“I’m driving up here, and I see the name Buckley everywhere.” Interspersed with shots of rugged coastline, sprawling beach houses, and a busy fishing dock, the opening lines of the trailer for The Waterfront introduce us to the Buckley family and their hometown of Havenport, North Carolina, where they reign supreme — for now.
From Kevin Williamson, creator of Dawson’s Creek and Scream, the upcoming dramatic series centers on the fictional Buckley family and their crumbling fishing empire. Holt McCallany (The Iron Claw, Mindhunter) stars as Harlan Buckley, the patriarch who’s recovering from two heart attacks; Maria Bello (BEEF, A History of Violence) co-stars as his no-nonsense and impeccably dressed wife Belle; Melissa Benoist (The Girls on the Bus, Supergirl) plays their daughter Bree, an addict in recovery who’s lost custody of her son, Diller (Brady Hepner); and Jake Weary (Animal Kingdom, Trigger Warning) plays Harlan and Belle’s son Cane, who’s eager to prove himself worthy of the Buckley name.
Set against the backdrop of coastal North Carolina, The Waterfront explores family dynamics and the lengths people will go to when their legacy is on the line. “We've never really seen a story about the commercial fisherman told before in any sort of dramatic way in a family drama,” creator Williamson tells Tudum.
From what we can see from the trailer, things are spiraling out of control as the Buckleys take increasingly desperate measures to keep their fishing and restaurant businesses from sinking. “It’s being taken away from them bit by bit,” says Williamson. “They’ll do anything to hold onto it, because it represents their family. They also care about the town, and so many people depend on them. So they turn to some dark means to keep afloat.”
It’s quickly apparent in the clip that the family is strapped for cash — they have to come up with $2 million in less than three months. In an attempt to keep their heads above water, Harlan is prepared to use the family fishing business to smuggle $10 million worth of cocaine and opiates. But with the DEA circling, and a dangerous drug lord (Topher Grace) looking to assert his position, the Buckleys may be treading rough waters.
“It’s about a bunch of people who make mistakes, they do some bad things, and then they get in deeper and deeper and deeper,” says Williamson. But don’t worry, there are moments of levity too. “When you have all these people doing bad things, it’s always nice when they do that one good thing that can bring hope back.”
For Williamson, the story is also personal. The Waterfront is, in part, inspired by true events involving his own fisherman father in North Carolina. “I come from a long line of fishermen,” he says. “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.” According to Williamson, his father became a runner for a time, transporting drugs on his trolley. “My dad — a very, very good man — 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.”
While The Waterfront borrows from that part of Williamson’s life, he actually began telling his story in the1998 teen drama series Dawson’s Creek. “That was one side of my autobiographical story,” he says. “This is another part of me. I always wanted to tell it. 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.’ 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.”
But autobiographical details aren’t all The Waterfront and Dawson’s Creek share. Fans of Williamson’s work will immediately notice that the series is set in the showrunner’s native coastal North Carolina; he now counts five projects he’s made in and around the Southport area. “I love North Carolina; I would shoot everything here if I could,” he says, but shuts down any suggestions he’s responsible for putting Southport on the map. “It’s gorgeous, people come here because it’s just such a coastal destination. I can’t take credit for that. I can take credit for being inspired by it.”
The setting in The Waterfront, is key to the story, and made vivid in the trailer’s establishing shots. “The show’s about this aspirational, gorgeous coastal environment — it’s a postcard picture everywhere you look,” says Williamson. But the underside of that stunning landscape is the darkness that the Buckleys find themselves embedded in, in order to survive, and the creator intentionally leaned into that duality when making the series. “All of our characters are full of light and dark,” Williamson says. “You never know what you're going to get. The worst things can happen during the day, and the best things can happen at night. We can have a beautiful walk along the moonlit ocean, and then, of course, someone can also get their face blown off.”
The Waterfront premieres on Netflix June 19. Watch the trailer above.
Reporting by Ariana Romero.
