Netflix’s newest crime drama, The Waterfront, is making waves with critics, who have deemed it a predictable yet highly bingeable family soap.
The eight-episode series, now streaming on Netflix, stars Holt McCallany as the Buckley family patriarch, Harlan; Maria Bello as his onscreen wife, Mae; and Jake Weary and Melissa Benoist as their two children, Cane and Bree.
The Waterfront follows the dramatic downfall of the North Carolina family’s fishing dynasty. As Harlan and Cane become desperate to dig their family out of debt, they resort to colluding in drug smuggling with a vicious cartel, leaving them at the center of a DEA investigation.
Amid the chaos and occasional flashes of grisly violence, it might surprise viewers to learn that the story is loosely based on creator Kevin Williamson’s childhood.
*Warning: potential spoilers to follow*
Are the Buckleys real?
While the Buckleys are a fictional family, their troubles certainly take inspiration from the real-life Williamson family struggles.
“I come from a long line of fishermen,” Williamson told Netflix’s Tudum last month. “The fishing industry sort of upturned in the ’80s — it all started to go away, and my dad couldn’t feed his family. So someone came along and said, ‘Hey, if you do this one thing, you can make all this money.’ And it was hard to say no to.”
In the series, as the Buckleys face financial ruin, they are prepared to resort to increasingly riskier means to keep their fishing and restaurant businesses from going under.
“They’ll do anything to hold onto it, because it represents their family,” Williamson explained to Tudum. “They also care about the town, and so many people depend on them. So they turn to some dark means to keep afloat.”
‘The Waterfront’ creator’s father, Wade Williamson, was imprisoned for drug trafficking
Williamson shared that his father, Wade Williamson, got “tempted to do some things that weren’t so legal and got in some trouble. [But] it put food on the table, helped me go to college.”
Describing the show to TV Insider ahead of its release, Williamson said that to him, it’s about “good people forced to do some bad things.”
Williamson’s fisherman father, Wade, similar to Harlan and Cane, became involved with drug trafficking in an attempt to make ends meet.
However, unlike the Buckley men, who evade legal repercussions, Wade was eventually caught smuggling marijuana and sentenced to time in prison.
In fact, Wade’s imprisonment was first mentioned in Williamson’s earlier project, Dawson’s Creek.
“If anyone’s a fan of Dawson’s Creek, in the very first episode, Joey Potter [Katie Holmes] says, ‘My dad’s in prison for conspiracy to traffic marijuana in excess of 20,000 pounds,’” he said to Tudum. “That was exactly my dad’s charge — that’s why he went to prison. He got caught, he served his time, he got out, and I graduated.”
After his release, Wade went on to live several more decades before his death in October 2020.
Williamson announced his father’s death on Instagram at the time, calling Wade a “beautiful, gentle, wickedly funny, kind, call’s it like he sees it, fisherman.”
“He spent his life making sure I had a better one. A king, a superhero, and my Dad,” he wrote, sharing an old picture of his dad as a young man, as well as a more recent picture of the two of them.
“I had the honor of being by his side when he passed tonight at 8:11 PM,” the screenwriter and director added. “I will miss him with all of my heart. I love you, Dad.”
The Waterfront is out now on Netflix.
Netflix’s The Waterfront is pure American soap with flashes of grisly violence
Holt McCallany: ‘My mother would berate me for trying to split the bill with a lady’
Tina Fey shares Steve Carell’s hilarious response to news of Four Seasons renewal
Charlize Theron says it’s a ‘miracle’ she’s alive after doing stunt work for film
Hulk Hogan representative addresses rumors that wrestling legend is on his death bed
Silent Witness star’s ‘divisive’ true crime documentary now available online
