The ending of The Waterfront was all about the Buckleys saving Bree from the clutches of Grady. After Harlan suffered two consecutive heart attacks and decided to step away from the Buckley family business, Cane, his son, unknowingly went into business with Grady and Sheriff Clyde by shaking hands with Hoyt. Eventually, Clyde killed Hoyt for betraying him, and Harlan killed Clyde because the latter refused to play ball with him. With all the middlemen gone, it was Harlan and Grady operating face-to-face. They struck a deal where Harlan would use his fishery business to transport Grady’s heroin, and Grady would pay him handsomely. But Grady pushed his luck by trying to get Harlan to do impromptu drug runs for him. When Harlan pushed back, Grady hurt Diller, Harlan’s grandson.

In an attempt to protect his family, Harlan and Cane brought the notorious Parkers into the picture. Grady retaliated by kidnapping Harlan and Shawn, Harlan’s illegitimate son. Cane rescued them and blew up Grady’s opium farm. And then Grady replied back by kidnapping Bree, Harlan’s daughter. Was Bree rescued? How were the plot threads of Season 1 resolved? Or were they left altogether unresolved? Let’s find out.

Grady Is Dead

Harlan called Grady, and the kidnapper had a pretty clear demand: Harlan had to come out to his yacht all alone, and he’d set Bree free. Belle (Harlan’s wife), Cane, and Shawn weren’t okay with Harlan going to meet Grady all by himself because they knew that Grady would kill him. So, after some not-so-subtle persuasion, Cane and Shawn remained hidden in a secret section of Harlan’s boat as he went to the coordinates sent to him by Grady. In the meantime, Bree gained consciousness in Grady’s ship and, pretty randomly, came across Diller, her son. Diller had seen Bree getting kidnapped by Grady’s men and decided to sneak onto the boat unnoticed by anyone.

Since Grady already had one point of leverage against Harlan, Bree didn’t want him to gain another by finding Diller on his boat. Hence, she ordered Diller to stay hidden in a closet until the coast was clear, while she went to confront Grady. As soon as Bree learned that Harlan was on his way to save her, she knew that Grady would kill her dad. Therefore, she tried her best to one-up Grady with the help of a piece of broken wood and a gun. Upon hearing a gunshot, Diller stupidly came out into the open and was captured by Grady’s men. Realizing that he had a hostage who wasn’t as feisty as Bree, Grady shot her in the leg and threw her overboard.

During all that chaos, Diller managed to throw an inflatable liferaft in Bree’s direction so that she could stay afloat until help reached her. A few moments later, Harlan, along with Cane and Shaw, arrived to rescue Bree. Once they realized that Diller was being held hostage while Bree was somewhere out on the water, they went on the offensive and killed Grady’s men. Grady was cornered by Harlan and Cane. He was out of moves, but when he saw that Cane was hesitating to pull the trigger—because Cane was a bit of a pacifist—he stupidly tried to question Cane’s manhood and pointed out how Harlan was wrong for not accepting Grady as his son. Cane silenced Grady for good by putting two bullets into the motormouth’s face. Later on, Acting Sheriff Drew, Cane’s cousin’s husband, relayed the info to Harlan that the guns, the bodies, and the evidence that linked the Buckleys to Grady had been “dumped and scrubbed.” With Grady out of the way, Cane, Shawn, Diller, and Harlan focused on searching for Bree. Although she was bleeding profusely, she found the strength to use the flare gun to signal her position. The Buckleys got to her in time and saved her before she drowned in a pool of her own blood.

Cane Is Under Peyton’s Thumb

Earlier in the episode, Peyton, Cane’s wife, returned home. She’d left him because Cane refused to tell her anything about his family business, especially since it was putting her and Savannah, their daughter, in harm’s way. On top of that, since Peyton could sense that the romance between Cane and Jenna had been rekindled, she was very uncomfortable in his presence. Hence, she took Savannah with her and left for Durham. When she noticed, via the Ring app, that Cane hadn’t come home for 2 consecutive days, she decided to pay him a visit. Since Peyton had been targeted by Clyde before, Cane didn’t want her to go through the same ordeal again and wanted her to leave. But Peyton refused to budge until Cane told her the truth, and that’s exactly what Cane did. He revealed that the Buckleys were smuggling heroin and that he had slept with Jenna. Peyton couldn’t do anything about the heroin, but she wanted to stick to her promise of hurting Jenna for fornicating with her husband. However, when she showed up to Jenna’s house and learned that her father had just passed away, Peyton decided to be the bigger person and handle Jenna’s dad’s funeral proceedings. That ramped up Jenna’s shame by a few notches.

