What follows breaks down the ending of Cape Fear in full, including the last scene of episode ten. The Cape Fear finale wants to know whether a man can be the victim of a real injustice and a monster at the same time, and whether the two attorneys who arranged that injustice get to walk away feeling clean. That marriage is Antosca’s largest structural departure from John D. MacDonald’s novel and from both film versions, and it is the reason the Cape Fear finale can put an entire family on the stand instead of one guilty father. Bardem has described the uncertainty around Max as deliberate, and the Cape Fear finale honors that by returning a verdict on a single charge and none at all on the man. The Cape Fear finale gives its last close-up to the character who won.