Cape Fear episode 7 review: the show finally finds its identity

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Spoilers below for Episode 7 of Cape Fear . New episodes stream every Friday on Apple TV.

After seven episodes, Cape Fear has finally decided what type of show it wants to be and I’m 100% on board. After weeks of mystery, suspense, and (at times) agonizingly plodding plot developments, the Apple TV series has fully embraced its identity as a bonkers, operatic, and often madcap melodrama.

Midseason, I was afraid that the show was going to become perpetually stuck in neutral while it tried to slowly untangle countless story and relationship threads. But as the series barrels toward its conclusion, the writers, showrunners, actors, and production team behind Cape Fear seem to have collectively said “screw it. We’re going to entertain the hell out of you, realism-be-damned.”

This week’s episode, titled “Mongrel” in an overt ode to Max’s childhood struggles (more on that later), picks up immediately where Episode 6 left off. After Neveah is discovered to be (yes) living in the Bowden family’s walls, Anna grabs a gun from the family safe and holds her at gunpoint while Tom runs across the street to find Zack. Once there, Zack acts strangely affectionate towards Max, with Max reciprocating and telling Tom that Zack is no longer Tom’s son but is “my son now.” As you can imagine, Tom does not take the situation well and proceeds to beat the ever-loving crap out of Max in the middle of the street before Zack stabs his real father in the shoulder as the police arrive.

The next morning, Neveah is taken into custody and Zack is conveniently placed in a psychiatric facility. Although Max declines to press charges against Tom (insert the “Sure Jan” meme from The Brady Bunch Movie here), Anna’s boss Noa finally (FINALLY) admits that Max is bad news and must be stopped. She agrees to help the Bowdens while Anna’s coworker Ray is traces the plates on Max’s stalker’s car to a woman in North Carolina named Val. Ray, who I must mention here is not a private investigator, a police detective, or law enforcement officer of any sort, volunteers to drive all the way to North Carolina to follow up on the lead.

Meanwhile, Tom and Anna visit Zack’s psychiatric facility where they’re informed by a doctor that Zack has been drugged with a megadose of a motion sickness medicine (conveniently found in Neveah’s secret lair a the Bowdens’ house) that can have a brainwashing effect and lead to “permanent psychosis.” Well, at least now we (theoretically) know why Zack thinks Max is his dad.

Meanwhile, Natalie goes to stay with her biological dad to get away from the danger, but immediately returns home when her father reveals that he’s not sure whether or not Natalie is actually his daughter. Natalie confronts Anna with the revelation, who gives a less-than-convincing denial.

Later, Max shows up at the Bowden house to return Peanut Butter, the cat that he claimed in the previous episode wanted to live with him. He tells Natalie that he has no relationship with Neveah and has had nothing to do with her psychotic actions (Sure, Max). After he walks away, Natalie runs upstairs and grabs a gun out of what now we must refer to as Chekov’s safe. As she exits the house we see Max inject a peach with a mysterious liquid that might be (definitely is) the same medicine Zack was drugged with. Natalie then walks across the street to Max’s house and insists on going with him to wherever he’s driving just for the hell of it.

As they embark on a seemingly random road trip, Max tells Natalie that Paul, her biological father, was unfaithful to her mother around the time of Max’s trial and that Max and Anna became “quite close.” We’ll leave that hanging for now, because you know that juicy bit of exposition isn’t going away. Later, Max reveals that they are going to visit his childhood home in North Carolina where his father used to put him in a cage for not speaking English. After Max has a seizure while driving, Natalie drives the rest of the way.

Meanwhile Ray, on his own road trip to the backwoods of North Carolina, finds Val, who reveals that she sold her car to a woman named - wait for it! - Crystal Cady. Val says that Crystal is Max’s sister and that she lives nearby. And thus, a huge piece of the Max Cady mystery falls into place. Max’s stalker is in fact his sister, and it seems they have some unfinished business. Given the revelation that his father used to put him in a cage, the dog collar Crystal gave Max in Episode 3 makes a lot more sense. It sure looks like most, if not all, of Max’s many, many issues are familial.

Back in Savannah, Tom and Anna plot to frame Neveah (and prove a conspiracy between her and Max) by planting bottles of the motion sickness drug with her fingerprints in Max’s house. They just need a willing patsy. Enter: Anna’s estranged father Brandon. Brandon reluctantly agrees to help with the caveat that they let him see his grandchildren.

In North Carolina, Natalie and Max arrive at Max’s childhood home. Natalie stumbles across a bunch of caged dogs and a creepy boy straight out of Deliverance who wants to kiss her. Meanwhile Max finds his father and demands to know where Crystal is. His father, played by Ron Pearlman in a turn that is perhaps even more menacing than Javier Bardem’s Max Cady, proceeds to belittle Max and threateningly treat him like a dog.

Next we catch up with Ray, who’s located Crystal’s residence. In a revelation that ties the series back to its literary and cinematic roots, Crystal is shown to live in a houseboat on the Cape Fear River. Given that Robert De Niro’s Max Cady drowned while shackled to a sinking houseboat in the climax of Martin Scorsese’s 1991 film adaptation, something tells me we’ll eventually find ourselves back here before the series ends.

After Ray searches the boat and finds no sign of Crystal, Max shows up with a drugged Natalie - to whom he fed the aforementioned poisoned peach - in the passenger seat. As soon as Max sees Ray he pulls him close and pumps three bullets directly into Ray’s stomach before dumping his body in the trunk. After Natalie comes to, she and Max have a serious heart-to-heart before Natalie deduces that Max is maybe (probably) her real father.

Afterward, Natalie submerges herself in the river before Max lifts her out, basically baptizing her into a new life. Later, Max drives Natalie - who’s completely oblivious to the fact that he just committed a murder with the gun she stole from her parents - back to Savannah. He gives her a hair from his beard so she can prove her paternity theory and ensures that the literal smoking gun returns to her possession. As the episode ends, Tom and Anna carry out their plan to frame Max by calling an anonymous tipline in the hopes that authorities will find the planted drugs in his house.

“Mongrel” is a taught, brooding, hour of television where many burning questions are answered, plenty more are raised, and Cape Fear continues to shift into high gear. Although it’s still filled with plenty of head-scratching, off-the-wall moments (sure Natalie, let’s take a road trip to God-knows-where with the man who’s been terrorizing your family), the series seems to have settled into its identity as a campy, over-the-top thriller and sinks its teeth into high drama in scene after scene.

As the series races toward its conclusion, Javier Bardem’s Max Cady begins shedding layer after layer of carefully constructed pretense and seems determined to take everything the Bowdens hold dear, their children included.

Episode 7 proves that Cape Fear is at its best when it’s not trying to be overly intricate or highbrow but rather unnerving, melodramatic, and a bit deranged. The show has firmly carved out space in a streaming landscape filled with densely plotted, airtight mysteries that verge on maudlin and dull. Instead, Cape Fear is proving to be something else entirely: a rip-roaring and vivid soap opera that I hope doesn’t let up until the credits roll on the final episode.

BODY COUNT

I’ll be back to review Cape Fear each week, keeping tabs on the show’s escalating body count. This week, one character who’s been with us since the beginning met their demise at the hands of Max Cady.

Ray, Anna’s colleague. As soon as he volunteered to take that road trip, you knew he didn’t stand a chance.