‘The Waterfront’ Creator Kevin Williamson on Grady’s Death, Belle’s Ascent

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers from “The Waterfront,” now streaming on Netflix.

By the end of the first season of Netflix’s crime drama “The Waterfront,” the Buckley family managed to survive the tidal wave of outside threats — and a bucket of man o’ war jellyfish — looking to take them down.

First, it was Sheriff Porter (Michael Gaston), the shadowy figure pulling the strings behind the Buckleys’ new venture running drugs through their North Carolina fishing business. After a confrontation with Harlan Buckley (Holt McCallany) though, Porter gets a knife to the head and then a car dropped on him to cover up the evidence.

DEA Agent Sanchez (Gerardo Celasco) got close to exposing the Buckleys’ new side hustle, but his affection for his girlfriend and inside woman Bree Buckley (Melissa Benoist) clouded his judgment. Using her own relapse as bait, Bree managed to coax Sanchez back into his own past drug addiction to protect her family, inadvertently causing his death by overdose. 

Then there’s Grady (Topher Grace), the highfalutin sociopath who was supplying the drugs the Buckleys were hauling. Grady wants to build an empire with a father figure he thinks he has found in Harlan, until he sees that the Buckleys close ranks to outsiders when something threatens them. Cut to Harlan getting jellyfish poured on his chest by his new employer, and his grandson shot on a hunting trip, Dick Cheney-style. The Buckleys then realize Grady’s got to go. After they destroy his operation and kill his henchmen, a vengeful Grady kidnaps Bree in the finale, hoping to draw out Harlan. But he overplays his hand and takes a few bullets for it, courtesy of Harlan’s son Cane (Jake Weary). Bree barely survives Grady’s wrath, but the Buckleys live to fish another day.

However, in the season’s final moment, a new threat emerged against them –– one from within the family. Buckley matriarch Belle (Maria Bello) aligned herself with Emmett Parker (Terry Serpico), another drug kingpin who has a history with them. His father Jeb (Gerry Bamman) trafficked drugs with Harlan’s father in the 1980s, and killed the elder Buckley when he double crossed him. In spite of that grisly history, Emmett has resumed business with Harlan and Cane, while quietly telling Belle she would make a better boss. In the final scene, he hands her the keys to the Buckley kingdom –– and the chance to exact revenge on Wes (Dave Annable), the slimy businessman and lover who betrayed her in the land deal.

“Harlan is a Buckley through and through, but I think Belle has had to manipulate and control things while standing behind him and in his shadow,” series creator Kevin Williamson tells Variety. “She realizes through the course of everything that’s happened that she can do this better. She doesn’t need to keep going through Harlan to accomplish what needs to be done. It’s time for him to sit down.”

Williamson says Harlan’s reaction to being usurped by his wife just as he’s finally getting back in the game would be the defining conflict of Season 2, which Netflix has not yet greenlit. But there is plenty of story left on the table for the Buckleys, who are only now getting their footing in the undertow of the coastal criminal element.

Below, Williamson talks to Variety about Belle’s big move, if Bree was ever in danger of dying from her finale injuries and why Cane’s wife Peyton (Danielle Campbell) may be the one to keep an eye on in the future.

Looking at Season 1 as a whole, what story did you want to tell about the Buckleys?

I love writing about families — I think that’s what I always gravitate toward. But no one wants to write about happy people, that’s not fun. You want to write about messy people doing messy things. I wanted to tell a story about this broken family that’s trying to fix itself, and why they have to do it individually and together. There’s a lot of secrets going on, and there’s a lot of resentment, there’s a lot of trauma and there’s a lot of the past poking through the cracks. You can’t move forward until you fix the past, which you saw in Bree’s character. You’ve got Cane, who’s dealing with the road not taken, and looking at all the choices he’s made, and starting to regret them, and wishing he had left town and found another life for himself. Then you have the same thing in Harlan and Belle, because Harlan’s the same way. He’s seen his entire life fall apart around him, so what can he do to fix it? He went and drank and had some heart attacks and gave up. I wanted to tell the story of him coming back, and returning to be the patriarch of this family to keep it alive.

It’s rather symbolic that despite Harlan being right there, it’s Cane who ultimately kills Grady in the end and saves the family.

That was the plan: “I’m not you. I will never be you.” He desperately wants to be a good person and not the guy who pulls the trigger. But he does.

Where does pulling the trigger leave Cane? He still seems reluctant about this life of crime, and Harlan and Cane are still a very broken father and son pair at the end of Episode 8. But Cane seems a bit steadier with that gun now.

He got the answer he wanted. He wanted some sort of acknowledgement from his father that, “It wasn’t just me who didn’t choose my future — you chose it too. You forced me into this.” When he finally gets that answer in the last episode, it fixes a part of him, but it doesn’t fix him completely. What we’re going to watch is now, with that knowledge, can he get right with this? He doesn’t really wear crime well. His father does. His father’s really good at it. By returning to a life of crime, Harlan finds himself again. He finds his purpose, and he actually becomes a better person. I don’t think that’s necessarily true for Cane. Cane’s going to have to stumble a bit. I don’t think he’s ever going to wear it well, and everything’s going to be a compromise for him, and everything’s going to be a moral dilemma. I don’t think he’s cut out for it. He might get better at it, but I don’t think he’ll ever be OK with it. 

You haven’t been able to talk much about Topher Grace’s character as Grady because it was a spoiler. But can you talk a little bit about the inspiration for this character and what he really wants? Is he looking for a father? Is he looking for a partner? Or is he looking for someone he can control?

