Spoilers below for Episode 9 of Cape Fear. New episodes stream every Friday on Apple TV.
Cape Fear Episode 9 is a mess. Whereas the last few entries of the show have been propulsive and mind-bogglingly chaotic, the latest episode of the Apple TV series – titled “The Scar” – commits the cardinal sin of being boring.
Sure, there are a few wild moments (No Natalie! Don’t have sex with your maybe-sister in prison in order to steal her hidden cell phone!), but “The Scar” is otherwise a featherweight filler episode premiering right when the series needs to be firing on all cylinders.
When we last saw Anna, she was driving like a bat out of hell away from Savannah to find Max’s sister Crystal in North Carolina. When she arrives at the Cape Fear River, there’s no sign of Crystal, so Anna heads over to Max’s father’s house. Once there, she confronts Max’s father and stepmother (who seems to be so far gone that she’s given a doll – who she believes is her daughter Crystal – to nurse).
Later, Anna gets drunk at a local bar (it seems she’s fully off the wagon now) and passes out. She comes to the next morning on Crystal’s houseboat where, over breakfast beers, the two women have a long conversation about Max (this episode fails the Bechdel Test spectacularly).
Crystal reveals that she took all of the many, many photos of Max as evidence of his misdeeds and to prevent him from “coming after” her. She reveals that Amy – the woman who killed herself in the season premiere at Max’s behest – had her life together before Max showed up, which leads Crystal and Anna to take a short trip over to Amy’s trailer.
Back in Savannah, Tom, Natalie, and Zack are still in various states of incarceration. Natalie gets hassled by a fellow inmate before Nevaeh comes to her rescue with a nicely-timed chair to the aggressor’s head.
Meanwhile, Max pays Tom a visit and warns about a “gift” he’ll receive in his cell later. All the while, Zack is practically nowhere to be found. The show’s underuse of Joe Anders in the back half of the season is immensely frustrating given the actor’s wonderful turn in earlier episodes. Apart from a brief phone conversation with Tom, Zack (and Anders) barely has any screentime this episode yet again, which robs the show of one of its best characters.
At the jail where Natalie is being held, the episode reaches a low point. In a phone call, Nevaeh (who somehow has a hidden cell phone) has an unconscionably clumsy conversation with Max that quickly resolves many of the season’s major mysteries and answers multiple long-simmering questions with unprompted exposition and absolutely no build-up. During the conversation we find out definitively: A) Max has been manipulating Nevaeh; B) she’s been his direct accomplice the whole time; and C) part of Max’s endgame is to have Nevaeh kill Natalie so that Anna “can feel the pain” of losing a child like Max did.
Soon after, Natalie, who suspects something is awry, attacks Nevaeh and then immediately starts making out with her. After the two have sex (somehow without any of the prison guards noticing), Nevaeh continues the parade of exposition by confirming to Natalie that Max told her to break into the Bowdens’ house, spike their tea with acid, seduce Zack, and make him bite off his own toe.
And thus, many of the most provocative threads of the entire show are quickly resolved. It’s a shame that the resolution of these storylines wasn’t handled with the same care with which they had been built to this point.
Back in North Carolina, Crystal and Anna break into Amy’s trailer, where Anna finds a picture of a boy with a scar running down his entire side. When Anna asks Crystal about the photo, she storms out. Anna, deducing that the boy is Crystal’s son, catches up with her and gets Crystal to admit that she gave the boy away because “she was a mess.”
In Savannah, Max pays Noa a visit and tries to threaten her into revealing Anna’s location. For a moment, you’re pretty sure Noa’s going to bite it, but Max abruptly leaves after seeming to have somehow snagged whatever information he needed without murdering Noa.
Across town in grown-up prison, Tom receives his mysterious gift from Max – a package containing a cell phone and a noose. Max later calls Tom and tries to convince him to hang himself, just like Tom’s brother hanged himself decades prior. Distraught, Tom calls Anna to say he loves her.
Afterward Tom receives an “official” prison-to-prison phone call (boy, is this guy on the phone a lot for an inmate) where Zack’s doctor reveals that Zack has escaped from the psychiatric hospital. Back at Natalie’s jail, Noa arrives to bail out Natalie, who’s stolen Nevaeh’s secret phone. It looks like Daddy’s little henchman has finally been neutralized.
On the houseboat, Anna searches for a recording of conversations between Amy and Max. When Crystal tries to lock her below deck, Anna pulls a gun on her and goads Crystal into confessing that it was in fact she, and not Max, who killed Max’s wife and son. It’s another major revelation that falls completely flat due to absolutely no build-up or tension.
Anna then calls Max and tells her that she knows about Crystal, and how she suspects that the boy with the scar was in fact fathered by Max. Soon, Max’s creepy father and the weird kid who tried to kiss Natalie in a previous episode arrive and disarm Anna. Anna soon realizes that the kid, named Luke, is the boy with the scar from the photo and incites a family argument on the boat deck. In the commotion, Anna jumps overboard and begins to swim away just as Max arrives.
All of this builds to what one would assume would be a tense final showdown between Max and Anna and a resolution to their melodramatic feud. It should be a moment of anticipation, but instead lands with an absolute thud.
There are still glimpses of hallmarks that have made Cape Fear such a wild, rich roller coaster throughout the entire season. The cinematography and scenery are breathtaking. Many of the actors are still turning in first-rate performances. But “The Scar” is barely half an episode of storytelling, with major moments that feel rushed and long-awaited explanations that are oversimplified.
Episode 9 of Cape Fear could have been a huge episode for the show, setting the stage for a climactic confrontation between the show’s leads in a fight to the death for the ages. Instead, we’re left with a muddled, watered-down episode that hopefully is an aberration before next week’s finale.
