Cady is ready to die at this point but not ready to lose his freedom again.
- • Crystal really should’ve been a suspect for Melissa’s death earlier, huh? The “she dated a guard and got him to let her out to kill Melissa” explanation is not very satisfying, either, especially when it so closely calls to mind Faith’s story. Remember Faith?
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