The Waterfront, which starts streaming on Netflix on June 19, follows the Buckleys, a family with a long history and an influential fishing empire in their coastal North Carolina town. Things, however, are starting to fall apart. Patriarch Harlan (Holt McCallany) has had two heart attacks, matriarch Belle (Maria Bello) and son Cane (Jake Weary) are failing at keeping their businesses afloat and daughter Bree (Melissa Benoist) has lost custody of her teenage son while in recovery for addiction, which has put her at odds with the rest of her family. And that’s before they become deeply entangled in the local crime scene. Think of the addictive new series as a mix between Ozark and Ransom Canyon, with its own flavour. 

And then there’s Gonzalez’s Jenna, a journalist who has just returned to her hometown to care for her ailing father. She also happens to be Cane’s high school sweetheart, and even though they’re both now married to other people, it’s clear from the second they reconnect that some non-platonic feelings still linger. It’s a plot line that is messy and sweet—two traits Gonzalez balances and embodies with captivating ease—and offers a blissful reprieve from the life-threatening scenarios the Buckleys often find themselves in. It’s also a dynamic Gonzalez and Jenna are very aware is…tricky. “It’s a tender, layered and complex relationship—it’s a blooming relationship or a reconnection. [Viewers will be] constantly finding themselves like, ‘I want them to work out. But, oh my God, they have families and that matters.’ It really tests the audience,” she says. “There’s this, like, recognition, yearning and longing [in Jenna], but she also has to remember where she’s at, that it has been a decade and that she’s a different person and he’s a different person. I was just like, ‘How can I best show all of these feelings that are happening in her head and her body?’ And I think you’ll notice that she’s constantly catching herself, but also forgetting to catch herself—she lets go and then she catches herself again.”