Four episodes in, there’s a pattern developing on Cape Fear. We know what we’re getting from a typical installment: Anna Bowden working on some case for the SJLP in conjunction with Max Cady while Tom and the kids hide secrets and deal with their own personal demons. I always tend to prefer the first of those two storylines; after all, Cape Fear is Max Cady, and Javier Bardem is giving easily the most charismatic, richly ambiguous performance in the cast. The complex moral conundrum percolating on this show centers on Anna and Cady specifically, so it makes sense that their half would feel more essential.
“Pierced” does make some strides in building out the other characters, and pairing up Tom and Zack for a substantial subplot helps. We learn an interesting piece of Tom lore this week: When he was a teenager, his older brother died by suicide. Tom has spent decades doing his best not to think about that unspeakable tragedy, but the walls he has built up are starting to crumble—especially seeing his son go through depression and resort to self-harm, something that surely reminds him of his brother. He’s still very sensitive to the loss, based on how quickly he fires Dr. Carlisle when she brings it up.
In a nice turn, though, Tom actually manages to grow a little and open up by the end of the episode. After the student art show where Zack unwisely attempts an in-person apology to the girl whose nudes he shared, Tom finds him facedown in the pool and unthinkingly jumps in to save his son… from a calming exercise Dr. Carlisle taught him. Recognizing the source of his panicked reaction, Tom is finally able to really reconnect with Zack and be honest about his pain.
Sure, he doesn’t correct Zack’s belief that his brother died in a car accident, but he offers some real insight about how he became the man he is: by consciously imagining this version of himself and pulling himself out of an endless grief spiral.
It’s not so easy for Zack, who can’t accept Sophia’s refusal to grant him absolution—and who falls back under the influence of AngelX aka Nevaeh aka Amber, who’s secretly pulling the same shit with his sister. I do appreciate the swift-enough reveal that Nevaeh is likely Cady’s daughter, the product of a tryst with a prison nurse, though her methods of preying on the Bowden teens remain a little stale. Convincing Nat to ditch soccer practice and get her nipple pierced is just basic, as far as rebellious-teen activities go. (Breaking into her friend/crush/bully’s house and fucking on her bed is a little more diabolical, though.) I’m more curious about Nevaeh’s ultimate gameplan in isolating the kids from their parents, but it’s starting to come together.
There are still some frustrating gaps here in the storytelling, especially when it comes to Tom’s strained relationship with his technically-stepdaughter—along with Anna and Tom’s marriage, which has gotten surprisingly little screentime for how important it is to the story. It’s still no surprise that everything Anna and Cady have going on in “Pierced” is the strongest material, even in a standard case-of-the-week storyline.
While we don’t know all that much about Ruben Ramirez himself, he functions well as a sort of pawn in the larger psychological battle (and tentative renewed friendship) between our leads. After his appeal is denied, Anna tries to secure some new evidence to throw Ruben’s guilt in doubt, confronting a witness with her usual powers of persuasion. He’s a snake enthusiast with the unsettling nickname of Smiley, and he was actually there for the murder Ramirez is in prison for. But he doesn’t react well at all, even stealing Anna’s phone when he catches her discreetly recording him, and she’s forced to make a deal with the devil.
But is Cady the devil? He forces Smiley to cooperate, retum Anna’s phone, and give the evidence they need to send Ruben home, but we don’t get to see what he actually did. Like in previous episodes, we only occasionally dip into Cady’s private life; we’re mostly experiencing him the way Anna does, and that creates a delicious ambiguity that sets this series apart from any other version of Cape Fear.
We still don’t know the actual extent of Cady’s crimes—but it seems evident he can be a cruel, vengeful, abusive man, and that his passion for fighting the “criminal injustice system” goes one step beyond righteous fury. We know he made his wife Melissa’s life hell, and the way he savagely kisses Anna in this episode is disturbing. It jarred me a little, honestly, because I hadn’t picked up on a strong element of sexual tension in their relationship, despite Bardem’s suave line readings. By kissing Anna, is Cady flexing his control over her, enjoying the feeling of her depending on him? Is this the first time they’ve kissed, or is their history even more tortured and complex than we knew? Like every other mini-mystery in this show, it leads back to that core question: What the hell happened between these two 17 years ago?
Stray observations
- • One mystery solved: Zack was actually handing Cady a picture he drew imagining the present-day version of Adam, Cady’s unborn son.
- • Cady telling Tom that Zack “really needs a father” seems to influence Tom’s attempts to reconnect this episode, which is interesting.
- • We also see more of the masked woman played by Juliette Lewis. It seems clear that she’s a longtime stalker in the habit of threatening Cady’s romantic interests: Melissa, Amy Brancato, and now Anna.
- • “Where’s your toe?” “I ate it again.”
- • Cady seems to have special plans for the car salesman whose wife he apparently screwed, and I’m scared.
- • Tom jumping into the pool to save Zack also reminded me of a particularly gutting Sopranos scene. If you know you know.
- • Zack drawing that fish and flashing back to a fishing trip with his dad is actually extremely sweet, and might be what finally unlocked that dynamic for me.
- • I enjoyed seeing more of Ray Rawlins this episode. His tense interaction with Cady was a highlight. (That’s The Wire’s Jamie Hector, by the way.)
- • I will say, I know nothing about criminal law, but it does seem a little ridiculous to me that a ten-second voice memo of Smiley talking under duress would be admissible in court. The show sort of hand-waves this when Anna acknowledges that it’ll take some time to jump through the hoops to get Ruben out, but the clear implication is that he’s going home soon.
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