I Think Cape Fear Forgot To Explain Why the Cape Is Scared

I watched Cape Fear and I got the main thing right away, which is more than the attorneys did because they kept looking at the revenge man instead of the cape.

My notes say this pretty clear, except one corner got butter on it.

The show says a storm is coming for a married pair of lawyers after a killer gets out and wants vengeance. Fine. That is the loud part. But the title is Cape Fear, so you have to ask why the cape is scared and who let it get like that.

Nobody asks. They are too busy being in houses with lighting problems.

This is where television loses me sometimes. If you put fear right on the cape, then the cape is the client. Not the lawyers. Not the revenge man. The cape. It has no mouth so it can't testify, but you can tell by the way everybody walks near water that the cape is under pressure.

Max Cady is supposed to be the bad guy, I think. He makes faces like he is chewing a grudge. But a man doing revenge is old business. A scared cape is new business. Chud respects new business. A smarter critic may disagree, but they probably watched the main thing too much.

The Bowdens should of hired a clothing lawyer early. Put the cape on a chair. Ask it where it was when the fear started. Did somebody fold it wrong. Did the prison guy say something mean to it. Was it left in a boat. I might've missed a scene, but this still feels legally true.

Instead everybody keeps acting like this is about consequences. Wrong. Consequences are just plot furniture with opinions.

The show has good menace, except menace is easy when nobody is calming down the outerwear. Every scene would improve if one person said, hey cape, you are doing a brave job even if your name is legally fear now.

By the end I learned the lesson. Do not call something Cape Fear unless you are prepared to apologize to the cape in episode one. Otherwise it will soak up the whole show and drip anxiety on the attorneys.

Anyway that is the review, unless the theater calls me back.