The Waterfront Ending Explained: Are the Buckleys Able to Save Themselves in the End?

The Waterfront Ending Explained: In this Netflix drama series, the Buckleys, running the most well-known fishing empire in North Carolina, come under fire when an illegal deal goes awry. With their legacy crumbling around them, will they be able to get everything back in order before it’s too late?

The series has 8 episodes, each with a runtime of around 50 minutes.

The Waterfront Ending Explained

The series starts with the Buckleys’ boat getting hijacked and the crew killed by masked assailants, leaving Cane Buckley in a big bind. The Buckleys are a fishing empire in North Carolina, but lately have been going through tough times, resulting in the bank threatening to repossess their properties. Desperate to hold on to their legacy, Cane, after taking the reins of the company from his father Harlan, decided to do a few drug runs, which results in the situation suddenly going awry.

Harlan is pretty sure that Hoyt, Cane’s drug-supplying friend, is after this mess and after a little threat, that does turn out to be true. They get the location of the drugs, but before they can do anything, Sheriff Clyde Porter arrives at the scene to kill Hoyt, exposing himself as someone who is also in cahoots with the operation. Clyde asks Harlan and Cane to finish Hoyt’s job and deliver the drugs to the right place while Harlan’s daughter, Bree, in a relationship with DEA agent Marcus Sanchez, spies on her own family.

During the exchange, things go awry once again, but thankfully, Cane’s big mouth helps them get away from sure death, and they learnt that the person in charge is someone named Grady. Now hell-bent on meeting Grady, Harlan refuses to do any more jobs, which results in him clashing with Clyde and the latter getting murdered at his hands.

In the aftermath, Grady meets Harlan to deal the drugs directly, removing all the middlemen, and this results in things getting even more complicated for the Buckleys, who have to tiptoe around Grady’s whims to save themselves from being murdered. Meanwhile, Marcus also narrows down on the Buckleys’ drug dealing business, much to Bree’s annoyance, who realises that her whole family is behind this mess.

What happens with Grady?

As things get messier and messier, and Grady starts to make more and more demands, Harlan is left frustrated with his interference. Grady takes Diller, and eventually Harlan, to shoot birds, and this little activity ends in a bloodbath when Grady shoots Diller. Meanwhile, Wes Larsen, after having his deal fall through, decides to go ahead and buy out the Buckleys’ property after they are unable to pay off their loans.

With the wall closing in on them, the Buckleys have no other option but to come up with a plan as quickly as possible. In a last-ditch effort, they meet up with the Parkers, Harlan’s father’s old business pals, who decide to take care of Grady and make up a deal to save them and start their business.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t go so well as Grady kills Parker’s men and then kidnaps Harlan and Shawn. Cane follows suit, and after a huge shootout, they manage to escape. However, that isn’t the end of their problems, as Grady kidnaps Bree and she finds Dillan in the yacht, having secretly come inside. Grady asks Harlan to come to the boat in exchange for Bree, but eventually they throw her overboard with a bullet through her leg, and Diller is held hostage.

In the end, the three men are able to get Diller to safety, and they shoot Grady dead.

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What happens to Marcus?

As Marcus gets closer to figuring everything out about the Buckleys, Bree decides to take matters into her own hands and pushes Marcus, who is a recovering addict, to start using heroin again. It results in him overdosing.

Are the Buckleys safe in the end?

In the aftermath of Grady’s death, Mae makes a deal with Emmette to see the land deal through, but only if she heads the business instead of Harlan. She kisses her husband goodbye and then goes to the factory to see Emmett’s men beating up Wes. She doesn’t flinch, and it’s pretty clear that she’s probably the perfect person for this job.

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