So, after Cane’s swashbuckling adventures, when he showed up to Jenna’s house, she essentially let her guilt do the talking and told him to go home, where Peyton was waiting for him. Peyton essentially used Cane’s vulnerability to bring him under her thumb. She was glad to hear that Cane was done with both Harlan and Jenna, which meant she had him all to herself. I don’t exactly know what Peyton’s angle is. She isn’t interested in the family business. She explicitly stated that she doesn’t want to be like Belle, i.e., a woman who gives her husband free rein to sleep with anyone. I don’t really know if she wants all the perks of being associated with a Buckley but none of the hassles of being a Buckley. She has insinuated that she is more handy with a gun than Cane; so, maybe she is attracted to the violent side of the Buckley family business. When Cane brought up the drug smuggling stuff, she didn’t even flinch. Hence, it’s totally possible that she wants to be as influential as Belle without losing control of her husband. I mean, her relationship with Belle is prickly. Who knows? It’s possible Peyton will use Cane to put the oldies out of business and put herself on the throne of Havenport. That’s bound to put a massive dent in the newfound sense of trust between Harlan and Cane.

Bree Sets Herself Free

Yes, Bree was literally rescued by Harlan, Cane, Shawn, and Diller, but as she was bleeding out, she decided that she didn’t want to be defined by the trauma that had been inflicted upon her when she was just a child. The memory of watching her grandfather, Beau, being killed by the Parkers’ men had scarred her for life. She took drugs. She almost got Diller killed by burning down her house. She harbored an unimaginable amount of rage against Cane for testifying against her, thereby robbing her of the privilege of being around her own son. She colluded with a DEA agent, Sanchez, to put Cane behind bars, and almost ended up putting all the Buckleys in jail. She killed Sanchez. She almost died in the open seas after being Grady’s hostage. And, due to all of this, Diller had seen as much carnage as (or maybe more carnage than) Bree had seen when she was a child. Now, in order to help him heal, Bree needed to reconcile with herself and move past that understandably horrifying moment. Because if she didn’t, she might have to watch Diller go down the same path that ruined her life.

From the looks of it, she successfully managed to bridge the gap that existed between her and Diller because of her actions, as well as the court order that prevented her from being around her son. While that looked sweet and whatnot, as Diller properly embraced Bree for probably the first time in both of their lives, I think that Rodney, Bree’s ex, and Georgina, Rodney’s current wife, will find a way to ruin it. Earlier in the show, Rodney and Georgina revealed that they will be moving away from Havenport. Diller was angry about it, because he wanted to grow up with the Buckleys. I don’t see how the current state of events will dissuade Rodney and Georgina from going ahead with that plan. I’m not sure if Diller needs to be with his mother or if he should stay as far away as possible from her. What I do know is that Rodney and Georgina won’t really care about Diller starting the moment they leave Havenport because they have been putting up this show of “caring” about him since it irks Bree. Once she is out of the picture, they’ll likely drop Diller like a sack of potatoes at a boarding school and chalk up all of his problems to the mother’s side of his genes. Hopefully, Bree will rescue Diller from that fate before it’s too late.

Shawn Is A Buckley

Shawn spent most of the show’s runtime wanting to be a part of the Buckley household. He got some vague hints from Cane about why it wasn’t a good idea to be so emotionally invested in whatever was going on in Havenport. Yet, Shawn decided to stick around because Belle was so nice to him and Harlan treated him with so much respect. When he had to protect Belle from Grady’s men outside the hospital where Diller was admitted, he got his first taste of what the Buckleys were involved in. After he was kidnapped by Grady, and he found himself staring down the barrel of his gun, he was absolutely sure that the Buckleys were up to no good. Still, he chose to stay and stand alongside Cane and Harlan because he felt a sense of belonging with them. He was aware of the issues that the family had. He had a strong moral compass, which was why he knew that smuggling drugs was wrong. However, when Bree was in the clear and Harlan thanked him for playing his part so well, going so far as to refer to him as “son,” I guess he realized that he had a choice.

