Spoilers below for Episode 8 of Cape Fear. New episodes stream every Friday on Apple TV.
As Cape Fear barrels toward its inevitable explosive conclusion, I find myself queuing up each new episode with the same thought: This one can’t be as flat-out nuts as the last one, can it? And every time I get the same answer: Yes, it absolutely can.
This week’s episode, titled “Los tiempos de Dios son Perfects” (Spanish for “God’s timing is perfect”), is so surprising, so melodramatic, and so propulsive that it left me in a state akin to Jack Torrance’s “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” moment in The Shining in which I repeatedly wrote “BONKERS” in all caps on my computer. Because this episode, filled with floating body parts, double crosses, and revelations is BONKERS.
Episode 8 picks up moments after where we left off last week, when Tom and Anna tried to frame Max by convincing Anna’s father, Brandon, to plant suspicious medication in Max’s house. Soon, the police arrive and take Max into custody. Max glares at Tom and Anna while he’s loaded into a police car, and the look on Natalie’s face signals that she suspects something’s up as well. Meanwhile, back at Zack’s psychiatric facility, the doctor thinks he has Zack on the road to recovery. But, this being Cape Fear, things aren’t that cut and dry. Zack gets angry and begins spiraling, signaling that he might still be under Max’s control.
The next morning, Natalie goes for a swim in the back yard, leading to what is perhaps the most jarring and grotesque scene in the entire series. While swimming laps, Natalie spots a box at the bottom of the pool. What could possibly be inside? Is it the missing gun? Evidence of Anna and Tom’s plot for framing Max? No. Natalie swims to it and pops open the box only to see body parts come spewing out. Lots and lots of body parts. Ray’s, to be specific. Natalie recoils in horror as the scene cuts to the best title sequence to date.
What makes this scene special — my second favorite of the series so far, after Episode 6’s acid trip — is not only the shock and gore but the fact that it finally, conclusively shows that Max is 100% behind all of the Bowdens’ misery. We always knew this (the show is titled Cape Fear, after all, and its main character is Max Cady) but it’s a relief to finally have Max’s treachery laid out explicitly. The revelation frees the show from some of its long-running questions and hopefully portends an action-packed finale.
After the Bowdens call the police, Natalie comes to the realization that Max used the gun she stole from her parents to kill Ray. When the cops ask Tom if he owns any guns, he goes to the safe and realizes that one has been fired. So what does Tom do? Surely, as a lawyer, something sensible, right? Nope. Once Tom realizes something’s off, he decides to give the cops a different gun.
After confronting Max in the street after he’s released from custody (why do so many tense moments in this show happen in the middle of the street?), Anna goes to see her father. She tells him to get out of town so the cops don’t tie him to the plot to blackmail Max. Brandon, ever the loving father, agrees as long as Anna pays him $100,000.
Next, after talking to Max on the phone, Natalie goes to see Neveah in jail and begs for her help. Neveah instead screams at Natalie to the point where she has to be escorted away by guards. Later, Anna and Noa use iCloud to access photos Ray took on his trip to North Carolina and find pictures of the houseboat. Tom and Anna show the photos to the police, who are dismissive. They question Tom again about the gun and tell them they know he gave them the wrong one.
At home, Natalie comes clean with her parents about the gun and her trip to North Carolina just as the police arrive and arrest Tom for killing Ray, who they think discovered a plot for Tom to frame Max. Anna sees Ray on the news with Max and realizes that her father was the one who betrayed them. Anna visits Tom in prison who asks her if Max is Natalie’s daughter. She obfuscates and says the situation is complicated.
All of this is essential to the plot if frustating; setting up what looks like will be another delay where we will be denied real answers to one of the show’s biggest questions. I was afraid the show was slipping back into its early season habit of spinning its wheels and putting off the inevitable good stuff but, fortunately, was immediately proved wrong.
Just as we’re left wondering when we’ll (if ever) find out about the truth of Anna and Max’s prior relationship, we’re given an answer in the very next scene. Natalie asks Anna point blank: “What did Max Cady do to you?” In an eerie analog to Zack’s missing memories, Anna reveals that she experienced blackouts back when she was Max’s attorney, sometimes for a few hours, sometimes for whole nights, and even entire weekends. Anna says she was a “disaster” at the time and didn’t really suspect anything because it had “happened before” with other men. She claims not to know who Natalie’s father is, but what’s certain is that Max Cady’s machinations are even more evil than we suspected.
At Max’s house, he experiences another seizure and has a vision of his dead wife and son before Natalie comes bursting in with a gun and tries to get him to “tell the truth” about what he did to her mother. Thinking he’s diffused the situation, Max pulls Natalie close before she pulls the trigger and shoots him in the stomach. Soon, the police show up for the third time this episode and take Natalie into custody. As she’s loaded into a police car, Anna runs out and asks Natalie what happened. “I missed,” she replies.
At the hospital, Anna pretends to be Max’s sister Crystal to confront him once again. When she asks what he wants from her, Max – who miraculously survived, thanks to the bullet missing all of his major organs – lays out his fundamental motive: “This is what I wanted. For you to feel this. To feel your family ripped apart. Broken. Caged. Your children taken away. This.”
Enraged, Anna storms out and returns home where she’s able to pull up location data from one of the iCloud photos. She grabs a gun and hits the road while a literal hurricane bears down. She’s headed to the Cape Fear River to find Crystal. God knows what happens next. The sequence showcases Amy Adams’s best acting of the entire series, effortlessly pivoting between despair, confusion, and rage as she steamrolls her way into an all-out war with Max Cady.
As the episode ends we’re left with glimpses of just how dire Anna’s situation is. Her husband? Jail. Her daughter? Jail. Her son? Involuntary psychiatric hold. “Los tiempos de Dios son Perfectos” is simultaneously the culmination of a few long-simmering storylines and the launching pad for the show’s endgame. While it’s not as action-packed or humorous as some previous entries, Episode 8 of Cape Fear is a rollicking hour filled with outright horror, long-awaited answers, and the best acting of the show so far.
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