I think all of the above. We set up that he didn’t have a great relationship with his father or his family. He’s an outcast, and he’s been thrown to the side. I do think he sees a father figure in Harlan. He takes one look at Harlan, and he sees the father he never had, or the father he wanted. But at the same time, business first. There’s only so much reasoning you can do with a psychopath. 

I wanted to write a dynamic villain, but I wanted him to be someone that was one entertaining and fun. No one wants a mustache-twirling villain. But it’s always fun to take what could be a lovable, likable, funny guy, and turn him into a raging psychopath. That’s fun to watch. I kind of just write what I want to watch. He’s a psychopath narcissist, and we all know what it’s dealing with a narcissist. 

You obviously have a background in horror, and while this is a strict crime drama, you still managed to get some gory moments in here. The car dropped on the head. The drug dealer has his face blown off. Those jellyfish! What made you not skimp on the gory details?

There are a few shocking moments, but they’re meant to be shocking. They’re meant to be visceral. You’re watching this show, this family drama, this crime drama, you’re watching these situations and these characters, and then boom! Something jolting happens. That’s life. It comes up and just knocks you in the head sometimes. That’s what we wanted. You want to write about the moments after that. 

We see that after Harlan kills the sheriff, and the brainstorming that he does with Belle to cover it up. Dropping the car on his head was probably an “A ha!” moment in the writers room.

Well, they had to hide the knife wound somehow!

Speaking of death, Bree comes very close to dying in this episode after Grady shoots her on the boat. Was there ever a version where she doesn’t make it out alive?

No. That character has so much farther to go. 

Where does she stand with her family? She has done quite a bit to protect the Buckley name.

I do think she’s found a way back in. She looks to her mother, and she basically says, “It’s because of you that I’m always out on the outside of the family. You set the temperature in this family, and I’m always frozen out.” But I think she has a reconciliation with her mother and some understanding about the past, and that’s what’s going to help her with her future. I think she is going to find herself. It’s not that they have thrown her out. It’s that she’s never felt like she belonged. But through the course of her actions and everything she’s done in Season 1, she clearly belongs in that family, if not at the center of it.

But it’s Belle who takes that place at the center of the family, without telling the rest of the Buckleys. Why did you choose to let Belle ascend in this renewed partnership with Emmett?

Well, she married into the Buckley family. Harlan is a Buckley through and through, but I think she has had to manipulate and control things while standing behind him and in his shadow. She realizes through the course of everything that’s happened that she can do this better. She doesn’t need to keep going through Harlan to accomplish what needs to be done. It’s time for him to sit down. Let’s be honest, they should have developed that land. It was wrong of Harlan not to want to do it and Belle saw why they should. They wasted 20 years, and I feel like she’s finally done waiting, and she’s finally done trying to control him. She’s just going to push him aside and do what she needs to do. The one thing that she states very clearly is she has earned the Buckley name, and she’s right.

Has Harlan grown enough to let Belle unseat him in this family dynasty that bears his name? 

No! That will be our conflict in Season 2.

If we are talking about the Buckley name, Shawn (Rafael L. Silva) is someone who is trying to earn it as well, despite everything he has seen. He helps Harlan and Cane try to rescue Bree and gets what Grady doesn’t: Harlan as a willing father figure. Do you think Shawn wants a life of crime, or is he just so desperate to have a place? 

I think he’s desperate to have a place. He’s dealing with the grief of his mom. He’s alone in the world. I think the one thing he wants is family. He comes to this small town, and he does see how crazy this family is, and how broken and twisted and criminal it is. But at the same time, he sees that there’s a lot of love there. There’s a family dynamic to it that he desperately longs for. It’s that longing that’s going to keep him there, and it’s also going to compromise him.

Shawn mentions he has a boyfriend back in Texas, so he’s not totally alone. But that boyfriend never appears this season. If you get a second season, are you interested in showing the romantic side of Shawn?

I think the very first thing that would happen is that person would come to town and start asking questions. “Where have you been? We have a life in Texas.” I think Shawn’s going to have to make a big decision. It’ll be really interesting for that character to show up and what is his response to this Buckley family when he figures out who they are. It’s gonna be fun to watch him navigate all the different characters in this new family dynamic.

Bree and Cane obviously have very different reactions to the news that Shawn is their half-brother. Has the business with Grady softened their stance on him at all?

Bree has a much easier time with it. She truly recognizes Shawn and sees he could easily come into this family as the outcast. She knows what that outcast is. She’s played it a lot. She’s much more welcoming. Belle is too because, like I said, she married into the family, and so she knows what it’s like to be an outsider as well. Belle understands what it’s like to be alone in this family. Harlan looks at Sean and sees a son who’s full of good, and I think he almost views him as a mulligan. As a do over. He gets another shot at being a father. The only person that’s probably gonna have the biggest problem is Cane. I think Cane is going to be threatened. He’s going to be jealous, he’s going to be all of the above. Shawn and Cane are going to be a really hard relationship.

Then there’s the wild card that is Peyton. In the finale, Cane comes groveling back to her for forgiveness for his infidelity, and she seems to take him back. But she does it in a very ominous way, saying “Everything’s fine. You and me. We’re fine. I’m gonna see to it.” It feels like she’s about to make Cane’s life a living hell. How does Peyton factor into the Buckleys’ next chapter?

I think Peyton is a power player. She knows what she wants, and she’s going to get it. She had that moment where she could run, she could leave, and she almost does. But I think she has a better plan. She loves this man, and they say you can’t change someone. Well, we’re gonna watch her do it. 

If anyone is owed something, it’s her. The woman was almost set on fire for this family’s sins!

Maybe she’ll be the one with the matches next season.

This interview has been edited and condensed.