He could either go back to Texas to finish his bar examination and lose touch with the only family he had, or he could stay and learn the ropes from Harlan and be a part of the empire that he had the right to rule. Yes, it’s true that Shawn didn’t show that kind of ambition. He just behaved like a diligent little soldier who was eager to impress his father and his stepmother. But something inside him switched after the mission to kill Grady. He felt a sense of purpose and responsibility that he couldn’t shake off. And maybe that’ll come in handy for Harlan. I mean, Cane is under Peyton’s thumb. Bree will be busy with Diller. Belle is probably going to betray him by joining hands with the Parkers. So, who else can Harlan rely on but Shawn? Once that happens, those who have been by Harlan’s side will certainly find the father-son bond to be offensive, since Shawn is ultimately Harlan’s illegitimate son, and they’ll try to break them apart by hook or by crook. Will Shawn still continue to see himself as a Buckley, or will he choose to cut and run before he finds himself staring down the barrel of yet another gun? All we can do for now is wait and watch.

Belle Might Betray Harlan

In The Waterfront’s ending, we got a cliffhanger in the form of Belle siding with the Parkers. So, how did that come to be? Well, here’s a brief history lesson: Harlan used to work (read: smuggle drugs) with his dad, Beau, for Jeb and Emmett Parker. Beau allegedly betrayed Jeb. Jeb sent his men to kill Beau, and that was the end of the relationship between the Buckleys and the Parkers. The Parkers went on to become the biggest drug dealers in the southern region of North America, while the Buckleys established their stronghold in Havenport. When Harlan briefly retired and the Buckley empire began to buckle under its own weight, on the one hand, Cane began smuggling drugs, and on the other, Belle decided to sell the beachfront property to deal with the family’s nearly $7 million debt, loan, or whatever you’d like to call it. When things went sideways between the Buckleys and Grady, Cane and Harlan decided to shake hands with Jeb and Emmett in the hopes that they’d help them with their financial issues and also get rid of Grady. The Parkers failed, maybe purposefully, because they weren’t interested in smuggling drugs with the Buckleys; they wanted the keys to their whole empire. You see, even though the Buckleys managed to solve the Grady problem, the debt was still there. I am not a banking expert, but, from what I could gather, Wes Benson had struck some kind of a deal with the Havenport Bank where, once the bank foreclosed on the Buckley beachfront property, he’d pick it up for pennies on the dollar (correct me if I am wrong).

When Emmett learned about this, he realized that that was his way into the Buckley business and into Belle’s pants (Emmett clearly fancied Belle). He kidnapped Wes. He planted the idea in Belle’s head that Harlan was detrimental to the Buckley empire and she should be the new boss. Then he got Wes to bend the knee to Belle, thereby creating this illusion that she had the upper hand in this situation because she was getting to keep the beachfront property and getting rid of the debt that was linked with the land deal. However, if Belle accepted that offer, she’d be enslaving the Buckleys to the Parkers for life. As far as I know, she hasn’t shaken hands with the Parkers yet. She met with Emmett as his men were torturing Wes. That said, she didn’t agree to the Parkers’ terms, on-screen at least. She wants to save her restaurant. She wants to keep the Buckley name alive. She knows how dangerous the Parkers are. She is in a bind and, seemingly, the Parkers are her only way out. But if she goes behind Harlan’s back, yet again, to strike another dangerous deal, it’ll certainly be the end of him. Well, hopefully, Harlan will understand that Belle did what she thought was best for the Buckleys at the moment, and he’ll find a way to burn the bridge between the Buckleys and the Parkers that’s been recently reestablished at the opportune moment. Anyway, those are just my thoughts on the ending of The Waterfront.