The Emmy-winning docuseries 100 Foot Wave returns to HBO with five new episodes for us to watch, fascinated, as professional surfers dance on the crumbling rim of a monstrous wall of water. Directed by Chris Smith (Wham!, Mr. McMahon) and featuring world champion surfer Garrett McNamara, who shares his quest to tame the elusive tallest wave ever with a round of pro riders we’ve come to know across previous seasons, 100 Foot Wave tracks these athletes and their endurance-and-insanity-wired brains as they seek new heights of personal and professional accomplishment. It’s not like this docuseries would suddenly end if its titular century mark was reached. McNamara and his mates are too determined to seek out and ride the rush, no matter the threat to life and limb.
Opening Shot: In footage from 2004, Garrett McNamara, then 37, emerges from the turbulence of a big wave, bleeding profusely from his brow. “I should probably stitch it. So I can surf.”
The Gist: It’s a classic of professional sports. The “rub some dirt on it” solution to apparent injury. And as the flashback continues, we see McNamara fuse shut his forehead gash with a vial of nearby superglue. “At that time in my career, it was just like a normal thing for me to go back out,” says McNamara, now greybearded in his 50s.
The return of 100 Foot Wave is in part a reckoning for its star. Shot in 2022 and 2023, Season 3 of the series follows McNamara through banks of neurological tests and rounds of physical workouts in anticipation of the new big wave surfing season. A near-lifetime of hard wipeouts has done a number on his body, as have “at least a hundred” concussions, and while his wife Nicole knows no one can tell him not to surf, she thinks he’d rather die than quit. Which creates a certain amount of pressure on his career, plus their lives together with their young children. (Their son Barrel, 8, is already catching waves in tournaments.) As the family arrives in Nazaré, Portugal for the winter surf season, it’s with fellow surfers like Andrew “Cotty” Cotton noting how Garrett McNamara – despite his long professional legacy, his high-vis compression wetsuit with air bladders, and for his skull, the closest-fitting crash helmet possible – “is playing with the risk.”
We’re re-introduced to Cotty this season, as well as surfers Lucas “Chumbo” Chianca and Nic Von Rupp, Michelle Des Bouillons and Ian Cosenza, and Justine Dupont, who is facing the new surfing season after rehabbing an ankle injury. Dupont’s working relationship with António “Tony” Laureano also comes into question. As her jet-ski driver, Laureano is responsible for reading the swells and placing his towed surfer on the best-possible wave. But in Navaré, as the absolute beasts the surfers crave most start to roll in from the Atlantic, Justine and Tony can’t get on the same surfer-driver page.
And while Navaré and its confluence of big wave activity has been the focus of 100 Foot Wave since the series began, Season 3 also goes beyond. Back to Waimea Bay on the north shore of Oahu, Hawaii. To a boat off the coast of California, and the legendary surf destination of Cortes Bank. And to points elsewhere on the globe, including Italy and Morocco, where the gigantic swells are always calling to people wired to forever chase them.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? They don’t actually make jet-ski engines. But Mercedes-Benz is one of Garrett McNamara’s sponsors, and its trefoil logo does appear on the nose of his watercraft. Benz, of course, also has a long history with Formula 1 as an engine manufacturer – the latest season of Formula 1: Drive to Survive just premiered on Netflix. And in addition to 100 Foot Wave, HBO also features the surfing documentary Momentum Generation.
Our Take: The mythical salt water beast actually has been tamed. Professional surfing’s climb to conquer ever-bigger waves has progressed outside of 100 Foot Wave, and beyond Garrett McNamara’s 2011 world record for riding a 78-foot Nazaré wave. Sebastian Steudtner’s 86-foot win in 2020 is covered in Wave, and surfing’s attempts to officially chronicle and measure even higher feats continues. So in that sense, and with its third season, the title of this docuseries is more about representing a feeling. Pinpointing one pinnacle as a spiritual goal of the drive that keeps these surfers surviving, always pushing for the next opportunity. “Everyone wants to surf the biggest wave,” says Andrew “Cotty” Cotton in season 3 of 100 Foot Wave. “That’s still my drive.” And the big wave community that gathers in Nazaré gives surfer CJ Macias some shit for only spotting swells from cliffs and not riding waves, even though he’s recovering from a serious arm injury. The message is clear: when you’re a pro surfer, you never stop never stopping.
That vibe permeates every inch of this docuseries, down to each individual interview with people like McNamara, Cotton, Macias, and Justine Dupont. And it keeps it compelling, because goddamn, they all have taken so many hits. They are extremely skilled athletes, highly trained. But no matter how great they are, their bodies become wisps of neoprene fabric flying end-over-end through the air whenever 100 Foot Wave’s cameras capture another spectacular wipeout. Their determination to keep doing this, to keep “going back out,” is what keeps us glued. Because that shit looks like it hurts. And this season, as Garrett McNamara confronts the facts about what repeatedly crashing into seawater cosplaying as concrete has done to him, we can’t wait to see where he comes out of the barrel.
Sex and Skin: Lots of people are wet all of the time, certainly, and struggling into and out of synthetic rubber wetsuits. But the onshore dress code in 100 Foot Wave is all surf style – hoodies, trucker hats, and Justine Dupont’s never ending supply of colorful pullovers from Adidas, one of her principal sponsors.
Parting Shot: There is blood on the jet-ski as a surfer is towed back into shore. Pro surfers train and train and train. But subjecting their bodies to the unpredictable movement of 800 metric tons of water can cause harm in a nanosecond.
Sleeper Star: The music of Phillip Glass remains a stark standout in season 3 of 100 Foot Wave. From earnest orchestral movements that surge with the anticipation of a wave, to the staccato fragments of cello left in the wash of a collapsed barrel, the award-winning composer’s work for the series feels fluid, searching, and foreboding all at once.
Most Pilot-y Line: “I only thought I had so much to gain – not lose.” Reflecting on a career of going hard in the salt water paint, Garret McNamara sounds like a guy who’s finally realizing there is a limit, even for him.
Our Call: Stream It! Gorgeously shot and scored, season 3 of 100 Foot Wave again dives deep into the world of professional surfing, where driven personalities like Garret McNamara try to balance their everyday lives – and their very mortality – against bigger and bigger feats of professional surfing glory.
Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.
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