Spoilers below for Episode 5 of Cape Fear. New episodes stream every Friday on Apple TV.
Things are getting weird on Cape Fear. Like, really weird. Five episodes in and Apple TV’s creepy, moody thriller seems to know where it’s going, but insists on taking its sweet time getting there, forsaking forward momentum for outright strange (albeit well-acted) character moments and multiple scenes that had me literally mouthing “WTF” (and not in a good way). This is a show that probably could have been 6-7 episodes, but was stretched to 10 and is now suffering from a severe case of mid-season-itis.
This week, we’re treated to a look at Nevaeh’s (revealed last week to be Max Cady’s daughter) home life, and it’s just about as weird as you can imagine. Her mother, Faith, seems to be in a particularly bad spot. When Nevaeh shows up to her house, which is filled with candles and has old footage of a fire-and-brimstone preacher playing on TV, it’s obvious her mother is afraid of her. Backing Faith into a corner, Nevaeh smiles menacingly and gives her a tad-too-long kiss on the mouth (WTF #1). It seems the psycho menace doesn’t fall far from the psycho menace tree.
Later, Anna tracks Nevaeh to a movie theater and confronts her outside. After claiming she’s messing with the Bowden family to pay them back for putting her father behind bars, Nevaeh bites Anna (WTF #2) and is promptly hit by a car (WTF #3). Don’t worry. She immediately gets up and runs off.
Meanwhile, Tom has drinks with his colleague / not-quite-mistress Lex, and who shows up? You guessed it. Max. Again. Why the Bowden family doesn’t just run in the opposite direction whenever this guy makes an entrance is the show’s most enduring (and annoying) mystery. If an accused murderer was even POTENTIALLY stalking my family, I don’t think I’d sit down for a round of drinks and a deep, therapeutic conversation with him, which is exactly what happens here. Max claims that he’s never met his daughter but that she frequently wrote to him in prison, swearing vengeance on Tom and Anna.
Later, Max is confronted by his still-unnamed stalker. She claims that now she’s on the “right pills” and asks Max if “they’re going to hurt each other again” before saying she visited Max in a dream. Instead of dismissing her, Max has a moment of recognition before (I swear to God) threatening her and spitting in her mouth (WTF #4).
Juliette Lewis pops every time she shows up on screen, but this side plot runs the risk of wearing out its welcome if the relationship between Max and the stalker doesn’t move forward even a little bit soon. It sets up a borderline supernatural element to the show that could prove to be intriguing, but may just be an annoying red herring.
Speaking of the occult, we later see Zack performing some sort of ritual in the family’s unfinished den while clutching a strange object covered in what look to be puka shells. Afterwards, Zack gets into a physical altercation with his sister and Anna eventually finds him in a trance in the kitchen, staring into an open refrigerator. In perhaps the episode’s best moment, Zack creepily looks at Anna and gives the scariest “I love you Mom” this side of Norman Bates (WTF #5).
Joe Anders’ performance as Zack, along with that of Malia Pyles (who plays Nevaeh), is undoubtedly the best thing about “Faith.” While the plot stalls out and the coincidences pile up, these two young actors give wildly different yet equally affecting performances that are at once memorable and unsettling. The mystery of what exactly is happening with both of them has (so far) been enough to sustain my interest in the show, even while many other elements are stuck in neutral.
Elsewhere, the murder suspect who Tom and Lex are representing tells them she wants Lex off the case because Lex has become a distraction for Tom. Lex, as you can imagine, doesn’t take it well and attempts to blackmail Tom with a series of explicit voicemails she claims he sent (but Tom denies). Is this yet another one of Max Cady’s potential bursts of vengeance? Probably, but we don’t know quite yet.
Meanwhile, Anna tracks down Faith and attempts to get information about Nevaeh. After some resistance, Faith divulges that she suspects that Max is grooming Nevaeh and tells Anna where she can find her daughter. Turns out, Nevaeh’s “home” is a mausoleum she’s broken into and that she’s been sleeping in a broken, above-ground grave (WTF #6). Anna then returns to Faith’s house only to learn that she’s been brutally murdered. At the scene, Anna finds the odd puka-shell covered object that Zack was clutching earlier and (of course) refuses to call 911.
As the episode winds down, Tom and Anna reveal that they’ve both been suspended from their jobs (Tom for his alleged affair, Anna for being too Max-obsessed) and we get one final WTF reveal: Max has moved in literally across the street. This, while eye roll-inducing on its face, hopefully serves as a catalyst to force the Bowdens to admit once and for all that Max Cady is bad news and they should get the hell out of town (maybe even to the titular Cape Fear?). It also underscores just how neutered Max has been this episode, having almost fully passed the villain baton to his daughter.
Episode 6 of Cape Fear isn’t a bad episode of TV. It’s just more concerned with filling time and creating cheap thrills than actually advancing the plot. The camerawork and cinematography are, as usual, great (there’s a long shot through the Bowden’s ductwork that’s straight out of Panic Room) and much of the acting is still stellar.
But, in a 50+ minute episode of television, there probably should be more than a good 100 seconds of actual story advancement. That’s OK for one episode a season, but I sure hope Cape Fear gets back to moving the plot forward in a meaningful way, instead of just getting me to repeatedly yell “WTF.”
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